I think of various senses in which it might be shown that these words speak truly; in which its great principle holds good, that signal blessing shall come when it is needed most and expected least; but I think mainly how, sometimes, at the close of the chequered and sober day, the Better Sun has broken through the clouds, and made the naming west all purple and gold.  I think how always the purer light comes, if not in this world, then in a better.  Bowing his head to pass under the dark portal, the Christian lifts it on the other side, in the presence and the light of God.  J think how you and I, my reader, may perhaps have stood in the chamber of death, and seen in the horizon the summer sun in glory going down.  But it is only to us who remain that the evening darkness is growing—­only for us that the sun is going down.  Look on the sleeping features, and think, ’Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw herself; for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.’  And then, my reader, tell me—­as the evening falls on you, but not on him; as the shadows deepen on you, but not on him; as the darkness gathers on you, but not on him—­if, in sober reality, the glorious promise has not found its perfect fulfilment, that ‘at the evening time there shall be light!’

Every one knows that Summer Days dispose one to a certain listlessly meditative mood.  In cold weather, out of doors at least, you must move about actively; it is only by the evening fireside, watching the dancing shadows, that you have glimpses of this not wholly unprofitable condition of mind.  In summer-time you sometimes feel disposed to stand and look for a good while at the top of a large tree, gently waving about in the blue sky.  You begin by thinking it would be curious to be up there:  but there is no thought or speculation, moral, political, or religious, which may not come at the end of the train started by the loftiest branches of the great beech.  You are able to sit for a considerable space in front of an ivied wall, and think out your sermon for Sunday as you look at the dark leaves in the sun.  Above all, it is soothing and suggestive to look from a height at the soft outline of distant hills of modest elevation; and to see, between yourself and them, many farm-houses and many little cottages dotted here and there.  There, under your eye, how much of life, and of the interests of life, is going on!  Looking at such things, you muse, in a vague, desultory way.  I wonder whether when ordinary folk profess to be thinking, musing, or meditating, they are really thinking connectedly or to any purpose.  I daresay the truth is they have (so to speak) given the mind its head; laid the reins of the will on the mind’s neck; and are letting it go on and about in a wayward, interrupted, odd, semi-conscious way.  They are not holding onward on any track of thought.  I believe that common-place human beings can only get