ed the hours of sickness and pain, and who with so many prayers and tears daily approached God's mercy-seat for your health, happiness, improvement and salvation;—tell me for what you would exchange the thrilling hope, that they rest in peace with that divine Father, who cares for them with even more tenderness than they cared for you. Christian! when the bosom friend has been snatched from your side, the friend with whom you took sweet counsel and with whom you walked to the house of God, whose sentiments and sympathies were all yours, whose interests were indissolubly associated with your own; when you have heard the last affectionate farewell, and taken the last look, and caught the last beam of kindness which shot from his closing eyes;-say for what would you exchange the transporting hope of a reunion in purer friendship in a better world.

Christians! (I speak not to the aged only, but to those, who have just passed the morning of life,) when you remark around

you the many vacancies which death has made among those whom you loved and valued, when you see how many of the aged and venerable and deep-rooted trees have been upturned, and how many of the fairest opening blossoms nipped, how many in their meridian have been suddenly cut down with the unripe and ungathered fruit hanging thick about them, when you have so often seen death trampling with indifference on the pride and boast of genius, wit and learning, and piercing with his fatal arrow the thickest shield and panoply of virtue, and desolating the fairest scenes of human happiness, usefulness and promise; tell me have you never felt the infinite value of that hope, which does not permit you to think of them as lost; but which commands you to take a wider prospect of the ways and purposes of God, and remark that some are but transplanted to a more genial soil and clime, there to strike a more vigorous root, to put forth fairer blossoms, and to pour out a sweeter fragrance, and

a richer harvest; and that wisdom, benevolence, usefulness, integrity, and piety shall never want scope, and opportunity for exercise, improvement, and progress, so long as the greatest and best of Beings. holds the throne of the universe.

GOD OUR FATHER.

Is there a lone and dreary hour,
When worldly pleasures lose their power?
Father! let me turn to thee,

And set each thought of darkness free.

Is there a time of rushing grief,
Which scorns the prospect of relief?
My Father! break the cheerless gloom,
And bid my heart its calm resume.

Is there an hour of peace and joy,
When hope is all my soul's employ?
My Father! still my hopes will roam,
Until they rest with thee, their home.

The noon-tide blaze, the midnight scene,
The dawn, or twilight's sweet serene,
The glow of life, the dying hour,

Shall own my Father's grace and power.