ties of kindred, which bind soul to soul, to be reduced to nothing-to be deemed of no greater value than "the grass on the house-top, which is withered before it be plucked up, or the dust of the earth, which is trodden under foot of men?' In such a frame of mind, contemplate, O mortal! the pale and breathless form of some one of these beloved objects, whose eye beamed lately on thee its last look of unutterable affection; whose feverish hand pressed thine, with the last effort of expiring strength; whose tongue, cleaving to the roof of the mouth with parching thirst, was unable to utter its last blessing on thee, or to ratify one of the endless unexpressed tokens of attachment, which multiplied the more, the longer human life was protracted:-view such a dear object, upon whom the awful change of death has passed-now motionless and mute, extended before thee-view it, in the uncheered, unenlightened state of mind hitherto represented, and learn how to feel for those "who walked in darkness, and had no

light;" on whom shone no ray of spiritual hope from above, when the shades of the inevitable night of death fell heavily around them, and closed upon the agonized heart every prospect, every expectation of social endearing intercourse in the eternal silence of the tomb!But, "Behold! I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, or remain dead for ever. We shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible; and we shall be changed. For this corruptible shall put on incorruption; and this mortal shall put on immortality. So, when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, "Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death! where is thy sting? O Grave! where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law: but thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory, through our

Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord; forasmuch as ye know, that your labour is not in vain in the Lord."

SECTION II.

Regarding death, as visiting the abodes of mankind, with no other light to cheer them than what they could derive from the book of nature, the reflections which arose from such a view as hitherto has been taken of the subject, were, necessarily, for the most part, of a melancholy kind.

Passing from them to the consolatory words of St. Paul, with which the preceding Section was closed, we seemed as if entering suddenly from a desolate wilderness into the Garden of Eden; from a land of darkness into a region of light.

The burst of exclamation, as a solemn

call of the hearer to something wonderful, at the opening of the passage, is not more grand than beautiful and just. "Behold! I show you a inystery." And if it were possible to divest our minds, for a moment, of all recollection of gospel-knowledge, of all the exceeding great and precious truths, which, by imperceptible degrees, have familiarized the soul, with a view and promise of its high destination and eternal inheritance, we should be enabled to form an adequate idea of Gentile wretchedness, and learn duly to appreciate the glorious Revelation of the Son of God: otherwise it is as impossible to do this, as it is for a man, who has "fared sumptuously every day," to form an accurate conception of the sufferings of a fellow-creature, whose life, after being a series of bitter privation, was terminated by the tortures of famine. Supposing ourselves circumstanced, as the bereaved mourner was depicted, towards the end of the last section, we should hail the information, given by St. Paul, with unspeakable

rapture. Hearing (as truly it is) "a voice from heaven, saying unto us, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord," we should "comfort one another with these words," and no longer sorrow as those who have no hope.

But is the comfort, offered in the gospel, commensurate with the grief that is occasioned by the death of christian friends and kindred? Does it satisfy the heart, well-nigh broken, that what it laments "is not lost, but only gone before," gone to a state of felicity? Yes; at least, concerning the Spirit-the better part of such lamented object, Divine Revelation does furnish grounds of evidence, sufficiently strong to convince us, that the soul dies not with the body, but passes into a new and bright region of happiness. Were the passage from the Book of Ecclesiastes, cited in the preceding section, the only authority in Scripture, affirming the truth of this consoling doctrine, it ought, as was before observed, to be deemed conculsive.

Opposing the noxious and cheerless