"O my Father, thou that dwellest In the high and glorious place! When shall I regain thy presence, And again behold thy face? In thy holy habitation, Did my spirit once reside? In my first, primeval childhood, Was I nurtured near thy side? "For a wise and glorious purpose Thou hast placed me here on earth, And withheld the recollection Of my former friends and birth; Yet oft-times a secret something Whispered, You're a stranger here; And I felt that I had wandered From a more exalted sphere. "I had learned to call thee Father, Through thy Spirit from on high; But, until the Key of Knowledge Was restored, I knew not why. In the heavens are parents single? No; the thought makes reason stare! Truth is reason; truth eternal Tells me, I've a mother there. "When I leave this frail existence, When I lay this mortal by, Father, mother, may I meet you In your royal court on high? Then, at length, when I've completed All you sent me forth to do, With your mutual approbation Let me come and dwell with you." "That is one of the most beautiful compositions I have ever listened to, Mr. Durant. The words appear to carry a strange conviction with them. Can it be true? and if so, are we here as school children, sent by exalted parents, to become acquainted with sorrow in order to understand happiness?" "Either this is the case, or else our faith in a hereafter is a myth. You prove to me that our birth is the commencement of the intelligence of man, and you also convince me that death is its end. But we have enough given in the scriptures to convince us that birth is not the beginning, and likewise that death is not the end. Christ said He came forth from the Father (John xvi: 28), and it was His prayer that the glory which He had before coming would be His when He returned. (John xvii: 5.) In His teachings to His Apostles He must have familiarized them with this exalted principle of pre-existence, for upon one occasion they came to Him with a question, concerning a blind man: 'Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' (John ix: 2.) Surely had this been a foolish question, Christ would have corrected them, but He answered them in a manner leading us to understand that it was a principle firmly believed in by them all; and comprehending this, as certainly they did, they, more than our generation, could intelligently lisp the prayer taught them by the Master: 'Our Father who art in heaven.' Our Divine Record says that God is the Father of the spirits of all flesh (Num. xvi: 22), in whose hand is the soul of every living thing (Job xii: 10); and we find in it that when death comes, the spirit of man will return to God who gave it. (Eccl. xii: 7.) Job was asked by the Lord where he was when the foundation of the earth was laid (Job. xxxviii: 3-7), and the Almighty declared He not only knew but ordained Jeremiah to be a prophet