Page:The Mothers of England.djvu/115

This page has been validated.
110
The Mothers of England.

behold the shadowing forth of beauty upon earth, to feel the swelling of the heart in its comprehension of the sublime, or its repose in the deep sense of the harmony of nature; but of what value would be all this "enlargement of existence," if here it was to end? if the barrier of the grave was to put a stop to the spirit in its upward flight, and if death was to hide the beautiful for ever? No; we have learned a happier lesson than this; for we know, and we ought to feel, that as the exercise of love and admiration afford us the highest enjoyment here, there are, above all other faculties, those which, if rightly exercised, are capable of adding to our felicity when the shadows of time shall be lost in the light of eternity.

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.