“What is it that sometimes speaks in the soul so calmly, so clearly, that its earthly time is short? Is it the secret instinct of decaying nature, or the soul's impulsive throb, as immortality draws on? Be what it may, it rested in the heart of Eva, a calm, sweet, prophetic certainty that Heaven was near; calm as the light of sunset, sweet as the bright stillness of autumn, there her little heart reposed, only troubled by sorrow for those who loved her so dearly.”

“Her face was round and rosy, with a healthful downy softness, suggestive of a ripe peach. Her hair, partially silvered by age, was parted smoothly back from a high placed forehead, on which time had written no inscription, except peace on earth, good will to men, and beneath shone a large pair of clear, honest, loving brown eyes; you only needed to look straight into them, to feel that you saw to the bottom of a heart as good and true as ever throbbed in woman's bosom. So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why doesn't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women?”

“In how many families do you hear the legend that all the goodness and graces of the living are nothing to the peculiar charms of one who is not. It is as if heaven had an especial band of angels, whose office it was to sojourn for a season here, and endear to them the wayward human heart, that they might bear it upward with them in their homewoard flight. When you see that deep, spiritual light in the eye,---when the little soul reveals itself in words sweeter and wiser than the ordinary words of children,---hope not to retain that child, for the seal of heaven is on it, and the light of immortality looks out from its eyes.”

“When winds are raging o'er the upper ocean,And billows wild contend with angry roar,'Tis said, far down beneath the wild commotion,That peaceful stillness reigneth evermore. Far, far beneath, the noise of tempest dieth,And silver waves chime ever peacefully,And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er it flieth,Disturbs the Sabbath of that deeper sea. So to the heart that knows Thy love, O Purest,There is a temple sacred evermore,And all the babble of life's angry voicesDies in hushed silence at its peaceful door. Far, far away, the roar of passion dieth,And loving thoughts rise calm and peacefully,And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er it flieth,Disturbs the soul that dwells, O Lord, in Thee.”

“If ever you have had a romantic, uncalculating friendship, - a boundless worship and belief in some hero of your soul, - if ever you have so loved, that all cold prudence, all selfish worldly considerations have gone down like drift-wood before a river flooded with new rain from heaven, so that you even forgot yourself, and were ready to cast your whole being into the chasm of existence, as an offering before the feet of another, and all for nothing, - if you awoke bitterly betrayed and deceived, still give thanks to God that you have had one glimpse of heaven. The door now shut will open again. Rejoice that the noblest capability of your eternal inheritance has been made known to you; treasure it, as the highest honor of your being, that ever you could so feel, -that so divine a guest ever possessed your soul.”

“Strange, what brings these past things so vividly back to us, sometimes!”

“For, so inconsistent is human nature, especially in the ideal, that not to undertake a thing at all seems better than to undertake and come short.”