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THE JOYS AND GLORIES

away, heaven's own lamps are hung out, innumerable, in the sky, and the sight, drawn away from earth, is fixed in calm contemplation on the bright and peaceful worlds above. Old age is the sunset and the evening of life, when soon, the night of death being past, a new morn is about to arise on the spirit, the commencement of an eternal day.




SECTION IV.

GOD'S GOODNESS, WISDOM, AND POWER, MANIFEST, ABOVE ALL, IN THE JOYS AND GLORIES OF THE LIFE ETERNAL.

Thus far, we have been occupied with the contemplation of that part of the spiritual universe, which is within man, while he lives in this world,— namely, his mind, with its various powers and affections, and their delights. This is truly a part of the spiritual universe, for it is spirit, though at present enwrapped in a garment of clay. But, in the providence of the good Creator, the time at length comes, when the spirit is divested of its material covering, and then ascends into its own proper sphere of pure spiritual existence, where, with capacities and joys indefinitely enlarged, elevated, and perfected, it continues to live on through eternity.

This separation of the spirit from the material body, we call death. But it is not, in fact, death; it is only separation. The part which remains behind, and which alone is visible to the material eye, namely, the body, is dead, because that which gave it life has departed from it, namely, the spirit. But the material body is not the man, and therefore it cannot with propriety be said that