The condition of admission into heaven is the possession of a soul whose existence is a continual fulfillment of those two commandments on which the Lord says, “hang all the law and the prophets”—love to God, and love to man. To enter heaven, we must habitually place self last, and our neighbor first; and unless we can do this, we can never know eternal bliss. Now we are born into this world selfish; and hence it is truly said we are hereditarily depraved. It is the Divine will to take all to heaven. To do this, it is necessary that we should be divested of our corrupt hereditary nature; as the Lord said to Nicodemus: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” This regeneration of mind, this change from a supreme love of self, to a supreme love of God and our neighbor, is, of necessity, a gradual work. It is not accomplished in a day, nor in a month, nor in a year. Like all Divine works, it proceeds gradually, step by step; “first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.” The regeneration of man is a Divine work, and as the Divine end in the creation of man was the formation of heaven out of the human race, the Lord’s providence is unceasingly exerted to draw man out of evil, by all means consonant with the maintenance of the inalienable freedom of his will. It thus follows that the Lord, in all his dealings with man, has respect solely to his eternal state, and amid all the apparent accidents and vicissitudes of life, he is present, bending them and making them all conduce to man’s everlasting peace. Life in this world, its cares, trials, pleasures, comforts, friendships, sympathies, and affections, form the divinely-appointed regenerative process; and those who will only believe this great truth, and submit to the Divine leading, will encounter nothing in life but what is good for them; and existence here, however bitter and painful at times, will resolve itself into a series of lessons devised by infinite wisdom to uproot all latent and known evils, transforming the patient sufferer into a true child of God. The Lord permits one man to be rich, powerful, and famous, and another to be afflicted with disease and perplexed with poverty; one to have a settled and calm peace of mind, while another is tried and tormented with doubts and anxieties; nor for any ultimate purpose on earth, but solely as a means of spiritual regeneration,—as a means of making man happy in the eternal life to come. All man’s states are under the minute guardianship of the Lord; and each day comes round with its circle of pleasant and unpleasant occurrences, often, apparently, the result of accident and chance, but in truth all provided of the Divine Providence for the eradication of evil, and the growth and nurture of goodness. There is no trial encountered, no circumstance met, or cross endured, but has its eternal issue; and man’s conduct in relation to it is looked upon