The saintly Monica, after many years of weeping at the nail-pierced feet, has at length received the answer to her prayers in the conversion of one dearer to her than life; and is now ready, with good old Simeon, to depart in peace, having seen the salvation of the Lord: "As for me, my son, nothing in this world hath longer any charm for me. What I do here, or why I should remain, I know not. But one wish I had, and that God has abundantly granted me. Bury me where thou wilt, for nowhere am I far from God!" Dark to some of you, O ye strangers and sojourners with God! may be the valley of the shadow of death; but ye cannot perish there, for He whose fellowship is immortality is still with you, and you shall soon be with him as never before! Black and cold at your feet rolls the river of terrors; but lift your eyes a little, and you see gleaming through the mist the pearl-gates beyond! There "the Captain of the Lord's host" is already preparing your escort! "Even now is at hand The angelical band-- The convoy attends-- An invincible troop of invisible friends! Ready winged for their flight To the regions of light, The horses are come-- The chariots of Israel to carry us home!" [1] Preached in Charleston, S.C., soon after a year's sojourn beyond the sea, 1858. VIII. BUILDING FOR IMMORTALITY.[1] So they built and prospered.--2 Chron. xiv. 7. In the fairest of Italian cities stands the finest of terrestrial structures--a campanile or bell-tower, twenty-five feet square, two hundred and seventy-three feet high, built of white and colored marble in alternate blocks, covered with a royal luxuriance of sculpture framed in medallions, studded everywhere with the most beautiful statuary disposed in Gothic niches, and finished from base to battlement like a lady's cabinet inlaid with pearl and gold. It would seem as if nothing more perfect in symmetry, more exquisite in workmanship, or more magnificent in ornamentation, could possibly be achieved by human genius. Pure as a lily born of dew and sunshine, the approaching tourist sees it rising over the lofty roof of the Duomo, like the pillar of cloud upon the tabernacle; and when he enters the Piazza, and finds it standing apart in its majestic altitude, and looking down upon the vestal loveliness of the Tuscan Santa Maria, he can think only of the Angel of the Annunciation in the presence of the Blessed Virgin. Whoever has gazed upon its grand proportions, and studied the details of its exquisite execution, will feel no astonishment at being told that such a structure could not now be built in this country for less than fifty millions of our money; nor will he wonder that Jarvis, in his "Art Hints," has pronounced it "the noblest specimen of tower-architecture the world has to show;" that Charles the Fifth declared it was "fit to be inclosed with crystal, and exhibited