We are saved by faith, and not by feeling; yet there is a relation between holy faith and hallowed feeling like that between the root and the flower. Faith is permanent as the root which is ever embedded in the soil; feeling is casual, and has its seasons--the bulb does not always shoot up the green stem, far less is it always crowned with its many flowers. Faith is the tree, the essential tree: our feelings are like the appearance of that tree during the different seasons of the year. Sometimes our soul is full of bloom and blossom, and the bees hum pleasantly, and gather honey within our hearts. It is then that our feelings bear witness to the life of our faith, just as the buds of spring bear witness to the life of the tree. Anon, our feelings gather still greater vigor, and after we come to the summer of our delights, again perhaps, we begin to wither into the sear and yellow leaf of autumn; nay, sometimes the winter of our despondency and despair will strip away every leaf from the tree, and our poor faith stands like a blasted stem without a sign of verdure. And yet, so long as the tree of faith is there, we are saved. Whether faith blossom or not, whether it bring forth joyous fruit in our experience or not, so long as it be there in all its permanence, we are saved. Yet should we have the gravest reason to distrust the life of our faith, if it did not sometimes blossom with joy, and often bring forth fruit unto holiness. _Near Home._ The best moment of a Christian's life is his last one, because it is the one which is nearest heaven; and then it is that he begins to strike the key-note of the song which he shall sing to all eternity. O! what a song will that be! _Beauty in Christ._ There is a thing called _beauty_, which wins upon the hearts of men. Mighty men, not a few, have bowed before it, and paid it homage; but if you want true beauty, look into the face of Jesus, for there you have the concentration of all loveliness. There is no beauty anywhere but in Christ. O sun, thou art not fair, when once compared with Him. O, fair world, and grand creation of a glorious God, thou art but a dim and dusky blot compared with the splendors of His face. When we shall see Christ, we shall be compelled to say that we never knew what loveliness was before. When the clouds are swept away, when the curtains which hide Him from our view are drawn aside, we shall find that not anything we have seen or heard of, grand or graceful, in the wide universe, will bear a moment's comparison with Him, who was once seen as a root out of a dry ground, but shall presently fill heaven and earth with lustre, and gladden all hearts with His glory. _The Savior's Legacy._