at parting among survivors, by causing a series of endless discords, and of ruinous litigation. There are not certainly many with so salutary a fear of contest as Sir Walter Scott, who said that he should be sorry to let his best friend know how much he would consent to lose before having recourse to a law-suit.

Too many seem to die, as well as to live, according to the tenour of that selfish proverb, “ Après moi le déluge;" and in nothing may so much bad feeling and practical infidelity be traced as in that last act of a man's influence on earth, the dictating of his will. The only object with many seems, to make their money as useless as possible, and to punish those who take the liberty of surviving. How many friends on such an occasion have been astonished, who thought they knew the testator better, and find him betraying causeless caprice, vain ostentation, heartless ingratitude, or long-cherished revenge, when he has left, as his final achievement upon earth, a record of intentions which during life he would have been ashamed to let any man hear; yet before a last will can be executed, he who is answerable for its contents has already appeared in the visible presence of God.

The evil of events is not in themselves, but in us; for in the winding up of life at last how little we shall care what were the trials or the injuries endured. They will then appear of no

more consequence than the remembrance an invalid retains what were the medicines necessary for him to take that he might obtain a cure. Small indeed is the portion of real misery or happiness conveyed to us by mere external objects; for all depends on the inward discipline of the mind, and on learning no more to murmur at the loss of any blessing than if our own parents had sent a brother or sister to take it away. A discontented spirit cannot be soothed or satisfied by mere prosperity any more than a velvet shoe can cure the gout, a diamond tiara relieve a headache, or a bed of down quiet the restlessness of fever.

It becomes, through the softening influence of time, one of our dearest pleasures, and one of our strongest ties between surviving friends, to converse on past happy days, and to recall together the cherished image of those who once loved us, and prayed for us, and whose last hours it was our duty and our highest privilege to console.

Ah! till we share your joys, forgive our grief!

Remembrance is as natural and as dear to the old as hope is to the young; and though some may long to die, none would consent to forget those they once loved. Memory may cast a deeper shade over our moments of depression, and tame down the brightness of our joys, yet none would part with the cherished remembrance of

kind friends and happy days long since departed, which live now only in our own solitary recollection. We believe, however, and know that, as long as our thonghts are merely looking downwards among the confused wheels and turnings of second causes, we must be dissatisfied and miserable at whatever is adverse to our wishes; but if day by day we read onwards in the events of our own history, we shall gain increasing confidence from experience, that all its apparent disarrangement is deliberately appointed for a special purpose, even though the vanished anchor of hope be removed from this world to rest in another and a better.

Much discipline will make us ready and willing at last to go where our lost companions are waiting for us to join them, in that world which can scarcely seem strange or new when we know it to be peopled by so many whom we have seen and loved, all assembled together now, and never more to shed a farewell tear.

And if the dead on this dull world may gaze,
To breathe a blessing round our troubled ways;
If by some ministry, to man unknown,
They still can make a human wish their own,
And wander round, ineffably serene,

That unforgotten home, where life has been,
Spirit eternal! often gaze on me,

And soothe the pang that so remembers thee!
R. MONTGOMERY.

THE

CHAP. XIX.

SELF-INDULGENCE OF MAN TO BE

CORRECTED

BY THE DISCIPLINE FORCED UPON HIM AMIDST THE SORROWS OF LIFE.

Once in the flight of ages past

There liv'd a man and who was he?

- Mortal! howe'er thy lot be cast,
That man resembled thee.

Unknown the region of his birth,

The land in which he died unknown-
His name has perish'd from the earth
This truth survives alone-

He suffer'd - but his pangs are o'er ;
Enjoy'd- but his delights are fled;
Had friends-his friends are now no more;
And foes his foes are dead.

He saw whatever thou hast seen;

Encounter'd all that troubles thee;

He was

- whatever thou hast been; He is what thou shalt be.

MONTGOMERY.

THE most fervent prayer of Wesley always was, "Lord, let me not live to be useless," and

certainly if every man now leading an utterly useless life were suddenly to disappear, the population of this world would be exceedingly diminished; yet if we knew how to estimate our privileges, there is none in which God grants us a prerogative so nearly resembling his own as in the power and in the pleasure of doing good. How deeply, therefore, should we value every opportunity afforded us, and how anxiously should we often examine whether we are laying up for the day of judgment a bank of right feelings, or a treasure of wrath, and whether those with whom we associate are the better or the worse of our having lived amongst them.

The pious and excellent Archbishop Usher's last words were, "O Lord forgive me- especially my sins of omission." Such a prayer from such a man, should admonish us carefully to despatch every work that remains to be done on earth, considering the heavy weight it may be on our death-beds to remember one neglected duty. When a passenger, after he has embarked for a long voyage, and the ship is already under sail, remembers that he omitted to settle, before leaving the shore, some important affair, the shock to him must of course be great; but how much severer would it be in a dying moment, when least able to bear any agitating thought, if he were startled by recollecting that some action essential to his