Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 3.pdf/92

 can never be fresh again; and hopes once put out which are extinguished for ever. These are the things that speak to us of the death of the body! these are the things that would darken our hopes of immortality, were we not to draw from them inferences of a higher state of being, where love, and truth, and happiness, are not delusions; where the plant of enjoyment has not its root in the earth, and the flowers of life are ever fresh and fair. There are certainly changes in our very nature which would fill our bosoms with many dark and awful doubts, did we not find that, in the mind regulated by divine truth, the bright and intoxicating dreams of early youth—the love that has been crushed or thwarted, the confidence that has been a thousand times betrayed—may give place to firmer and more solid things—feelings more deep and powerful; thoughts, not so naturally brilliant, perhaps, but more just and spiritually true. Did we not find that, with proper cultivation, the flowers made way for the fruit? Did we not find that every stage of existence would have, but for our own faults, its proper class of enjoyments; and that every stage but leads us on towards an appreciation of that last, noblest state of being for which all the rest are but a state of preparation? As we feel that we are immortal, we should not regret to find that earth's flowers fade. As we are immortal, is it not well that we should find earth's hopes deceive us? As we are immortal, is it not well that we should learn not to regret the passing away of bright capabilities in our own nature, which are sure to be renewed, extended, and multiplied in heaven? But as the day and the hour of our removal is uncertain, it surely behoves us to profit by the changing