life an opposite thought that death is benign for man as he is constituted and related on earth. The voice of human nature speaks truth through the lips of Cicero, saying, at the close of his essay on Old Age, "Quodsi non sumus immortales futuri, tamen exstingui homini suo tempore optabile est." In a conversation at the house of Sappho, a discussion once arose upon the question whether death was a blessing or an evil. Some maintained, the former alternative; but Sappho victoriously closed the debate by saying, If it were a blessing to die, the immortal gods would experience it. The gods live forever: therefore, death is an evil.17 The reasoning was plausible and brilliant. Yet its sophistry is complete. To men, conditioned as they are in this world, death may be the greatest blessing; while to the gods, conditioned so differently, it may have no similar application. 16 Bibliographical notice of the legend of the wandering Jew, by Paul Lacroix; trans. into English by G.W. Thornbury. Grasse, Der ewige Jude. 17 Fragment X. Quoted in Mare's Hist. Lit. Greece, book iii. chap. v. sect. 18. Because an earthly eternity in the flesh would be a frightful calamity, is no reason why a heavenly eternity in the spirit would be other than a blissful inheritance. Thus the remonstrance which may be fallaciously based on some of the foregoing considerations namely, that they would equally make it appear that the immortality of man in any condition would be undesirable is met. A conclusion drawn from the facts of the present scene of things, of course, will not apply to a scene inconceivably different. Those whose only bodies are their minds may be fetterless, happy, leading a wondrous life, beyond our deepest dream and farthest fancy, and eternally free from trouble or satiety.