Show LIFE the following beautiful illustration of life is by the celebrated bishop bichop heber life bears on like the stream of a mighty river our boat a first glides gently down dowa the narrow chinnel channel through th the playful of th the litt little le brook and the windi windings n 0 of f t the he g rassy grassy i border the trees sh shed e ds i then hei r blossoms over our head headtke the flowers on the brink seeri seem to offer themselves to bur fiur young hands we are happy in hope and we ve grasp eagerly at the beauties around u us s but the stream hurries us on and still our hands are empty 0 our ur course in in youth and manhood i is s along a wider and deeper flood a and td amid objects more striking and magnificent we are animated sy by the moving moving picture of enjoyment and industry which passes before us we are excited at some short lived success or depressed at some short lived disappointment but our energy and dependence are inva in iii the stream aini bears us on and our joys and are alike left behind us we may be shipwrecked but we cannot anchor our voyage may be hastened but it cannot cannot be delayed whether rough or smooth the river hastens to its home the roaring of the th ocein ocean is is in in our ears and the tossing of its waves waves i is beneath our heels the lands lessen from our gut eyes and the floods are lifted up around us ur and the earth loses sight eight of us and 1 we take our last leave of its inhabitants and of our further voyage there is ia no witness but the eternal eterna 1 arld and dowe do we still take so anai anxious lous thought for for our future days when the days that have gone ay b have ab so strangely and uniformly deceived can we we so kill set ret our hearts n the creatures af pf god when we find b by sad experience ahat the creator on only ta y is is permanent and shall we not r rather ther lay aside every i weight and every sin which does not easily beset us and think of ourselves henceforth as wayfaring persons only who have no abiding inheritance but in the hope of a better world and to whom that would be worse than hopeless ib it were not for the lord jesus christ and the interest we have obtained in his mercy |