being has trusted, shall be involved in one universal wreck; and how are the grandest, noblest, and boldest conceptions of our diminutive minds lost and overwhelmed in the conception of that eternity which shall follow! No plummet can fathom its depth, no measure can grasp its dimensions, and the small atom of understanding given to man cannot fully take in the idea.

As he who would be drowned in attempting to ford a river may nevertheless be refreshed by tasting it at the brink, thus the wonders of eternity, which cannot be fully comprehended by mortal man, are yet a most salutary subject of contemplation, for the mind expands while it loses itself in the infinity of thought. The imagination itself, that power which darts from earth to heaven, from the present to the future, which creates a world for itself, and which delights in its own most expansive flights even the imagination falls back stunned and exhausted by the attempt to compass so vast a prospect as eternity. Arithmeticians can compute the utmost limits of time, and astronomers calculate the uttermost verge of the planetary system, but what numbers can express the length of eternity? When ages, countless as the leaves of autumn, or the rain-drops of winter, shall have elapsed, eternity is only beginning!

After the curtain of time has dropped we must

expect to behold the dissolution of all earthly ́things, the burial of nature, the graves opening, the sea giving up her dead, and assembling nations crowding from every side, the heavens departing like a scroll, and our divine Saviour himself, surrounded by ten thousand times ten thousand angels, before whom and the collected world, every thought and action of our past lives shall be openly disclosed. Does it not appear like a dream, to each individual who deliberately considers the subject, that in such a scene we are ourselves to be present; that from such a scene we cannot escape; and that then we may call in vain for the mountains to fall on us, or for the hills to cover us from the wrath of an offended God, unless shielded by the mercy and intercession of a trusted Saviour?

When rising from the bed of death,
O'erwhelm'd with guilt and fear,

I see my Maker face to face,

Oh! how shall I appear?

But never shall my soul despair

Of mercy at thy throne,

Who knows thine only Son has died,

Thy justice to atone.

ADDISON.

If our motives, as well as our actions, could ill stand the scrutiny of even our most partial friends, how shall they on that occasion be esti

mated? What would then signify the pains and sufferings of a previous life, if the discipline of temporary sorrow turns out to have been our necessary preparation for that land where sorrow is unknown?

Archbishop Leighton used often to say, that he had a good hope for eternity, and a great desire to see what was doing on the other side, being heartily satiated with this world. If all who are tired of their present lives, and even weary of their own happiness, were as ready as Leighton for another existence, there would indeed be many awaiting a happy exchange; and how earnestly should all such seek for that elevated tone of mind which shall fit them to take their part in the heavenly choir! The whole creation seems designed as it were for a musical instrument of as many strings as there are beings in heaven and on earth. Let the Christian, therefore, make haste to get his own heart in tune, lest, when the heavens rejoice, and the earth is glad, his own note of joy and praise be wanting.

The day of wrath - that dreadful day,

When heaven and earth shall pass away,
What power shall be the sinner's stay?
Whom shall he trust that dreadful day?

When shrivelling like a parched scroll,
The blazing heav'ns together roll;

When, louder yet, and yet more dread,

Swells the high trump that wakes the dead?

Oh! on that day, that wrathful day,
When man to judgment wakes from clay,
Be thou the trembling sinner's stay,
Though heaven and earth shall pass away.

SCOTT.

CHAP. XXIV.

THE FEAR OF DEATH ALLEVIATED OR REMOVED BY FAITH IN CHRIST.

And perhaps in the portal the glorified band

Of kindred and friends long removed from thy sight, Breathing welcome and bliss, around thee will stand, Array'd in their garments of heavenly light.

Transporting re-union! bright meed of all those

Who on earth bow'd in meekness and faith to the rod, Still thankful alike, if the thorn or the rose

Was strew'd on the pathway that led them to God.

She has knock'd! she has enter'd! bless'd Spirit, farewell!
We rejoice in thy bliss, though our loss we deplore;
It is joy that thou art where the bless'd ones dwell;
But oh! it is grief we behold thee no more!

MRS. OPIE.

THE late Mrs. Hemans, in her last illness, declared that "no poetry could express, nor imagination conceive, the visions of blessedness that flitted across her fancy, and made her waking hours more delightful than those given to temporary repose. Her spirit appeared already half etherialised, her mind seemed fraught with deep and holy and incommunicable thoughts, and she