FOR this plain reafon. Love, as was faid before, abhors feparation; and when thofe we love are taken from us, the foul feels, as it were, deprived of her accustomed refting-place, and bereaved of the fource of her choiceft. blifs. Old as was Jacob, his fons still loved him as their father, and regarded him as the common centre which bound them to each other. Besides, we are, in the prefent life, the creatures of fenfe, ftruck with appearances, and governed infinitely more by what we fee and hear, than by the dictates of reason and reflection: Owing to this, there is always fome degree of doubt and unbelief intermixed with the evidence of things not feen. That which appears not palpable to the eye, feems as though it exifted not; and even Heaven's glories fade, feen only

by faith, as through a glass, darkly. Though we believe our deceased friend to be ftill alive, and that only the flender partition of this body of flesh and blood separates us and him; yet as we no longer behold him fenfibly prefent with us, we cannot but lament our lofs; for a lofs it is, and we feel it fo to be, when the wonted communication between man and man is interrupted, when our friend is removed to the realms of light, while we remain below in a vale of tears. It is not the paffion of grief in itself, but the excess of it, that is culpable. It is a feeling that does honour to hu man nature; but then it must be kept under due restraint, and in fubordination to the higher principle of dutiful refignation to the will of God. We may forrow, but not as without hope. In the midft of tears, we muft comfort

ourfelves with the promise of a refurrection. It was thus that David lamented his Jonathan; it was thus that Jefus wept at the grave of a beloved Lazarus; it was thus also that the fons of Jacob mourned for their father, when they came to the threshing floor of Atad They mourned feven days with a great and fore lamentation; fo that when the inhabitants of Canaan faw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they faid, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians; wherefore the name of it was called Abel-mizraim, or the mourning of the Egyptians.

FROM the threshing floor of Atad, they had not far to travel to the place of their deftination. Imagine to yourfelf, that you ftood upon the plain of Sichem, and beheld the mournful proceffion pass by go with them en

ter the cave of Machpelah, and contemplate the venerable depofitory of the holy patriarchs. Dark and dreary is the fcene. But let faith open her prospects beyond the grave, and you no longer behold the gloomy fepulchre you no longer fee yourself furrounded by the weeping mourners -you are no longer with the body of Jacob he is rifen and already do you behold his raised spirit received into the affembly of the bleffed, the congregation of the faithful in heaven. This is indeed Jacob gathered unto his fathers. In the earthly Canaan, he obtained no inheritance but a burying place for his bones; but here, in the heavenly Canaan he finds that reft,and happiness,and peace, which till now he had fought in vain. And while the pious care of furviving relatives and friends configns to the

earth the fleshly tabernacle; its late fpiritual gueft, no longer now the tenant of clay, affociates with congenial fpirits, and rejoices in the glorious liberty of the fons of God:

MORE precious than the fpices which were used to embalm the dead, is the confolation, which fweeten affliction's bitter cup, and alleviates the pangs of grief at parting with our dearest friends

THEY LIVE, for God fill calls himfelf the God of Abraham, Ifaac, and Jacob, long after these holy men had slept in death, which he would do, were Abraham, Ifaac, and Jacob now no more. The God of Abraham, is the God of all our fathers: They therefore live to him.

THEY live to God Think of this, ye whofe hearts bleed for the lofs of