PAGANISM. The dead are not always forgotten by the pagan negroes : they resort annually to their graves, and offer food and liquor to their departed relatives. A negro mo- ther in Jamaica was known, for thirteen years, to make this annual visit to the grave of her daughter, and, in an agony of feeling, to offer her oblation. Thus " they sorrow without hope." We re- spect the strength of the affection ; we lament its downward, earthly tendency : all the thoughts of that poor mother were in the grave with her child, and the only object of that unabated love was the mere dust of a dissolved frame. Such is hea- thenism ! Melting and mournful thoughts steal over the recollections of the be- reaved Christian mother too, and time has no power to dry up the fountain of her tears ; years may pass away, but the memory of the forms over which she has hung with maternal fondness suffers no decay ; it keeps its place to the last hour of the most extended life. But, when she thinks of her children, she thinks of them as in heaven, not as in the grave and, urged onward by this hope through her remaining pilgrimage, she hastens to embrace them again in the kingdom of God.i2. Watson.
"Heaven is my throne...Isaiah 63"
GOD'S REJECTION OF ALL MATERIAL TEMPLES. There was a time when it could be said that there was a house of God on earth. That was a time of symbols, when as yet the Church of God was in her childhood. She was being taught her A B C, reading her picture-book, for she could not as yet read the Word of God, as it were in letters. She had need to have pictures put before her, patterns of the heavenly things. Even then, the enlightened amongst the Jews knew well that God did not dwell between curtains, and that it was not possible that He could be encompassed in the most holy place within the veil It was only a symbol of His presence. But the time of symbols is now passed altogether. In that moment when the Saviour bowed His head, and said "It is finished! " the veil of the temple was rent in twain, so that the mysteries were laid open. So, one reason why God saith He dwelleth not in temples made with hands, is, because He would have us know that the symbolical worship is ended...
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