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through varieties of fortune. He has experienced profperity, and adverfity. He has feen families and kindreds rife and fall. He has feen peace and war fucceeding in their turns; the face of his country undergoing many alterations; and the very city in which he dwelt rifing, in a manner, new around him, After all he has beheld, his eyes are now closed for ever. He was becoming a stranger in the midst of a new fucceffion of men. A race who knew him not, had arifen to fill the earth. Thus paffes the world away. Throughout all ranks and conditions, "one generation paffeth, and another generation cometh ;' and this great inn is by turns evacuated, and replenished, by troops of fucceeding pilgrims. O vain and inconftant world! O fleeting and tranfient life! When will the fons of men learn to think of thee as they ought? When will they learn humanity from the afflictions of their brethren; or moderation and wisdom, from the fenfe of their own fugitive ftate,

SECTION V.

BLAIR

EXALTED SOGIETT, AND THE RENEWAL OF VIRTUOUS CONNECTIONS, TWO

SOURCES OF FUTURE FELICITY,

32

BESIDES the felicity which fprings from perfect love, there are two circumftances which particularly enhance the bleffednefs of that "multitude who ftand before the throne;" thefe are, access to the most exalted fociety, and renewal of the most tender connections. The former is pointed out in the Scripture, by "joining the innumerable company of angels, and the general affembly and church of the firstborn; by fitting down with Abraham, and Ifaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven;" a promife which opens the fublimeft profpects to the human mind. It allows good men to entertain the hope, that, feparated from all the dregs of the human mass, from that mixed and polluted crowd in the midst of which they now dwell, they fhall be permitted to mingle with prophets, patriarchs, and apoftles, with all thofe great and illuftrious pirits, who have fhone in former ages as the fervants of God, or the benefactors of men; whofe deeds we are accustomed to celebrate; whose steps we now follow at a distance; and whofe names we pronounce with veneration. United to this high affembly, the bleffed, at the fame

time, renew thofe ancient connections with virtuous friends, which had been diffolved by death. The profpect of this awakens in the heart, the moft pleafing and tender fentiment that perhaps can fill it, in this mortal state. For of all the forrows which we are here doomed to endure, none is fo bitter as that occafioned by the fatal ftroke which feparates us, in appearance for ever, from thofe to whom either nature or friendship had intimately joined our hearts. Memory, from time to time, renews the anguish; opens the wound which feemed once to have been clofed; and, by recalling joys that are paft and gone, touches every fpring of painful fenfibility. In thefe agonizing moments, how relieving the thought, that the feparation is only temporary, not eternal; that there is a time to come of reunion with thofe with whom our happiest days were fpent; whofe joys and forrows once were ours; whofe piety and virtue cheered and encouraged us; and from whom, after we shall have landed on the peaceful thore where they dwell, no revolutions of nature shall ever be able to part us more? Such is the fociety of the bleffed above. Of fuch are the multitude compofed, who "ftand before the throne."

BLAIR.

SECTION VI

THE CLEMENCY AND AMIABLE CHARACTER OF THE PATRIARCH JOSEPH. No human character exhibited in the records of Scripture, is more remarkable or intructive than that of the patriarch Jofeph. He is one whom we behold tried in all the viciffitudes of fortune; from the condition of a flave, rifing to be ruler of the land of Egypt; and in every ftation acquiring, by his virtue and wifdom, favour with God and man. When overfeer of Potiphar's houfe, his fidelity was proved by ftrong temptations, which he honourably refifted. When thrown into prifon by the artifice of a falfe woman, his integrity and prudence foon rendered him confpicuous, even in that dark manfion. When called into the prefence of Pharaoh, the wife and extensive plan which he formed for faving the kingdom from the miferies of impending famine, justly raised him to a high flation, wherein his abilities were eminently displayed in the public fervice. in his whole hiftory, there is no circumitance fo ftriking and interefting, as his behaviour to his brethren who had fid

But

him into flavery. The moment in which he made himself known to them, was the most critical one of his life, and the most decifive of his character. It is fuch as rarely occurs in the courfe of human events; and is calculated to draw the highest attention of all who are endowed with any degree of fenfibility of heart.

From the whole tenor of the narration it appears, that though Jofeph, upon the arrival of his brethren in Egypt, made himfelf ftrange to them, yet from the beginning he intended to discover himself; and studied fo to conduct the difcovery, as might render the furprife of joy, complete. For this end, by affected feverity, he took meafures for bringing down into Egypt all his father's children. They were now arrived there; and Benjamin among the reft, who was his younger brother by the fame mother, and was particularly beloved by Jofeph. Him he threatened to detain; and feemed willing to allow the reft to depart. This incident renewed their diftrefs. They all knew their father's extreme anxiety about the fafety of Benjamin, and with what difficulty he had yielded to his undertaking this journey. Should he be prevented from returning, they dreaded that grief would overpower the old man's fpirits, and prove fatal to his life. Judah, therefore, who had particularly urged the neceflity of Benjamin's accompanying his brothers, and had folemnly pledged himfelf to their father for his fafe return, craved, upon this occafion, an audience of the governor; and gave him a full account of the circumflances of Jacob's family.

Nothing can be more interelling and pathetic than this difcourfe of Judah. Little knowing to whom he spoke, he paints in all the colours of fimple and natural eloquence, the diftreifed fituation of the aged patriarch, haftening to the clofe of life long aflicted for the lofs of a favourite fon, whom he fuppofed to have been torn in pieces by a beail of prey; labouring now under anxious concern about his youngest fon, the child of his old age, who alone was Jeft alive of his mother, and whom nothing but the calamities of fevere famine could have moved a tender father to fend from home, and expofe to the dangers of a foreign land. "If we bring him not back with us, we fall bring down the gray hairs of thy fervant, our father, with forrow, the grave. I pray thee therefore let thy fervant abide,

inftead of the young man, a bondman to our lord. For how fhall I go up to my father, and Benjamin not with me? left I fee the evil that fhall come on my father."

Upon this relation Jofeph could no longer restrain himfelf. The tender ideas on his father and his father's house, of his ancient home, his country and his kindred, of the diftrefs of his family, and his own exaltation, all rushed too ftrongly upon his mind to bear any farther concealment. "He cried, Caufe every man to go out from me; and he wept aloud." The tears which he fhed were not the tears of grief. They were the burft of affection. They were the effufions of a heart overflowing with all the tender fenfibilities of nature. Formerly he had been moved in the fame manner, when he firft faw his brethren before him. "His bowels yearned upon them; he fought for a place where to weep. He went into his chamber; and then washed his face and returned to them." At that period his generous plans were not completed. But now, when there was no farther occafion for conftraining himself, he gave free vent to the ftrong emotions of his heart. The first minister to the king of Egypt was not ashamed to fhow, that he felt as a man, and a brother.. "He wept aloud; and the Egyptians, and the house of Pharaoh, heard him.”

The first words which his fwelling heart allowed him to pronounce, are the most fuitable to fuch an affecting fituarion that were ever uttered; "I am Jofeph; doth my father yet live?" What could he, what ought he, in that impaffionate moment, to have faid more? This is the voice of nature herfelf, fpeaking her own language; and it penetrates the heart: no pomp of expreffion; no parade of kindnefs; but ftrong affection haftening to utter what it strongly felt. "His brethren could not anfwer him; for they were troubled at his prefence." Their filence is as expreffive of thofe emotions of repentance and fhame, which, on this amazing difeovery, filled their breafts, and topped their utterance, as the few words which Jofeph fpeaks, are expreffive of the generous agitations which ftruggled for vent within him. No painter could feize a more friking moment for duplaying the characteristical features of the hu man heart, than what is here prefented. Never was there a fituation of more tender and virtuous joy, on the one hand; nor, on the other, of more overwhelming confufion and con

fcious guilt. In the fimple narration of the facred historian, it is fet before us with greater energy and higher effect, than if it had been wrought up with all the colouring of the most admired modern eloquence.

SECTION VII.

ALTAMONT

BLAIR.

The following account of an affecting, mournful exit, is related by Dr. Young, who was prefent at the melancholy feene.

THE fad evening before the death of the noble youth, whose last hours fuggefted the molt folemn and awful reflections, I was with him. No one was prefent, but his phyfician, and an intimate whom he loved, and whom he had ruined. At my coming in, he faid, "You and the phyfician are come too late. I have neither life nor hope. You both aim at miracles. You would raise the dead!" Heaven, I faid was merciful, "Or," exclaimed he ; "I could not have been thus guilty. What has it not done to bless, and to fave me! I have been too ftrong for Omnipotence ! I have plucked down ruin." I faid, the bleffed Redeemer; "Hold! hold you wound me! That is the rock on which I fplit: I denied his name!"

Refufing to hear any thing from me, or to take any thing from the phyfician, he lay filent, as far as fudden darts of pain would permit, till the clock ftruck: Then with vehemence he exclaimed; “Oh! time! time! it is fit thou fhouldft thus ftrike thy murderer to the heart! How art thou fled for ever! A month! Oh for a fingle week! I ask not for years; though an age were too little for the much I have to do." On my faying, we could not do too much : that heaven was a bleffed place, "So much the worse. 'Tis loft! 'tis loft! Heaven is to me the feverest part of hell!"

Soon after, I propofed prayer; 66 Pray you that can. I never prayed. I cannot pray, nor need I. Is not Heaven on my fide already? It clofes with my confcience. Its fevereft ftrokes but fecond my own." Obferving that his friend was much touched at this, even to tears, (who could forbear? I could not) with a most affectionate look, he faid, Keep thofe tears for thyfelf. I have undone thee. Doft thou weep for me? that is cruel. What can pain me more ?" Here his friend, too much affected, would have left

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