It has been very warm all day,--that aggravating, unseasonable heat, which is apt to come in spasms in the early part of May, and which, in thick spring alpaca and heavy sack, one finds intolerable. The thermometer stood at 75° on the church porch; every window was shut, and everybody’s fan was fluttering Now, with this sight before him, what should our observant minister do, but give out as his first hymn: “Thine earthly Sabbaths.” “Thine earthly Sabbaths” would be a beautiful hymn, if it were not for those lines about the weather:-- “No midnight shade, _no clouded sun_, _But sacred, high, eternal noon_”! There was a great hot sunbeam striking directly on my black bonnet. My fan was broken. I gasped for air. The choir went over and over and _over_ the words, spinning them into one of those indescribable tunes, in which everybody seems to be trying to get through first. I don’t know what they called them,--they always remind me of a game of “Tag.” I looked at Aunt Winifred. She took it more coolly than I, but an amused little smile played over her face. She told me after church that she had repeatedly heard that hymn given out at noon of an intense July day. Her husband, she said, used to save it for the winter, or for cloudy afternoons. “Using means of grace,” he called that. However, Dr. Bland did better the second time, Aunt Winifred joined in the singing, and I enjoyed it, so I will not blame the poor man. I suppose he was so far lifted above this earth, that he would not have known whether he was preaching in Greenland’s icy mountains, or on India’s coral strand. When he announced his text, “For our conversation is in Heaven,” Aunt Winifred and I exchanged glances of content. We had been talking about heaven on the way to church; at least, till Faith, not finding herself entertained, interrupted us by some severe speculations as to whether Maltese kitties were mulattoes, and “why the bell-ringer didn’t jump off the steeple some night, and see if he couldn’t fly right up, the way Elijah did.” I listened to Dr. Bland as I have not listened for a long time. The subject was of all subjects nearest my heart. He is a scholarly man, in his way. He ought to know, I thought, more about it than Aunt Winifred. Perhaps he could help me. His sermon, as nearly as I can recall it, was substantially this. “The future life presented a vast theme to our speculation. Theories ‘too numerous to mention,’ had been held concerning it. Pagans had believed in a coming state of rewards and punishments. What natural theology had dimly foreshadowed, Revelation had brought in, like a full-orbed day, with healing on its wings.” I am not positive about the metaphors. “As it was fitting that we should at times turn our thoughts upon the threatenings of Scripture, it was eminently suitable also that we should consider its promises.