Among the means of consolation commonly recommended the doctrine of Immortality seems to be regarded as the most appropriate and effective. It is needless to lament; the deceased has entered a better life. Yet a little and you will join him to be no more parted. Nor can we deny that to those who cordially entertain it, the belief in the soul's immortal continuance becomes a source of pure and inexpressibly tender satisfaction. But with a certain class of minds--and their number, I believe, is on the increase--the consoling influence of this doctrine is marred by the fatal uncertainty in which the whole question is involved, and which no efforts of man have ever yet, nor ever will, avail to remove. Christianity indeed claims to have settled the point. The Deity himself, it avers, intervened by direct revelation from on high, to set our doubts at rest, and Jesus when he arose on the third day forever deprived the grave of its sting and took away our fears of the tomb. But to those who read the books of revelations with unbiased mind, the fact of their human authorship becomes sadly apparent, and the resurrection itself is as difficult to prove as the doctrine which it is designed to substantiate. In modern times spiritualism has likewise endeavored to demonstrate to the senses the existence of a world of souls beyond our own. But the phenomena on which it lies are in part disputed, in part the interpretation put upon them, must, to say the least, be regarded as premature. Moreover we should remember that even if by some unknown means the fact of immortality could be established, the question of our re-union with friends in the hereafter, in which alone the heart of the mourner is interested, would still remain an open one and might be answered in the negative. The belief in immortality has been held in this way by some of the greatest intellects of the human race, Spinoza among the rest. If we knew that we shall continue to live, we should not therefore know how we shall continue to live. Perhaps it might prove that all our previous connections would be severed; and who can tell what new phases of existence, what endless metamorphoses might await us among the infinite possibilities of Eternity.