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86 hope in Eden? Dante tells us, that over one of the infernal doors were written the words "Ye that enter here, leave hope behind;" the same words might, perhaps, with propriety have been written over the gate of Paradise, also,—for when we enter into fruition, do we not leave hope behind us? If the lost are below hope, so the saved are above it; they have found something still better; they have reached that, to which Hope, as a cheering guide, but pointed the way. Thus hope, we perceive, belongs properly to a middle and unsettled state, such as our life in this world is, in relation to the whole of our existence, and such as the period of youth is, in relation to the whole of our present life.

Youth, then, is the season when hope and expectation have their full sway over the mind, buoying it up on the wings of gay fancies, firing it with burning aspirations, charming it with romantic pictures of beauty and grandeur, and leading it on with promises of future greatness, happiness, and glory. Life is as yet a terra incognita; and in the mistiness and dimness that overhang that shadowy region, imagination has power to conjure up grand forms and splendid scenes, to present prospects of unbounded beauty and sublimity, and to paint the great future in colours bright as the sunshine of heaven. And, indeed, is it not in a manner from heaven that such high thoughts are sent down, and such bright and charming pictures presented to the youthful mind? Is it not because there really do exist charms and delights "such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive," that those bright visions are permitted to be presented to the thought of youth,—in order to excite, if possible, expectations and