Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 1.pdf/202

 is the foundation or first leading truth of Christianity— the rock of ages. To this faith the Lord gives a power to open heaven to the soul to receive celestial blessings: while the same power that opens the heaven within, shuts at the same time the heaven of the soul against all that is infernal and false. This power of opening and shutting is signified by the keys given to Peter. Whatever evil this Faith, or Peter, binds on earth, is bound in heaven, and cannot come forth to annoy or disturb the peace of him who possesses it; and whatever affection it looses on earth, the same comes forth at large in heaven to increase and multiply its joys.

O reader! fix thy hopes upon this faith; for it is not revealed by flesh and blood, but by God himself. This faith will bless thee in all thy journey of life; and while this sacred key of knowledge shall open heaven to thy soul, it will effectually shut the mind against all that is vile, profane, and false.

HAT is death? How solemn is the question! how many view it as a sad calamity; refuse to think of it, and dread its certain approach! Yet why these fears? Death is much misunderstood. Has not the Creator, in his mercy, interwoven with our very being the thought of immortality? and does not immortality, which means ever-living, banish the idea of death as an extinction of being? and can we imagine that the