Capacities of the Soul after Death,

Natural Consciousness of a Life after Death,

Heathen Traditions of Life after Death,

Natural Prospect of Death,

Circumstances of the Death of Christ,

Design of the Death of Christ,

Change in Death through the Death of Christ,

Christian Prospect of Death,

Providences in Christian Death,

Removal of the Fear of Death,

Conversion on the Bed of Death,

237

242

Diversity in Christian Death, from Difference in Belief,

Diversity in Christian Death, from Temperament and Disease, 251

State of the Just after Death,

Paradise between Death and the Resurrection,

Resurrection of Christ,

Resurrection of Man in Christ,

Body of Christ after his Resurrection,

258

261

265

267

272

276

Interval before the Final Resurrection,

Promise of the Resurrection,

Body of the Resurrection,

Death of Death,

The Second Death,

Eternal Life,

PROEM.

TIRED with the sultry noonday toil,
I laid me on the grassy soil,

Where stately o'er my head,

An oak's broad branches, with the sound Of winds on distant errand bound,

Their fanning coolness spread,

And, glistening through them, far on high,
The summer sun went down the sky.
The strange, low notes that nature blends,
Like soothing words of ancient friends,
Came gently on my soul:

A child once more, I heard the bee,
The bird, the wind, the whispering tree,
And that unearthly harmony

O'er all my senses stole ;

Till, stretched along the hillock's side,
I dreamed, and in my dream I died.

With one short moment's bursting strife,

My spirit upward sprung;

But on the verge of either life

Yet one short moment hung:

Above the dead I seemed to bow,

I seemed to touch the clay-cold brow,
And close the fading eye,

And still the murmuring branches stirred,

And, soaring still, the forest bird

Sent out its joyous cry.

But these were like the scenes of night,
While I awoke, and bathed in light
That round me far unveiled to sight
A world all dim before:

And life, as if an inward fount,

O'erflowed me and upbore,

As on light plumes of love to mount,
And journey and adore.

I was as one who on the main,

Has caught and lost a landward strain,

That came, and broke, and came again,
Mid the hoarse billows' roar,

But near as now his vessel floats,

Sound matched with sound, the choral notes

Pour warbling from the shore:

So all which e'er to joy or prayer

Had moved my grateful heart,

Seemed in one glorious hymn to bear

Its own melodious part.

The solemn voice of woods and streams;
The song of evening's fading beams;
The ocean's swell and fall;

And this fair chain of living things,
From glittering clouds of insect wings,
To nations rallying round their kings;
As from ten thousand thousand strings,
One music spread from all:
A strain of glory, heard above;
And heard on earth, a strain of love.

But oh, with what a bounding thrill
I felt the airs that never chill,

The strength that knows not years!
No cloud in all the heaven's sweet blue;
No more of doubt, where all was true;
No death, to close the longing view;
No dream of future tears!

The way was passed; and I could stand,

As if on Jordan's farther strand;
As if, the palm-branch in my hand,
The chaplet on my brow,

A wanderer resting at his home,
A pilgrim at the holy dome,
To Zion's mountain I were come
Eternity was now!

Oh joy, beneath the gathered sail,
To hear from far the howling gale,
And feel the haven won!

Oh joy, along the well-fought field,
To see the conqueror's spear and shield
Give back the setting sun!

All, all was mine, and battle's din,
And the wild sea of grief and sin,
No more with morn should yet begin;
For all their work was done.

I praised the Spirit's sevenfold flame, That now from all my spirit's frame, With might that last in death o'ercame, Had melted all its dross.

"And now, O Lord of life," I cried,

"Around me spread, unknown and wide Thy ways, a pathless sea;

But thy dear love till now is tried,

And I will go where Thou wilt guide,

And where Thou art I dare abide,

For ever safe in Thee!"