There is one great hope that is shared by all mankind, more than a hope indeed,—a belief, a faith. The savage in his rude island home, amidst his barbarous companions and barbarous customs, the refined European amidst his pursuits of science and of art, the gray-haired sire about to close his long days, and the young child who has just begun to tread life's difficult path, all aspire to the same hope—the blessed hope of immortality.

Whatever may be our creed or country, our position and circumstance, we all feel that there is another world beyond the present one, invisible to human eyes, but one to which we are all bound. We all feel that death, mysterious death, that comes with cold hand to seal the lip, close the eye, and still the heart, has no power over the mind or spirit, but that it lives on eternally even whilst all things else die around us.

This faith being universal it would seem to be a natural instinct, and as such we might give it credence, for surely only a solemn truth, an inner and divine revelation, would have been implanted by the Creator in every human breast.

We have, however, an additional security for trusting to this hope, which man imbibes with his earliest breath, and which exhales from out the last faint breath he draws on earth.