lemnity the clear azure beyond them, while gleams of sunshine only render the frowning sky more awful. My companion is gazing upwards at the burdened heavens with some anxiety; it becomes doubtful whether we shall escape the drenching deluge. What varied emotions enter the mind in such a scene as this, dividing our thought between the living and the dead!

The thundercloud has dispersed itself, and travelled onwards. We must now enter the Egyptian avenue; the ponderous cornice, the obelisks and pillars, the angular entrance, and the flying serpent, are all in excellent keeping with the place. We are now among the cedars of Lebanon; talking of ancient Egypt; of the Pharaohs of old; of the custom of embalming; of Belzoni, and the mummy pits of Gournou. This is a striking scene; the catacombs below, the dark resting-places of the dead, are in strong contrast with the roses seen on the circular garden above them; the cedar is fresh and beautiful, and spreads its flat, flaky foliage luxuriantly abroad.

Now, if it were necessary, but it is not, I would put it on record, for the guidance of those who may survive me when I go the way of all flesh, "Lay not my body in the catacombs, but place it among kindred dust, and cover it with the green sod on which a daisy may bloom."

We have mounted to the brow of the hill, and are standing between the church and the cemetery, looking down on the Gothic terrace, the Egyptian avenue, and the cedar circle of catacombs. The garden of death is now plainly seen in its length and its breadth; masses of elms and other trees beautify the surrounding fields;

and London is in the distance, stretching itself right and left, with Greenwich and the country towards Gravesend far beyond.

The public buildings of the city, the travelling steamcarriages of the neighbouring railroad, and the arriving visitors at the cemetery, all speak of busy life; while every foot of the broad acres in the foreground is dedicated to death.

The cemeteries of the metropolis may be said to mingle the character of the British churchyard with that of Père la Chaise in Paris; being neither so monotonously solemn as the former, nor so artificial, sentimental, and romantic as the latter. They are entitled to a perambulator's consideration, providing, as they do, suitable resting-places for the dead, sufficiently removed from the habitations of the living. It is almost impossible to muse among these flower gardens of the grave, without connecting them with some undefined emotions of our approaching dissolution.

We are now quitting, with some reluctance, a spot that death will render doubly dear to many a mourner as the sun runs his annual career. And shall the dead indeed be raised incorruptible? Shall the disunited atoms of the departed again assume form and comeliness? Yes!

God form'd them from the dust, and He once more
Will give them strength and beauty as before,
Though strewn as widely as the desert air ;-
As winds can waft them, or as waters bear.

How cheering, how animating, how heart-reviving are the words of the Redeemer, "I am the resurrection and the life he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die !" John xi. 25, 26. Happy,

indeed, is he who can say, in the language of exultation, nothing doubting, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another," Job xix. 25-27.

This Nunhead Cemetery of All Saints, occupies a commanding site between Peckham and the Kent road, sloping down to the east, north, and south-west, at a distance of some three or four miles from London, and, though far from being completed, gives a fair promise of equaling those which have already won the public approbation. It is the largest of all the cemeteries, comprising at least fifty acres.

In walking to this place I observed, on a neighbouring hill, a singular-looking erection, and the gravedigger, who is even now, with an assistant, preparing a 66 narrow house" for an inanimate tenant, tells me it is a telegraph. Fleet and mysterious herald, what tidings bring ye? What news bear ye onward to the "mart of all the earth?" Is it weal or woe? Are ye the messenger of good or of evil? Ye do well to outstrip the winds in your course, for man is hastening on to the tomb; his days are fleeter than a post, yea, swifter than a weaver's shuttle."

There is a glorious view of London from this spot. The five oaks stretching themselves across the cemetery are strikingly attractive; and when the church is erected on the brow of the hill yonder, it will be a goodly spectacle. The palisades of the boundary, mounting tier above tier; the fine swell of the ground

and commanding slope; the groups of young trees, and flowers of all hues, are very imposing. In a few fleeting years the cemetery will be, indeed, an interesting spectacle.

I have walked round the spacious enclosure. What an extended space for a grave-ground! What a goodly homestead for the king of terrors! Here seems to be roon enough to bury us all! 'At present the monuments are but few; but this is a want that mortality will soon supply. Fever, and consumption, and death, and time, are industriously at work. It is not to one, but to all, that the voice of the Eternal has gone forth: "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," Gen iii. 19.

I have just peeped into the lumber-room attached to the temporary church, and they that will grope in dark corners must expect to meet with cobwebs. What find I here? Nothing but emblems of mortality, spades, and shovels, and pickaxes, with two scythes and a sickle. Well! they are in keeping with the cemetery; and if the emblems of mortality abound, the consolations of the gospel abound also; so that "when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, "Death is swallowed up in victory," 1 Cor. xv. 54.

THE CHINESE COLLECTION.

FANCY to yourself, standing by the way-side at Hyde Park Corner, within a bow shot of Apsley house, a

showy Chinese pagoda of two stories, with green roofs, edged with vermilion, and supported by vermilion pil. lars, bearing on its front a hieroglyphical inscription, signifying "ten thousand Chinese things." You enter the pagoda by a flight of steps to a vestibule, and then ascend a larger flight, after which, pursuing your course along the lobby, you soon find yourself in a goodly apartment of a novel kind, more than two hundred feet long, broad enough and high enough to form a most agreeable promenade.

Your attention is arrested by three richly-gilt colossa and imposing idol figures, representing "the three precious Buddhas," or "past, present, and to come." Bewildered by the novelty, lightness, beauty, richness, and elegance of the numberless objects that meet your gaze, you sit down to compose yourself, anticipating, with restless pleasure, the rich treat that awaits you.

And now comes confusedly to your memory all tha. you know of China, not unmingled with shame that you know so little, and recollect even that little so imperfectly. You have heard China called the "celestial empire," and understand that it has many more than three hundred millions of inhabitants. You have marvelled at the strange figures painted on tea chests, and watched the nodding mandarins in the shop of the grocer. You have seen Chinese puzzles, and ivory toys, with drawings on rice paper; birds, and flowers, and representations of gathering the leaves from the tea plant. The names Whampoa, Macao, Pekin, and Canton, are familiar to you. You are not ignorant that a great wall was built by the people to keep out the Tartars; and that Confucius was a famous Chinese philosopher. You have seen a great deal in the newspapers