[Footnote O: Let us remember that immortality signifies a negative, or not having of mortality, and that a positive term is required by which to express a change, since nature teaches that whatever is, will abide with the being it is, unless forced out of it by something positive. And as it appears that man's soul has these grounds in her which make all visible things to be perishable, it is obvious that his soul is immortal and the cause of mortality itself.--SIR KENELM DIGBY.] Moreover, the insatiableness of our desires asserts our personal imperishableness. Yearning for full satisfactions while balked of these perpetually, we still prosecute our search for them, our faith in their attainment remaining unshaken under every disappointment. Our hope is eternal as ourselves--a never ending, still beginning quest of our divinity. Infinite in essence, we crave it in potence. The boundlessness and elasticity of the mind, its power of self-recovery, uprise from temporary obstructions self-imposed, or from temperament, are assurances made doubly sure of our soul's infinitude and longevity. So the lives of empires, of men of genius and sanctity, are grand illustrations of its heroic strife for the largest freedom, the widest sway,--of instincts striving within, which these pent confines of time and space can neither subjugate nor appease. "Take this, my child," the father said, "This globe I give thy mind for bread;" Eager we seize the proffered store, The bait devour--then ask for more. "Everything aspires to its own perfection and is restless till it attain it, as the trembling needle till it find its beloved north. And the knowledge of this is innate as is the desire, else the last had been a torment and needless importunity. Nature shoots not at rovers. Even inanimate things, while ignorant of their perfection, are carried towards it by a blind impulse. But that which conducts them knows. The next order of beings have some sight of it, and man most perfectly till he touch the apple." Our delights suckle us life long, our desires being memories of past satisfactions, and we here but sip pleasures once tasted to satiety. The more exquisite our enjoyments, the more transient; the more eagerly sought, the more elusive. We cannot come out of our paradise, nor stay in it contentedly, the gates of bliss closing on opening. "E'en as the amorous needle joys to bend To her magnetic friend, Or as the greedy lover's eyeballs fly At his fair mistress' eye, Eager we kindle life's illumined stuff, Can tire, nor tease, nor kindle it enough." Still heaven is, our hearts affirm against every disappointment; and whether behind or before us, as memory or as hope, 'tis to be ours,--our port and resting place sometime in the stream of ages. "All before us lies the way; Give the past unto the wind; All before us is the day, Night and darkness are behind.