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not knowing what to trust after so many disappointments, nor where to lay the fault-whether in the incapacity of his own nature, or the insufficiency of the enjoyments themselves.

XII.-ON THE APPROACHES OF DEATH.-Logan.

DEATH is called, in Scripture, the land without any order; and, without any order, the King of Terrors makes his approaches in the world. The commission given from on high, was, "Go into the world; strike!-strike so, that the dead may alarm the living!" Hence it is, that we seldom see men running the full career of life; growing old among their children's children, and then falling asleep in the arms of Nature, as in the embraces of a kind mother; coming to the grave like a shock of corn fully ripe, like flowers that shut up at the close of day. Death walks through the world without any order. He delights to surprise-to give a shock to mankind. Hence, he leaves the wretched to prolong the line of their sorrows, and cuts off the fortunate in the midst of their career: he suffers the aged to survive himself, to outlive life, to stalk about, the ghost of what he was; and he aims his arrow at the heart of the young, who puts the evil day far from him. He delights to see the feeble carrying the vigorous to the grave, and the father building the tomb of his children. Often, when his approaches are least expected, he bursts at once upon the world,-like an earthquake in the dead of night, or thunder in the serenest sky. All ages and conditions he sweeps away without distinction ;-the young man just entering into life, high in hope, elated with joy, and promising to himself a length of years; the father of a family, from the embraces of his wife and children; the man of the world, when his designs are ripening to execution, and the longexpected crisis of enjoyment seems to approach. These, and all others, are hurried promiscuously off the stage, and laid without order in the common grave. Every path in the world leads to the tomb, and every hour in life hath been to some the last hour.

Without order, too, is the manner of Death's approach. The King of Terrors wears a thousand forms. Pains and diseases a numerous and a direful train-compose his host. Marking out unhappy man for their prey, they attack the seat of life, or the seat of understanding; hurry him off the stage in an instant, or make him pine by slow degrees,-blasting the bloom of life, or waiting till the decline; according to the

pathetic picture of Solomon, "They make the strong men bow themselves, and the keepers of the house tremble; bring the daughters of music low; darken the sun, and the moon, and the stars; scatter fears in the way, and make desire itself to fail,-until the silver chord be loosed, and the golden bowl be broken; when the dust returns to the dust, and the spirit ascends to God who gave it."

Man was made after the image of God; and the human form divine-the seat of so many heavenly faculties, graces, and virtues-exhibits a temple not unworthy of its Maker. Men, in their collective capacity, and united as nations, have displayed a wide field of exertion and of glory. The globe hath been covered with monuments of their power, and the voice of history transmits their renown from one generation to another. But when we pass from the living world to the dead, what a sad picture do we behold!-the fall and desolation of human nature, the ruins of man, the dust and ashes of many generations scattered over the earth! The high and the low, the mighty and the mean, the king and the cottager, lie blended together without any order! A few feet of earth contain the ashes of him who conquered the globe; the shadows of the long night stretch over all alike: the Monarch of Disorder, the great leveller of mankind, lays all on the bed of clay in equal meanness! In the course of time the land of desolation becomes still more desolate; the things that were, become as if they had never been. Babylon is a ruin, her heroes are dust; not a trace remains of the glory that shone over the earth, and not a stone to tell where the master of the world is laid! Such, in general, is the humiliating aspect of the tomb; but let us take a nearer view of the house appointed for all living.

Man sets out in the morning of his day, high in hope, and elated with joy. The most important objects to him, are the companions of his journey. They set out together in the career of life, and, after many mutual endearments, walk hand in hand through the paths of childhood and of youth. It is with a giddy recollection we look back on the past, when we consider the number and nature of those, whom unforeseen disaster and the hand of destiny have swept from our side. The friends whom we knew, and valued, and loved; our companions in the path of life; the partners of our tender hours, with whom we took sweet counsel, and walked in company to the house of God,-have passed to the land of forgetfulness, and have no more connexion with the living world.

Low lies the head that was once crowned with honour. Silent is the tongue to whose accents we surrendered up the soul, and to whose language of friendship and affection we wished to listen for ever. Beamless is the eye, and closed in night, which looked serenity, and sweetness, and love. The face that was to us as the face of an angel, is mangled and deformed. The heart that glowed with the purest fire, and beat with the best affections, is now become a clod of the valley.

But shall it always be so? If a man die, shall he live again? Have the wise and the worthy, the pious and the pure, the generous and the just, the great and the good; the excellent ones of the earth, who, from age to age, have shone brighter than the stars of heaven,-withdrawn into the shade of annihilation, and set in darkness to rise no more? No:-while the dust returns to the earth as it was, the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

XIII. THE MOST EXTENSIVE WEALTH NOT PRODUCTIVE OF

ENJOYMENT.-Jeremy Taylor.

SUPPOSE a man gets all the world, what is it that he gets? It is a bubble and a phantasm, and hath no reality beyond a present transient use; a thing that is impossible to be enjoyed, because its fruits and usages are transmitted to us by parts and by succession. He that hath all the world (if we can suppose such a man) cannot have a dish of fresh summer fruits in the midst of winter, not so much as a green fig: and very much of its possessions is so hid, so fugacious, and of so uncertain purchase, that it is like the riches of the sea to the lord of the shore; all the fish and wealth within all its hollownesses are his, but he is never the better for what he cannot get; all the shell-fishes that produce pearls, produce them not for him; and the bowels of the earth hide her treasures in undiscovered retirements; so that it will signify as much to this great proprietor, to be entitled to an inheritance in the upper region of the air: he is so far from possessing all its riches, that he does not so much as know of them, nor understand the philosophy of its minerals.

I consider that he who is the greatest possessor in the world enjoys its best and most noble parts, and those which are of most excellent perfection, but in common with the inferior persons, and the most despicable of his kingdom. Can the greatest prince enclose the sun, and set one little star in his

cabinet for his own use, or secure to himself the gentle and benign influence of any one constellation? Are not his subjects' fields bedewed with the same showers that water his gardens of pleasure?

Nay, those things which he esteems his ornament and the singularity of his possessions, are they not of more use to others than to himself? For suppose his garments splendid and shining, like the robe of a cherub, or the clothing of the fields-all that he that wears them enjoys, is, that they keep him warm, and clean, and modest: and all this is done by clean and less pompous vestments; and the beauty of them which distinguishes him from others, is made to please the eyes of the beholders: the fairest face or the sparkling eye cannot perceive or enjoy its own beauties, but by reflection. It is I that am pleased with beholding his gayety; and the gay man, in his greatest bravery, is only pleased because I am pleased with the sight: so borrowing his little and imaginary complacency from the delight that I have, not from any inherency in his own possession.

The poorest artisan of Rome, walking in Cæsar's gardens, had the same pleasures which they ministered to their lord; and although, it may be, he was put to gather fruits to eat from another place, yet his other senses were delighted equally with Cæsar's; the birds made him as good music, the flowers gave him as sweet smells; he there sucked as good air, and delighted in the beauty and order of the place, for the same reason, and upon the same perception, as the prince himself;save only that Cæsar paid, for all that pleasure, vast sums of money, the blood and treasure of a province-which the poor man had for nothing.

And so it is if the whole world should be given to any man. He knows not what to do with it; he can use no more but according to the capacities of a man; he can use nothing but meat, and drink, and clothes. He to whom the world can be given to any purpose greater than a private estate can minister, must have new capacities created in him : he needs the understanding of an angel to take the accounts of his estate; he had need have a stomach like fire or the grave, for else he can eat no more than one of his healthful subjects; and unless he hath an eye like the sun, and a motion like that of a thought, and a bulk as big as one of the orbs of heaven, the pleasures of his eye can be no greater than to behold the beauty of a little prospect from a hill, or to look upon a heap of gold packed up in a little room, or to dote upon a cabinet of jewels;

better than which, there is no man that sees at all, but sees every day. For, not to name the beauties and sparkling diamonds of heaven, a man's, or a woman's, or a hawk's eye, is more beauteous and excellent than all the jewels of his crown. Understanding and knowledge are the greatest instruments of pleasure; and he that is most knowing, hath a capacity to become happy, which a less knowing prince, or a rich person, hath not; and in this only a man's capacity is capable of enlargement. But, then, although they only have power to relish any pleasure rightly who rightly understand the nature, and degrees, and essences, and ends of things; yet they that do so, understand also the vanity and unsatisfyingness of the things of this world: so that the relish, which could not be great but in a great understanding, appears contemptible, because its vanity appears at the same time: the understanding sees all, and sees through it.

XIV.—CHRISTIAN LOVE.—Archbishop Whately.

NECESSARILY associated with the exercise of universal love, will be the other virtues, graces, and endowments of the Christian character;-all blending into a soft and harmonious combination, and all flowing forth as so many streams, from that spring of living waters which the Divine Spirit has opened in the heart. There, joy, mingled with gratitude and elevated by hope, arising in part from the consideration of miseries escaped, and in part from the anticipation of felicities to be enjoyed from a sense of the privileges now possessed, and of the blessedness still in reserve, triumphs as in its natural element. There, peace, meek, gentle, and serene, resulting from the subjugation of the appetites and passions, from the banishment of vain and irregular desires, from a soothing persuasion of being in a state of reconciliation with God, through the death and righteousness of his Son,-diffuses a calm and delightful composure through all the powers of the soul. There, forbearance under every species of provocation, resignation to the divine will, under the most, trying dispensations of Providence, and amidst the most afflictive scenes of human life, will check the first risings of anger, and silence the voice of complaint. There, faith, in all the variety of its operations, will act with energy and vigour, reposing an unhesitating trust in all the declarations of Jehovahconfiding, with unshaken reliance, in the meritorious life and

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