Yet a little while therefore are we required to wait, till we can behold those objects and those beings on whom, next to God, it is right that our hearts should be set. The interval will not be too long for the trial of our faith, and the preparation of all our virtues; not too long to prepare us for the blessedness of a future life; nay, it may not be found too long to prepare us to die, as the Christian should die. To meet the last hour calmly, to resign all the objects which our senses have made familiar and dear, in the lofty expectation of better things for the mind, is itself a great act of faith, and one for which many days' reflection and experience may not be too much to prepare us. To take our last look at the countenances of beloved friends and companions; to close our eyes to the bright vision of nature; to bid adieu to earth, sky, waters; to feel, for the last time, the thrill of rapture with which this fair and glorious scene of things has so often touched the soul-this is an hour for faith unshaken

in the immortality of virtue, and for trust unbounded in the love of God, and for the triumphant assurance which long tried and lofty experience alone can give. The feelings of the infidel Rousseau have seemed to us thus far natural, and such as even a Christian may entertain. When he apprehended that his last hour drew near, he desired the windows of his apartment to be opened, that he might “have the pleasure," as he said, "of beholding nature once more. How lovely she is!" he exclaimed; "how pure and serene is the day! O Nature! thou art grand indeed!" Yet not as Rousseau died does the Christian die; but with a better trust.

And with that trust, with a firm confidence in the perpetuity of all pious and virtuous friendships, there is much, surely, to mitigate the pain of a temporary separation. Let us remember, too, that we do submit to frequent separations in this life, that our friends wander from us over trackless waters and to far distant continents, and that we are still happy in the

assurance that they live. And though, by the same providence of God that has guarded them here, they are called to pass beyond the visible precincts of this present existence, let us feel that they still live. God's universe is not explored when we have surveyed islands, and oceans, and the shores of earth's spreading continents. There are other regions, where the footsteps of the happy and immortal are treading the paths of life. Would we call them back to these abodes of infirmity and sin? Would we involve them again in these toils, and pains, and temptations? Or shall we sorrow for them as those who have no hope? No; we would rather go and die with them. What do we say? We will rather go and live with them forever!

But, the awful entrance to the world of spirits-may still be our exclamation— how dark and desolate is that passage! It is a fearful thing to die. Nature abhors dissolution.

Let something of this be admitted, but

let it not be too much. Does nature abhor dissolution? Behold the signs of decay and dissolution which the season now spreads around us. Behold nature in her annual death-the precursor of renovated life. But we will not argue from emblems. We will admit that a living being must naturally dread to part with life. But he dreads to part with life, only in a greater measure, as he dreads to part with every thing that is his. He is averse to the loss of property, and in some instances almost as much so as to the loss of life itself. He is reluctant to part with any one of his senses; and this reluctance, compared with the natural dread of death, is in full proportion to the value of that organ. Let us rationally look at the subject in this light. Doubtless we dread the loss of the sense of hearing, for instance; and, when that is entirely gone from us, hearing is dead. We dread the loss of sight; and, that light extinguished, seeing is dead. Thus one faculty after another departs from us, and

death is at work within us, while we say that we are in the midst of life. So let us regard it. So let us familiarize to our minds the thoughts of death, and feel that this dreaded enemy, dreaded partly because imagined to be so distant and unknown, has already made its lodgment in our frame, and by familiar processes is approaching the citadel of life. As disease is making its inroads upon us and the system is wearing out, as the acuteness of sensation is failing us, and the vigor of bone and muscle is declining, let us say and feel, that we are gradually approaching the extinction of this animal life. Let no sceptic doubts, let no thoughts of annihilation mingle with our apprehensions of mortality; let us believe as Christians, that not the soul, but only the body dies and death cannot be that dread and abhorrence of nature which we make it.

We would dwell upon this point a moment longer-the natural dread of death. It seems to us strange, it seems as if all were wrong, in a world, where from the