row; but they live in contented ignorance and apathy, and at death sink into the deep, never-ending night of annihilation.

But it is not so with man. Man perishes from the cradle to the grave; and "suffers a thousand deaths in fearing one." He alone is aware of the dangers that threaten him, and they are every where about his path. "Man dieth and wasteth away, yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?" Who has not sympathized with the Persian poet, when he said, "I passed the burying-place, and wept sorely,

To think how many of my friends were in the mansions of the dead.

And in an agony of grief, I cried out, Where are they?
And Echo gave the answer, and said, Where are they?"

How often do we grieve over the destruction of our fondest hopes! When heart is bound up in heart, how oft is the tie rent suddenly asunder, the sweetest fellowships severed, and the joys of the happiest life veiled by the gloom of the grave! Life and death seem to walk hand in hand; and even while we are rejoicing in the presence of the one, comes his stern companion, and casts a blight upon our prospects. Amid those very scenes where we have witnessed the ioyful career of one we love, we are called to behold him pine in sickness and suffer in death. The hand which has performed for us so many acts of kindness, is now reached out to us for aid that we cannot give; and the voice, whose tones were such music to the ear, can now scarcely be heard, or heard only in sounds of distress. All which formerly made the delight of our hearts, now makes up their anguish. And if in hope of soothing their dying pillow, we summon strength, and stand by to receive the last sigh, to return the last weak pressure of the hand, to watch the advance of death as he steals from the cold limbs and

brow to the heart, and freezes there the feeble current of life and then gaze upon the lifeless form for another breath, another motion, which, alas! we shall not hear, nor see; we feel, for the moment, as though this grief, this overwhelming sorrow, could not be supported. When, too, after the first hour of anguish is past, and we return to that cold clay to put it in order for the tomb, to look still again upon its changed lineaments, and to feel that it was but yesterday and there was a bloom upon this cheek, a lustre in this eye, a voice upon these lips; we are mourners afresh-we are silent-the sad picture is all before us!

Seal up this sacred volume, and I see not whence the light dawns to cheer this sombre picture. But for the Bible, man would be placed in a grade of happiness far below the brutes that perish. Better be any thing than rational, without the religion of the Bible. The Scriptures inform me that these evils have a cause. They all come from the hand of God.

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"I make

peace, I create evil, I the Lord do all these things." Chance and fate have no place in the government of "the God only wise." Sorrow is designed; nor is the design malignant or unkind. The unseen hand that inflicts these trials is as benevolent as it is wise, and the being who dispenses them is as far above all other beings in goodness, as he is in power. We learn from the Bible too, that they have a moral cause; that they are the rebuke of the Holy One for our iniquity; that they are the discipline of a heavenly Parent, and designed to bring back his wayward children to their forsaken God. And when rebellious man sees and feels this truth, his soul is subdued to submission, to tranquillity, to peace, and under the heaviest calamity he looks upward and says, "It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good!" And this, of itself is the source of abounding consolations

How often in our intercourse with mankind do we cheerfully submit to present pain and evil, when counselled to it by those in whose wisdom and benevolence we have confidence! Extend this principle, so often and so beautifully illustrated in the word of God, to all the evils of the present life, and we have that feeling of quiet, trusting confidence which supports the believer under all the evils which an all-wise Father is pleased to lay upon him. It is a principle, prolific in consolations to the mourner; and well may be the confidence and joy of the world and of the universe. "The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of the isles be glad thereof.”

And what shall we say of the hopes and prospects by which the Bible cheers the hearts of the bereaved? What rather may we not say? Is it blind conjecture. which the Scriptures reveal respecting the state of departed man? Is there no life to come? no great resurrection? no comforter to arrest the current of "mourning, lamentation and wo," after the dust we love has been deposited in the tomb? When reminded keenly of our loss we exclaim, Shall we not meet again? is this parting for ever?' is there nothing in the Bible that can answer the agonizing inquiry? When we wander as it were along the borders of that vast ocean which has swallowed up our living treasures; when we sit down there, and weep and call upon the waves of eternity to give up their dead; when from the shore of time, we look and listen over the vast abyss of waters, does no sound reach us? To the ear of faith there is a voice. We listen, and our grief is allayed. "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." They do but sleep." They "sleep in Jesus." Death dissolves. not their union with him. Yes, our grief is allayed,

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and we journey on through life consoled. No longer now do our thoughts wander to that mound of earth where their remains have been deposited. We look upward beyond this sphere. A happy meeting, a reunion for eternity hovers before us like a star, illumines our path, and leads us forward in joyful hope.

Nowhere does the Bible look with cold indifference on human misery. So adapted is it to human sorrows, that its precious counsels and promises are scarcely intelligible, and never appreciated, except by those who are "chosen in the furnace of affliction." Go up with me to that chamber of sorrow. It is not the dwelling of a pagan. It is not the couch of some deluded disciple of Mahomet. Nor yet is it the abode of a mere nominal Christian. "This I know by experience," said she, "the days of ease and worldly prosperity are seldom to Christians their better days. So far from it, that to the praise and glory of God's holy name would I speak it, I have substantial reason to call these my better days; these days and nights of pain; these days of almost absolute confinement and solitude are not only my better, but my best days; because the Saviour condescends to be more present with me in them; to manifest himself to me as he does not unto the world; to stand by my bed of affliction, and speak kindly to my heart.”* how dark are the shadows which human reason and vain philosophy cast upon such scenes as these! There is no such relief from sorrow as is found in the Bible.

0,

I have spoken of the consolations furnished by the Bible in trial and in view of the death of others. But we must penetrate yet deeper sorrows than these.

*Life of Mrs. Hawkes.

There is an hour when we ourselves must die. If we find death an evil when we mark its advances upon those around us, what will it be when he comes up into our own chambers? Who can trifle with this monster then? When he invades our own pillow, which of us will not recoil from his approach, and shrink from the ravages of this king of terrors? "The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law." Death is an hour which never fails to bring with it the consciousness of guilt, and a sense of the righteousness of that pure and holy law which men have violated, and by which they are condemned. Nor is there any thing to quiet the apprehensions and soothe the alarm excited in the breasts of those who know not God, at the approach of this dread destroyer. Men who never drank into the spirit of the Bible, feel then that every thing on which they built their hopes, is about to be swept away, and that, "in that very day," their thoughts, their treasures, their grandeur, their honours, their little world, all perish. They have lived at a distance from that God who now draws near in his displeasure, and tremble at the thought of appearing before him who is so holy that he cannot look on sin. No knowledge of the Redeemer's person and work comforts them; no welcome impressions of his saving mercy are left upon the soul, and it departs in doubt and darkness, if not in despair. So full of darkness. were the views of Socrates, one of the wisest and best of the heathens, that just before he took the fatal hemlock, he said, "I am going out of the world, and you are to continue in it; but which of us has the better part, is a secret to every one but God." Volumes might be written depicting the scenes of anguish and horror which have been exhibited at the death-bed of those who have rejected the Bible..