THE DEATH OF ALTAMONT.

It is a melancholy truth that, even in this life, God has, in righteous judgment, made some transgressors monuments of his hatred of sin, and, of his determination to inflict deserved punishment. They have expired in the utmost agonies, both of body and mind, to the horror of all that beheld them.

Many instances might be adduced to illustrate this awful case, but I have met with none which serves so strictly to exemplify it, as the following account of the death-bed scene of a noble, but profligate youth, given by Dr. Young.

"I am about to represent to you (says the Doctor) the last hours of a person of high birth, and high spirits; of great parts, and strong passions; every way accomplished, nor least in iniquity *.. The death-bed of a profligate is next in horror to that abyss to which it leads. It has the most of hell that is visible on earth..

"The sad evening before the death of that noble youth, I was with him. No one

* Report, says Dr. Johnson, has been accustomed to call Altamont, Lord Euston.

dead."

was there but his physician, and an intimate whom he loved, and whom he had ruined. At my coming in, he said, “you, and the physician are come too late. I have neither life, nor hope. You both aim at miracles. You would raise the "Heaven; (I said) was merciful." Or I could not have been thus guilty. What has it not done to bless and to save me? I have been too strong for Omnipotence! I have plucked down ruin! I said, "The blessed Redeemer.” "Hold! hold; you wound me! That is the rock on which I split. I denied his name !”

Refusing to hear any thing from me, or take any thing from his physician, he lay silent, as far as sudden darts of pain would permit, till the clock struck. Then, with vehemence, "O time, time! It is fit . thou shouldest thus strike thy murderer to the heart-How art thou fled for ever-A month! Oh! for a single week! I ask not for years, though an age, were too little for the work I have to do." On my saying, "We cannot do too much, Heaven is a blessed place." "So much the worse. It is lost! It is lost! Heaven is to me the severest part of hell."

Soon after, I proposed prayer. "Pray you that can; I never prayed. I cannot pray-nor need I. Is not heaven on my

şide already? It closes with my conscience. Its severest strokes but second my own." His friend being much touched, even to tears at this, who could forbear? I could not, with a most affectionate look, he said, " "Keep those tears for thyself. I have undone thee. Dost thou weep for me? that's cruel. What can pain me more?"

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Here his friend, too much affected, would have left him. "No, stay, thou mayest still hope Therefore hear me How madly have I talked? How madly hast thou listened and believed! but look on my present state as a full answer to thee and to myself. This body is all weakness, and pain, but my soul, as if stung up by toranent to greater strength and spirit, is full powerful to reason, full mighty to suffer; and that which thus triumphs, within the jaws of mortality, is doubtless, immortal, And, as for a Deity, nothing less than an Almighty, could inflict what I feel.

"I was about to congratulate this pas sive, involuntary confessor, on his asserting the two prime articles of his creed, extorted by the rack of nature, when he bitterly exclaimed, "No, no, let me speak on, I have not long to speak. My much injured friend. My soul, as my body, lies in ruins, in scattered fragments of broken thought. Remorse for the past,

throws my thoughts on the future, while dread of the future strikes them back on the past. I turn, and turn, and find no ray. Didst thou feel half the mountain that is on me, thou wouldest struggle with the martyr for his stake, and bless heaven for the flames. That is not an everlasting flame. That is not an unquenchable fire.

still more.

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How were we struck! yet soon after, With what an eye of distraction, what a face of despair, he cried out, My principles have poisoned my friend! My extravagance has beggared my boy! My unkindness has murdered my wife! And is there another hell? Oh! thou blasphemed, yet most indulgent, Lord God! Hell itself is a refuge, if it hide me from thy frown." Soon after, his understanding failed. His terrified imagination uttered horrors not to be repeated, or ever to be forgotten; and ere the sun arose, the gay, young, noble, ingenious, accomplished, and most wretched, Altamont expired.

REFLECTIONS.

"I almost fear to weaken the impression, which this story must have left on the reader's mind, by making any remark upon it; and yet I can scarcely forbear observing, that my purpose in transcribing it, will be

but very partially answered, if horror be the only feeling which it excites. Surely it is desirable to avoid every possibility of so dreadful an end. A whole life of sensual indulgence, supposing it (if that were possible) unmixed with its usual portion of alloy, would but poorly compensate, in the estimation of any reasonable man,

one

hour of torture so, exquisite as Altamont's. Horrid as it appears to be, it affords only a faint shadow of that misery, which, under the expression of "the worm that dieth not, and the fire which never shall be quenched," is represented in the word of eternal truth, as awaiting those who seek not their happiness in the favour and service of God. And, even if it were allowed, that any doubt existed on this point, yet is it not running a fearful risk, reader; to act as if you knew these representations to be false, especially as it may admit of very satisfactory proof that much is lost, even in this life on the score of real enjoyment, by preferring the pleasures of sense to the service of God. But pursuaded as I trust you are, that these are awful realities, what excuse will you be able to make for such a preference?

I am sure you would gladly escape the horrors which arise, from remorse of conscience and despair in this life, and the misery of everlasting banishment from