The old man has finished his course with honor and with joy. Reverenced and loved, he has gone down to the grave—no, I must not say that, he has gone upward _to rest on the bosom of his Father_! In boyhood he was wild, and fearless, and reckless—his manhood, generous and upright, nobly redeemed his early days—and happy, and peaceful, and honorable, was his “green old age.” And now he has “gone to his reward”—his race well run, his labor all fulfilled, it seems strange that any should weep. They have laid back the coffin-lid that the assembled people may once more look on their venerated friend. Oh, how peacefully he sleeps, and lovingly, as on the unconscious infant, the Sunlight, that messenger of consolation, looks upon the calm, cold face, and the mourner’s grief is stayed as they behold the brightness which once more illuminates those lifeless features. Upon the infant, dedicated to God in the days when he lies helplessly at the portal of life, on the maiden and the youth, entering on a state of existence, either supremely blessed or supremely cursed in its _eventuation_, and on the dead old man, whose race so long, and of mingled pleasure and hardship, is over at last; on these the faithful Sunlight has pronounced her blessing within the walls of the old church. But now all the human beings have gone away, the minister with the funeral train to the burial, and the sexton has fastened the church-doors and gone too; but still the Sunlight remains, and it seems as though she were kneeling before the altar now, craving God’s blessing on all those who have this day stood within His courts, and before His altar, brought there by joy or sorrow to rejoice or to weep. Not, however, within the sanctity of walls alone does the Sunlight make herself visible. Through byways, and in the open street, where the stream of life goes rushing on violently, does she tread, brightening up by her presence dark and dismal corners, and enlivening the gloomiest and dreariest places.