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FUNERAL PIECES.

DELIVERED AT THE GRAVE OF AN INFANT.

THAT sovereign will, which all in heaven and on earth must obey, has brought us hither to mourn over the grave of one of the sweetest and pleasantest of babes whom parental love ever cherished by fell disease snatched awaynipped in the bud of life-leaving behind him only the sadly sweet remembrance of infant innocence, and the heart-touching expression of rationality emerging into the consciousness of itself. But the remembrance of the dear infant, however mournful, is unaccompanied with horror —his short period of existence past furnishes nothing to excite remorse, aversion, disgust; no instance of impiety, of profligacy, of perverseness, to raise anxiety, or kindle abhorrence. Nothing do we know of him, or of that great and glorious Being who has seen meet to call him, as we may

apprehend, thus prematurely away; but what encourages us to hope and to believe that his better, his immortal part now reposes in the bosom of his father and his God; that while we weep, the tender, prattling, helpless child-the spirit of the man made perfect, expatiates in all the extent of reason, and triumphs in the fulness of joy, unallayed even by the sorrow which melts the hearts of surviving relations. In this faith-we cast this little corruptible seed into the earth-it dies-but to be quickened; it is dissolved, only to arise more glorious-it yields to the death-denouncing decree, that it may awake to immortality. Our eyes shall no more behold the delicate, brittle clay; but through the grace that is in Jesus. Christ, we have no uncertain hope of seeing from its ashes arise" a body fashioned like to Christ's glorious body," of joining the sweet little friend who has gone before us, and of shining with him in our Saviour's likeness—and in this faith, therefore, we triumph and say: "O death! where is

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r thy sting? O grave! where is thy victory? "The sting of death is sin; and the strength of "sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus "Chirst."

DELIVERED AT THE GRAVE OF A YOUNG MAN.

THE irresistible summons of an all-ruling Providence has called us together, this day, to per form the last offices of humanity to a dear departed friend and brother. Here we have deposited, and here we must leave, in the certain prospect of speedily following, all that could die of a valuable and excellent young man--whom it has pleased Almighty God to take away in the very flower of his age, from his family, whose happiness he constituted-from parents, to whom he was an honour-from friends, whose esteem he had gained and preserved, by the virtues of a warm, affectionate, and sympathising heart, and a ready disposition to do all the good in his power from a christian society, of which he was. a steady, useful, and respectable member-and from a world, which he instructed by an example of singular piety, at an age when so many disgrace it by their vices. We have seen him, with concern, declining for many months past; but he had not delayed the important and difficult work of death, till the languishments of disease, and the forerunner of dissolution overtook him. No,

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the hours of health, of vigour, of unimpaired reason, of blooming youth were devoted to God, to religion, to the "one thing needful," to that eternity which has now swallowed up his span life. The pains which shattered, which pulled down, and which at length destroyed his body, were all the pains he felt. The remorse following a neglected day of grace, the pangs of a roused and despairing conscience, the horrors of a wounded spirit, his heavenly Father suffered him not to taste. That part of him, therefore, which mortality could not reach, we have good hope, through grace, now reposes in the breast of his Father and his God, through the merits of his Saviour. When we think of such a happy transition we ought to rejoice, not to grieve on his account. He is now above all the little things which once disquieted him, and which still trouble us--he has now rejoined his beloved departed pastor, whose ashes slumber hard by, and triumphs with him in that salvation which he preached, and which they together believed, embraced, waited for, and now possess. From them, whose glory and felicity we cannot now reach, even in thought, let me turn to you, my dear mortal friends, and beseech you by the tender mercies of God, to "redeem the time--to work out your "own salvation with fear and trembling," to be

"followers of them, who, through faith and patience, are now inheriting the promises-" to "do all diligence to make your calling and elec"tion sure" to seek peace with God, through Jesus Christ, before your "feet stumble upon the "dark mountains." Believe me, you will never repent your having begun to serve God early, or continued in his work and service zealously and faithfully; but it will be a certain source of inexpressible woe, if disease and death overtake you at a distance from God, in a state of enmity against him; there is but one way of dying comfortably, and that is dying in the faith of the gospel, united to, and relying upon Christ the Lord, the conqueror of death, the bruiser of the serpent's head, the fountain of life, the quick'ener of all things:-Who" was dead, and is " alive again, and who liveth for evermore. Be ye "therefore stedfast, unmoveable, always abound"ing in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye "know that your labour is not in vain in the "Lord."-" This corruptible must put on incor

ruption; this mortal must put on immortality; "then shall be brought to pass the saying that " is written, death is swallowed up of victory. "The Lord himself shall descend from heaven

with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, " and with the trump of God; and the dead in