The Trav'ler dreamt of Heaven!
The sun one morn with trebled splendor rose,
And showed his wearied eyes a place at last,
Where all was taintless joy, and calm repose,
And quiet thinking of the dangerous past.
They said its name was Heaven.

The Mourner dreamt of Heaven!

Before his eyes, so long with sorrow dim,

A glorious sheen, like lengthened lightning

blazed;

And from the clouds one face looked down on him, Whose beauty thrilled his veins. And as he gazed,

He knew he gazed on Heaven!

And let them all dream on!

Heaven's for the pure, the just, the undefiled:
And so our lives, by holy faith, are such.
Our dreams may be erroneous, varying, wild;
But oh! we cannot think and hope too much:
So let them all dream on!

Jude.

Chrysoprasus.

Prosperity.

"Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life."

HE CHRYSOPRASUS is the precious stone of the tenth foundation of the City of the Great King, where it is sealed with the name of Jude. The agate is formed of an aggregate of crystals and other precious minerals, and is, consequently, a picturesque and fancifully marked gem of endless variety of colors and devices. One kind is of a cloudy green, striped and spotted with gold, and this is, saith my authority, the chrysoprasus of the Revelation. Many agates have been quite famous for their beauty. King Pyrrhus had a ring made of this stone (says Kelly), in which sat the nine muses, with their distinct symbols or devices, and Apollo holding a harp. Tradition speaks of others that displayed perfect images of men, single and in groups, horses, trees, landscapes, flowers,

clouds and cities. Some specimens are found semipellucid, but more generally the agate is opaque. The chief excellency of this gem was esteemed to be that it was an unfailing antidote against the wounds of vipers and scorpions. One celebrated commentator, Dr. Prideaux, considers the chrysoprasus to typify Patience; but, being the symbol of Asher, whose very appellation signifies happyfor whom Moses, in his swan-like song, predicted every imaginable good, and whose life was signally fortunate and felicitous, he being blessed with all the varieties that sea and land could supplyPROSPERITY appears the more appropriate interpre

tation.

Saint Jude, elsewhere called Lebbeus and Thaddeus for the sacred writers shun, apparently, the name of the perfidious Iscariot-although the brother of Christ, does not figure as a prominent character among the disciples, for there is scarcely any note of him. Ecclesiastical writers, however, affirm him to have been an apostle of superior powers and achievements. The specimen of his writings here quoted is from his sole Epistle. As an exhortation it is not surpassed for earnestness and fervor by any of the inspired penmen. "Keep

yourselves in the love of God, looking for the

mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." How masterly is the transition from the solemn denunciations which he thunders on the wicked, admonishing them of the impending vengeance of God, which are so closely interwoven throughout the whole previous part of the chapter, to this tender, soul-felt valedictory to his beloved disciples! In this passage there is a dual lesson inculcated a twofold duty enjoined. The first division, 66 Keep yourselves," implies personal effort; that a certain amount, at least, of power is vested in ourselves;-and in the next place, that having exerted ourselves to the utmost, we are to be always, for further strength, "looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life."

Herein is the genuine prosperity; to bask in the smile of God's favor here, and to have a title to eternal life hereafter. To a soul who is possessed of this, death will come, not as a grim, frightful monster, but in the guise of a loving angel-messenger to tranquillize him to peaceful slumber. Said Rollin, when dying, "I wish to see no tears, and no marks of affliction; this day with us is a festival." He who cultivates such a frame of mind as Jude exhorts, will feast daintily on a crust of bread, and enjoy honeyed slumber mid the straw

of a hovel. Adversity, and the ills of this life, fall but lightly on him who knows that "a glorious kingdom and a beautiful crown from the Lord's hand" await him after that he has endured a few more conflicts in the service of his Great Captain. "This is the prosperity of them that love Thee," a soul unscathed by the turmoils and trials of the chequered mazes of the world, and an unalienable title to one of the many mansions on high.

""Tis but a night, a long and moonless night,
We make the grave our bed, and then are gone.
Thus at the shut of even the weary bird
Leaves the wide air, and in some lonely brake
Cowers down, and dozes till the dawn of day;
Then claps its well-fledged wings and bears away."

A. B. G.