come forward in another form before an admiring public, so prepared to welcome his return. Very recently, however, a paragraph appeared in "The Times " newspaper, announcing the author's premature death; to which intimation the following most touching notice was added: "Compelled by illness to abandon in the prime of life, both the pursuits of literature and the practice of his profession, he found compensation in the Christian meditations and hopes which cheered a long period of bodily affliction."

Who would not desire such a life, if terminated by such an end! A few conflicts, trials, and sufferings, overcome, that enlightened and grateful Christian having passed along the stream of mortality, has entered with confidence and hope on his rest. Eternal rest is not as many are apt to imagine, a rest like that of a stone at the bottom of a well, but a rest of conscious enjoyment, the very life of life; during which the redeemed Christian anticipates a state of continued moral and intellectual advancement, all his high-born feelings and faculties being continued in ceaseless existence, and being advanced in continual progress towards perfection. Scott, the commentator, in the last hour of his earthly life, still retained his consciousness with so much vividness, that aware how rapidly he was going onwards

12th chapter of Isaiah, and these were his final words:"This is heaven begun! I have done with darkness for ever-for ever Satan is vanquished. Nothing now remains but salvation with eternal glory."

Such good and useful men would not be taken out of this world unless a happier state awaited them; but even to the most favoured Christians death should be a subject of awe, and ought to be considered, clearly and distinctly, as a penalty of transgression — a penalty most deservedly incurred, and therefore to be patiently endured, not with the triumphant feeling as if we had ourselves conquered its terrors, but with the meek and grateful submission of those who know that they are saved by the merits of another.

When a late venerable, and most distinguished clergyman in Edinburgh was expiring, he made a last effort to have himself supported in bed; and though he had been for some years blind, he himself administered the sacrament to all his surrounding family, as a dying testimony that his only hope of salvation was derived from the intercession of Christ, and as an earnest of his confident expectation, that their next meeting would be in the presence of him who had died for them. Thus, we also must retain to our latest breath, the impressive consciousness that we die because we are sinners pardoned sinners; but still, as our

very virtues are so imperfect that they require a pardon, let no man hide from himself that he dies a sacrifice to his own actual guilt. Nevertheless, every well-instructed Christian turns with tears of honest repentance, but with perfect confidence, his last expiring hope to the cross of Christ, as confident of its shedding mercy on his soul, as he would be of deriving heat from the fire, or light from the sun.

"I shall be judged this night!" were the expiring words of a very young girl, called suddenly — almost instantaneously into eternity; and prepared, as she was, the impressiveness of such an exclamation nevertheless overawed all around, for the more any one reflects on the solemnity of so hurried a summons, the more ardently grateful must he feel, that in a scene, which unassisted nature could not sustain, God promises to the Christian ample courage and special support, a rod and a staff, stronger than death itself, to take them safely through the dark valley, and shield them from its dangers.

A singular and interesting circumstance, connected with such an entire confidence in our Redeemer's merits, occurred lately during the trial of a soldier at Piershill barracks, for murdering in a paroxysm of passion one of his comrades. When proceeding after his arrest to the court of

quitted, that scarcely one anxious thought had crossed the criminal's mind; but a well meaning Christian spectator, not perhaps anticipating any peculiar effect from doing so, addressed him in these words, slowly and solemnly uttered, "You will never find peace, till you seek it from God, through Jesus Christ." That short sentence took a strong grasp of the unhappy prisoner's attention; and when he most unexpectedly found himself convicted and condemned, it immediately recurred to his mind with almost unaccountable pertinacity. He afterwards told that most exemplary clergyman, Dr. Hunter, who visited him, that being resolved to evade all reflection or repentance, he attempted to banish those words from his memory, by occupying himself the whole subsequent night in contriving the most fearful oaths and blasphemous expressions that he could invent, working himself into a paroxysm which almost amounted to madness; but still, clearly and distinctly above all the storm he could raise, that single sentence shone in upon his mind like a star to guide him aright. He could not get rid of the words; therefore, at length he yielded to the strong impulse of his mind, and sat down to reflect on their import. To that reflection succeeded prayers, tears, and remorse; after which he, who had never before learned to read, asked to be taught. He now studied so hard, that in

a few weeks the anxious pupil could with difficulty spell over one or two chapters of the Bible. He listened with grateful attention to the exhortations of his assiduous admonitor Dr. Hunter, and when, some time afterwards, that soldier suffered on the scaffold for his crime, he gratefully declared that he had indeed found peace, by seeking it from God, through Jesus Christ.

No one held that opinion of our entire dependance on a crucified Saviour with more enlightened faith, or more exemplary virtue, than our own venerable monarch George III., who considered the mercy of Christ as a legacy to man, of which he was bound to be an executor whenever an occasion offered to administer its benefit. When that pious prince was about to lose his favourite daughter, the much lamented Princess Amelia, he one day said to her, with touching earnestness, "You have ever been a good child to your parents: we have nothing for which to reproach you; but I need not tell you that it is not of yourself alone that you can be saved, and that your acceptance with God must depend on your faith and trust in the merits of the Redeemer." "I know it," replied the dying princess, with gentle resignation, "and I could not wish for a better trust."

Such is the ark in which we must seek a safe refuge during that period when all else to which we could have trusted, or in which any living

X