The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-30 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

For Ever ! Cr the Final State of the Redeemed
Considered. Shaw and Co.
This very beautiful and consolatory volume will
be read with pleasure and interest by many. Very
happy is the quotation on the title-page from Mrs.
Norton's " Child of the Island ":
" Oh, there is need for permanent belief
In the all-equal world of joy to come,
Need for such solace to the restless grief,
And heavy troubles of our earthly home."
We have glanced over the pages of " Fur Ever" with
considerable interest, although we have not coin-
cided with all the author's opinions. We very sin-
cerely appreciate, throughout the volume, the very
reverent spirit in which the awful topics of the work
are treated. So reverently are these all-important
themes discussed, and so tenderly are the sublime
teachings of revelation dwelt upon, that even those
who do not agree with the writer's deductions as to
particulars, may peruse with very great plea-
sure and meditate over with, we doubt not,
very considerable profit, these anticipated glimpses
of the world beyond the grave. As an instance of
the writer's peculiarly felicitous power of decript ion,
let us transcribe from the commencement of the
volume the picture of man in " his primeval

nnocence :"

" There we see him made after the likeness of the Infi-
nite, created 'an image of God's own eternity,' standing
with his helpmeet alone in the freshness of the new earth's
beauty; that earth filled with things innumerable, all in-
tended to minister to his wants, or gratity his sen es—a
mind at peace with God and with itself, a disposition at-
tuned only to adoration and to love—and power given him
to use all things for his pleasure. Such was the b.iss
of
man with respent to this material world only; but his hap-
piness did not end here. He possis-ed within him a prin-
ciple of life, and as yet death did not struggle for the mas-
tery. His life was an unclouded ray, an emanation of the
life of the Eternal; God was his companion and his friend.
In that garden which was planted by infinite skill, the
Creator condescended to converse with the creature of his
power and love, and man was permitted to hold such com-
munion with Jehovah as a child with the parent he re
veres, It is not fanciful, then, to contemplate him for a
moment in our mind's eye, with angels his familiar friends,
the heavenly hosts his constant visitants; to suppose him
elevated by such intercourse into a fitness for that high
estate,' and to conclude that the presence of the ' High and
Holy One' had so made Paradise a heaven, and sanctified
the garden into a holy place, that our first parent could
scarcely have needed a change into the heavens above
to increa-e his blessedness, for he had the company
of heaven, and the 'very God' Himself present to
constitute his earth a heaven. To see Him as He
is,' to converse face to face with the Triune Eternal, we
are taught to believe the highest point of bliss to which
created beings can attain, as involving all others; and yet
this was the portion of the fiat man—of unsinning Adam I"
One great object of the book, as the author very
happily explains to us, is " to show what is revealed
rather than to analyse that revelation ; to point out
what is our hope, not to intrude into the still hidden
mystery of how that hope can be realised.
We have simply to inquire " What,"
God will arrange the " How."
And in that assurance poor Human Nature may
rest satisfied. I%lan's anxieties and aspirations
perplex him in vain—" there," let them
"Alike, in trembling hope repos,,
The bosom of his Father and his God."
We differ from the writer of these very eloquent
pages in the stress laid upon the equality of the
future state. Many illustrations are brought forward
from the prophecies of the Old Testament, and from
the parables of the New, to prove the equality of
happiness enjoyed by all who have once passed the
golden gate. These columns are not the fitting
place for the discussion of religious subjects, and we
will therefor e content ourselves with acknowledging
the logical clearness with which the writer's views
are expounded and the very free and impartial
spirit with which those views are enforced. We feel
assured that upon further consideration one so true-
hearted in the pursuit of truth, and so submissive
and reverent iu its acceptation when recognised,
will come to a conclusion more in accordance with
the general teaching of the Christian world.
"No Cross, no Crown," is a familiar adage to us all
—according to the manner in which the Cross is
borne in this word will be proportioned the
glory of the Crown in the hereafter.
Apart from the opinions in which the reader may
d ffer from the writer of this very e.rnest
volume, there is much in its pages that will appeal
to the heart of every Christian. The beautiful
truths of revelation, so contoling to all who love and
suffer, but who also hope and believe, are here set
forth most tenderly and earnest's :
" There, in the soft and beautiful Belief,
Flows the true Leihe for the lips of Grief;
There, Penury, Hunger, Misery, cast their eyes,
How soon the bright Republic of the Skies!"

GEOGRAPHICAL FEAT.—Sir Roderick Murchison
writes to the limes, intimating that he has "just
received from Mr. Layard, M P., Under-Secretary for Fo-
reign Affairs, the intelligence, so highly gratifying to all
geographers, that Captains Speke and a ant have com-
pleted their arduous j,urney across Eastern and Cenral
Africa' from Zanzibar to Khar by the White Nile,
where they arrived in safety. As the news has only reached
the Foreign.oMce in a telegram from Alexandria, the exact
line followed ip not known,'