within. When faith once lays hold on the Almighty no other experience is half so real. One needs read about it in no book, consult no priest or preacher, nor plead with friend to lend the information, for he knows it for himself. Sitting beside the hearthstone of a living, flaming faith, our hands feeling the pressure of that mighty Hand that never harms but always serves, our souls rejoice with unmeasured joy to realize that we are in the presence of God who knows and understands, and who not only walks the weary ways with us, but gladly dwells within. There is the quality of hope that makes heaven real. So long as hope burns within the heart there is no fear of winter winds, but when hope dies the soul dies. How gladly may old age look over the world in which it spent the four-seasoned life of toil! Here is the spring of life where the daisies grew and the cowslips scattered gold about the feet. Yonder the harvest fields of manhood’s power in which a bared arm of strength gathered the treasures of the soil while right merry thoughts centered upon a nearby cottage toward which he knelt each time he tied a band of gold about the garnered sheaf. Yonder the carefully planted violets grow upon a tiny mound, bright children of the sun making battle with the cold shadows of a marble slab. Now the autumn time of life fades into wintry quiet. The song of the brook is hushed beneath ever-thickening ice, the trees are robbed of color, the fields are trackless wastes of snow. The four seasons of life are growing to a close, the last afternoon is coming to its twilight, and yet one is not sad. The fires of hope still burn upon the hearthstone of the heart, and fill the soul with the light of its immortal home. Heaven is not a far-away land, vague with mystery, and dim with distance, but a place that is real and very close. We breathe its scented air, and bathe in its golden light while hope is burning divinely bright within our hearts. The hope of heaven does more than offer us compensation for the wrongs of life; it gives man an intelligent interpretation of the things of time. Until one believes his citizenship is in heaven he cannot intelligently perform his daily task. The painting that lacks perspective is a daub; the hopeless life is dismal failure. Therefore, as one prizes the best, he should stir up the gift of hope until heaven is as real as home.