Strong as the death it masters, is the hope That onward looks to _immortality_: Let the frame perish, so the soul survive, Pure, spiritual, and loving. I believe The grave exalts, not separates, the ties That hold us in affection to our kind. I will look down from yonder pitying sky, Watching and waiting those I loved on earth; Anxious in heaven, until they, too, are there. I will attend your guardian angel’s side And weep away your faults with holy tears: Your midnight shall be filled with solemn thought; And when, at length, death brings you to my love, Mine the first welcome heard in Paradise. _Anon._ The sun is but a spark of fire,-- A transient meteor in the sky: The soul, _immortal_ as its Sire, Shall never die! _J. Montgomery._ Prisoners of hope! heirs of eternity! Waiting for the consummate day, when time Shall be no more--Why on the past dwell ye? Prisoners of hope! look to the goal sublime Of the expanded future, and behold The flesh redeemed to its _immortal_ prime. _J. A. Heraud._ Yet know, vain sceptics, know the Almighty mind, Who breathed on man a portion of His fire, Bade his free soul, by earth nor time confined, To Heaven, to _immortality_ aspire. Nor shall the pile of hope His mercy reared, By vain philosophy be e’er destroyed: Eternity, by all or wished or feared, Shall be, by all, or suffered, or enjoyed. _William Mason._ Whoe’er thou art, this truth take home,--and think Two spirits only for thy soul contend,-- The good and bad; but now alone is grace Imparted; soon thy final sands will fall, And thou in moral nakedness shalt be To Devil or to Deity assign’d Through endless ages!--Oh, that truth immense, This mortal, _immortality_ shall wear! The pulse of mind can never cease to play; By God awaken’d, it for ever throbs, Eternal as His own eternity! Above the angels, or below the fiends: To mount in glory, or in shame descend-- Mankind are destined by resistless doom. _R. Montgomery._ Beyond the purple verge of infinite space, The _immortal_ soul of man shall live again; Live where its glories never more may wane, And where its nobler memories will efface All thoughts which rend the solemn’ pall away That shrouds the meanness of its primal clay. _H. B. Hirst._ INSPIRATION. There is a spirit in man: and the _inspiration_ of the Almighty giveth them understanding.--Job, xxxii. 8. All scripture is given by _inspiration_ of God.--II. Timothy, iii. 16.