carrying on a war of opposition against God: and he heard that within twelve hours he was to enter the world of spirits. Burthened with guilt; unpardoned and unsanctified; how could he appear before his judge? Oppressed with dread at the thoughts of meeting an angry God-with anguish at the ruin he had brought upon his people and family-with awe at the god-like appearance of the ghost-Saul fell at his full length as dead upon the earth. Unhappy man! he now reaps the bitter fruits of forsaking God, and of being forsaken by him. Vengeance which had long hovered over him, and waited in long-suffering for his repentance, now advances with large and rapid strides, and his doom approaches. He is deeply sensible of it, and is overwhelmed on account thereof with horror and dismay. The The threatened calamity assumed deeper shades of distress, in consequence of being foretold by an old and a faithful friend. "At whatever period of life friendships are formed they undoubtedly constitute one of the greatest blessings we can enjoy." remembrance of youthful and holy connections melts every heart; and the dissolution of them is perhaps the most painful feeling to which we are exposed below. While ever and anon, of early and long-continued attachment with the absent or the dead, "There comes a token like a scorpion's sting, A tone of music---summer's eve---or spring-- A flower---the wind---the ocean---which shall wound, Sternly and haughtily, Burke, the intimate friend of Fox, rent asunder the sacred bonds of friendship; and in the presence of the Common's house of Parliament concluded an invective against France with "I have differed from the honorable member on many occasions and there has been no loss of friendship between us. But there is something in the accursed French constitution that envenoms every thing: our friendship is at an end." On the generous and susceptible mind of Fox rushed all the ideas, cherished for five and twenty years, of gratitude, esteem and affection; and involuntary tears were observed to steal down his cheek. The attenprofound and expressive silence pervaded the house. tion of all was eagerly fixed on him. He rose to reply but his feelings were too powerful for utterance. The ties of friendship A were no more. True, Saul's conduct had exiled Samuel from companionship with him, for many a month ere the prophet died lamenting over him. Yet Samuel lived and died the friend of Saul; and his best friend; and on the strength of this affectionate and early connection, which time could not benumb, nor sorrow shake, Saul rested his hopes in this fatal invocation. How then would the load fall on his bare and desolated bosom, when he now heard for the first time, that an attachment of thirty years duration was ended? Particularly when that old and faithful friend-now the apparition evoked from the invisible world-crowded the past and the future into the present; and, after bringing the sins of forty years to his memory, raised the veil of futurity and showed him the goblin form of death, brandishing the poisoned dart, fated to end his days before another sun should rise and set. Is it any wonder that all his strength was withered, and that he feet of the departing apparition as dead? SECTION II. The witch becomes his comforter. fell at the And the woman came unto Saul prostrate on the cold damp earth, and saw that he was sore afraid; and well he may be, meeting death so unprepared and she counsels him-to do what? to present to God the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart? Oh! no, unholy wretch, she tendered the best consolation within the horizon of a mind earthly, sensual and devilish,--she recommends him to rise and eat bread. Rise and eat bread! Poor medicine this, for a mind oppressed with guilt. Unhappy man! he need not have been reduced to the disgrace, and wretchedness of listening to words breathed through the "sulphur lips" of the withered witch of Endor in the evening of life, if he had not neglected the God of his youth, and the guide of his early days. "Mr. Pain," said one of his visitors to him when dying, "you have lived like a man, I hope you will die like one :" that is, you have lived despising salvation by Christ, I hope you will die in that frame. "You see, Sir" said the despairing infidel, turning to one who stood by him, "what miserable comforters I have." But indeed, what advice can sinners give to sinners, but to take heart, and banish fear? They paint before them the vices of others, and thence infer their comparative goodness. They descant on the virtue of going to a place of worship, and of freedom from flagrant crimes; they throw all these nothings, magnified by their imagi nation into mighty realities into one scale, and heaven in the other; do they appear too light to purchase an eternal weight of glory? the source of consolation is not exhausted, every man, say they, has his frailties and God is merciful; be therefore composed. Oh! miserable comforters are ye all! and miserable the man helped into eternity by such assistants. Fatal spells, to lull into false security the departing soul opening its eyes to its state and danger-comfort more absurd than that tendered by the sorceress to Saul, and as dangerous as absurd, since the restless spirit of the dying man will lay hold on every reed of hope. God help thee, reader, to acquaint thyself with the Saviour, and to be at peace with him, ere the king of terrors before thee frowns. To which of the saints then wilt thou turn? or who can befriend thee if God be thy enemy? "I am throwing," said a dying nobleman to his profligate companion, "my last stake for eternity, and tremble and shudder for the important event." arms. The Saul returns to his camp: (which by this time the Philistines, who had probably heard of his flight, were preparing to attack.) Strange, that with such a conflict of scorpion feelings torturing his soul, he could command courage again to join his companions in He returns-like a prisoner going to execution-like a man whose sins had found him out-like a soul dragging to perdition. With these miserable feelings he enters the battle, and the next account we hear of him is, "So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armour bearer, and all his men that same day together." sins of the father brought ruin on his sons: had Samuel's advice governed his conduct, he would have lived the happy father, of a happy family. But his folly involved them all in one common ruin.—And the wretched man in his folly and fall, is far from being singular. Many there are in every circle of life, whose sins against God and their families, whose profligacy and drunkenness, whose gambling and debauchery, involve in one common misery and ruin, the innocent and the guilty; the hardened parent and the helpless babe. "But who can Thus the prediction of Samuel was fulfilled. forbear dropping a tear over the faithful, the amiable, the excellent Jonathan. There are few characters among men more lovely, or more extraordinary than his fortitude, fidelity, magnaminity! a soul susceptible of the most refined friendship, and superior to all the temptations of ambition and vanity; and all these crowned with the most resigned submission to the will of God." In admiration of nobler virtues than the courage of the soldier, and firmness of the hero, we may take up the lamentation of the sweet singer of Israel, and say; "How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished." And this excellent youth brought to an untimely death, by the conduct of a proud, stubborn and vengeful father. SECTION III. Saul dies by his own hand. Now the Philistines fought against Israel: and the men of Israel fled before them, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa. And the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons; and they slew Jonathan and Abinadab, and Melchishua, Saul's sons. And the battle went sore against Saul, and the bowmen wounded him with their arrows, and the chariots and horsemen pursued the flying fugitive-but escape was hopeless.-The flight is stayed, hastily and gloomily he looks around-death is at his heels-despair in his eye,—there I think I see him stand for a moment; a ruin amidst ruins. " Then said Saul to his armour-bearer," seeing the victory lost, his army perishing by the destructive sword of the enemy, and his children dead around him, draw thy sword and thrust me through; but his armour-bearer would not, for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword and fell upon it." It is over 66 "He's gone---his soul has taken it's earthly flight! Self murder is In time, or in "No murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." irrational, since death is but a change of worlds. eternity, man is still surrounded with the presence of a sin avenging God. The suicide, by flying from earth, no moie escapes from the omnipresence of God, than he extinguishes the soul's immortality; or silences conscience, by extracting from out the unbounded spirit, the quick sense of its own sins. Our lives also are the property of Jehovah; and therefore no man has a right to destroy his existence; and as Plato observes in his Phædon, God is injured by selfmurder: not forgetting that the suicide acts the coward's part. Heroism is displayed in contending with life's unnumbered ills; and Saul might have won the warrior's laurel, and the patriot's praise; and would have irradiated his flight from earth, with a few beams of hope, if he had perished as Jonathan did, sword in hand for the independence and security of his people. Yet irrational, cowardly and iniquitous as self-murder is, how many proceed from vice to vice, and from bad to worse; till with rain and wretchedness in their families, pain and misery in their bodies, guilt and torment in their souls, and disgrace and obloquy on their reputation; they yield, in some fatal moment of desperation to the horrid resolution of trying the mysteries of an unknown world: mysteries then no longer. "I have lived many years," the disembodied spirit may utter, as on wing impeteous it urges its gloomy flight from earth to hell, "Many long years; but they are nothing now To those which I must number; ages---ages--- With the fierce thirst of death---and still unslaked!" Death is a solemn subject to all. Nature seems to shrink back within us as the moment of seperation approaches. All the awe, and solemnity of dying, Paul felt when he said, "We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burthened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life." Or we sigh for a release, not that we see any thing desirable in death: rather if God so pleased, we would prefer passing to the regions of immortality as Enoch and Elijah did. 66 To die between hope and fear is terrific. What tongue can utter the anguish of a soul struggling with the vast uncertainty, and suspended between the extremes of infinite joy and endless woe! The Hindoo, when at the point of death, is in a state of the most perplexing anxiety. His friends surround him as he lies on the banks of the Ganges, and endeavour to console him withyou could not expect to have lived much longer, you leave a numerous family in comfortable circumstance; and your merits will certainly raise you to heaven.” The dying man however finds no comfort in the merit of his works, but gives utterance to his excessive grief in some such language as this. "I! What meritorious deeds have I performed? I have done nothing but sin. Ah! where shall I go? Into what hell shall I be plunged? What shall I do? How long shall I continue in hell? What hope can I have of going to heaven? Here I have been suffering for my sins; and now I must renew my sufferings! Where will my sorrows end?" As a last and forlorn hope he calls upon his friends to give him their blessing, that Gunga (the goddess of the Ganges) may receive him; and he takes leave of them in the utmost perturbation of mind. What a melancholy end is this. Yet, alas! what millions with a pure creed in their memory, and the Bible in their hands, depart in equal uncertainty. Buoyed up |