I recalled the story, the conceit of a long-forgotten evangelical writer whose works were popular with my parents, of how a certain inhabitant of the Evening Star was so struck by the surpassing beauty of the planet we call the Earth that he prayed to his Deity for permission to visit this unknown world. His entreaty was granted, but upon one condition--namely, that on his being translated thither he should never return, but should share in whatever conditions and laws of existence might prevail on the star of his choice. He eagerly consented to this pact, so overwhelming was his desire or his curiosity; and falling into a deep slumber he was transported (much as I had myself been conveyed) to his elected sphere, wherein he awoke to find himself in an ancient city of the Levant. The strange visitor was well received by the reigning sultan and the citizens of the place, who did all that lay in their power to make life pleasant for their interesting guest, whose unique story they thoroughly believed. Time sped by agreeably enough amid these novel surroundings, so that the stranger daily grew fonder of his environment till one evening, when he chanced to stroll by himself without the city walls and to enter an attractive garden that was filled with curious erections of stone and marble set amid masses of flowers and shaded by lofty trees. It seemed a peaceful spot, but the Stranger was so puzzled by the solitude of the garden that on his return to the city he asked the sultan whose property was the beautiful shady enclosure with the carved monuments and the groves of cypresses, and for what purpose was it used. The monarch looked astonished at the question, but told his guest it must have been a cemetery, a burial-ground, the garden and final home of the Dead. Again the Stranger was perplexed: "And what are the Dead?" Then the sultan tried to describe death and the common lot of all the sons and daughters of Adam to his listener, who grew more and more amazed as he endeavoured to grasp the prince's unfamiliar explanations. "But will you yourself die also?" he finally asked the sultan. "Most assuredly," answered the latter; "all of us, from the highest to the least, king and beggar, man, woman and child, we must perforce all obey the summons of Death when it comes." Without speaking another word, the Stranger quitted the palace in profound silence and with head bent in cogitation over this astounding law of nature he had just heard for the first time. It took him many days of further inquiry and self-communing before he could realise this sudden compulsory cessation of active life which inevitably awaited himself, sooner or later, whether as the result of disease, of accident, of violence or of decay. Long did he reflect, and finally he came to the conclusion that, seeing how soon and how suddenly Death might call him, Life itself so far as its pleasures and its interests and its intrigues were concerned was but a