There is something in death peculiarly solemn, even when considered under the most favourable circumstances. Viewed as the consequence of sin, it is calculated to alarm us, and to excite serious concern about our future state.-If it be regarded as the period when the dearest ties of nature are dissolved, and when we must take a long farewell of those whom we most esteem, and whose lives appear bound up in our own, it is exceedingly distressing to a susceptible and affectionate mind.-If we consider that the change which must soon pass upon our bodies will be so great, that even our dearest friends, who delighted to behold our countenance, must say Give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight; that our bodies once strong and comely, must say to corruption, Thou art my Father: and to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister, it is very humiliating. These things may make even the Christian desire not to be unclothed; but, like those favoured saints, Enoch and Elijah, clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.

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4

4 Gen. xxiii. 4.

5 Job xvii. 14.

• 2 Cor. v. 4.

C

But when we view death as that period when the everlasting state is irrevocably fixed, either in perfect bliss or unmingled woe: where is the man who does not feel some misgivings of heart, some anxious fears about that soul, which the flames that will melt the elements and consume the world, cannot destroy! which must survive the wreck of universal nature, retaining, in their undiminished vigour, all its capacities of pleasure or pain?

Death is peculiarly solemn at all times, and should awaken the most serious concern; but when it comes upon us thus suddenly, and seizes at once so many victims in the bloom of youth, in the pursuit of pleasure, and in the enjoyment of health, it is doubly appalling. For a moment the survivors, though deeply interested, are paralyzed; the heart refuses to feel; the eyes refrain from weeping; and all the operations of mind are suspended by the overwhelming intelligence and when they are again aroused to. energy, every power, like the servants of Job, seems charged with a message of woe. Imagination portrays the dreadful scene, and raises the dying shriek! Memory fondly recalls past

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enjoyments, and employs them to give poig ancy to grief; and even the virtues that were exemplified, upon which Affection dwells with delight, while they alleviate distress, make the loss sustained appear more severe. Association will trace a thousand circumstances in the daily occurrences of life, to keep alive the remembrance of sorrow. Only Religion can administer consolation and support; while it teaches us to derive instruction from the voice of God addressing us in this tremendous manner:

The uncertainty of life should lead to a constant preparation for death; to a careful investigation of the heart, to a diligent improvement of time; and to daily activity in the cause of God. The messenger may have received his commission; he may now be on the wing: this day's sun may describe the course of our mortal life as it declines, our flesh and heart may fail; and when its last rays have ceased to gild our horizon, our spirits may be at the bar of God.

This narrative furnishes an awful comment upon the language of Moses, 'the man of God.

The turnest man to destruction, and sayest, Return, ye children of men. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep in the morning they are like grass which groweth up. In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth. For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled. Oh that his prayer may be the fervent desire of our souls, and descriptive of our subsequent conduct! So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.8

7 Psalm xc. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

Ibid. xc. 12.

Biography, tc.

THE lives of some persons furnish so great a variety of incident, that they engage, by their history, the attention, and promise the improvement of every class of readers. They bring you to an acquaintance with every variety of climate and manners; they conduct you into the various paths of religion, science, and literature; by turns, they call into exercise all the powers of the mind, and excite every sensation that the soul is capable of feeling, or the countenance of expressing.

So great a variety of incident is pleasing and profitable, but by no means indispensably necessary to answer the great end of biography. The improvement of the moral state of the reader, who carefully observes the recorded ́infirmities and excellencies of his fellow-men, may be