ture, present to reason a contemplation, of all others the most sublime; while religious sensibility is soothed by the idea of being completely in the hand of a power, to whom it feels the most animated love, and in whom it reposes the most tranquil trust.

Section XVI.

THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE AND THE
TRIUMPH OF DEATH.

Sharp is the sting of death, great the victory of the grave, shrill and terrible in their triumph, when simply considered in themselves, and without regard to Jesus, the restorer of life, the vanquisher of the grave.

Terrible, in the first place, are the harbingers of death, formidable his menaces, tremendous the preparatives he makes for the destruction of life and the subversions of happiness. What a sable host of disasters, of diseases, of pestilences, march before him! What infirmities, what pains, what struggles announce his arrival! What tears, what sobs, what wringing of hands, what shrieks of agony are seen and heard in his train! And how numerous, how deeply-wounding, the darts supplied him for destruction! Is there any motion, any occupation, any affliction, any enjoyment, any gratification which may not prove mortal to man? How every thing shudders at his approach! How quickly as he advances fades every flower on the path of life! How every sound of joy and gladness is hushed at his tremendous call. What profound and awful silence, what dejection, what doleful apprehensions reign where he appears! How ghastly is the countenance of the man who lies pale and wan, faint and spiritless, on the bed of sickness, longing in vain for help, for relief and recovery, sinking ever lower under the burden of pains and

miseries, continually more incapable of joy, ever more insensible to comfort, anxiously fluctuating between death and life, between fear and hope, wishing for the return of his fleeting life, and trembling as he beholds the near approach of death!

The dominion of death is, moreover universal, and this too increases his furious triumph. It stretches over every living thing upon the earth. His devastations on this sublunary scene are in a manner unbounded. No species of living creatures are exempt from the lot of mortality, no one is safe from the power of dissolution and corruption. As the flower fades, the leaf withers, the tree dies, so likewise man, the lord of the whole animal and inanimate creation, is a prey to death and the grave. Numerous and manifold are the victims which the grim spoiler daily and hourly demands of the human race, throwing all of them into the dust, without distinction of age, of rank, of dignity, of merit.

Here the saint has no pre-eminence over the sinner, the benefactor and reliever of his brethren no pre-eminence over the destroying conqueror and the cruel tyrant. Here lies the babe, who scarcely saw the light of the sun, close by the aged head which could no longer sustain its beams. There are mingled the ashes of blooming youth with those of riper man, the ashes of the great and powerful with the ashes of their meanest slaves. Here falls the strong man, who seemed to brave every toil, every burden, every misfortune ;— there decays the beauty, who flourished like a vernal flower, and promised herself and others so rich a har vest of delight. All, all that is of the earth must revert to the earth from which it was taken. Whoever thou art, O man, that walks on the ground, thou walkest on the territory of death; wherever thou settest thy foot, thou treadest on the graves of the dead, thou raisest the dust that was formerly animated, the fleshly garment of thy brother.

Terrific is the triumph of death, as his arrival is generally unexpected, and his power is irresistible.

Now he seizes one of us in the intoxication of pleasure, then in the careless repose of the night, now amid preparatives for the enjoyment of life, then in the various distractions of business and affairs. Now he suddenly snatches one from the circle of his gay comrades, then the poor man from his bosom friend, now an unexpected mischance at once strikes him down, then an apparently trifling disorder in a few days or hours becomes incurable. Rarely do we hear his footsteps from afar, seldom are we aware of his approach, ere his hand is already lifted for the fatal blow. And of how little avail are in general the earlier warnings of his approach! How vain all the efforts of art, how fruitless the struggles of nature! Here neither youth nor vigour, nor grandeur and authority, nor virtue and merit can protect. Death appears, and the most subtle energies of man recoil dismayed, and his most shining prerogatives disappear, and every attempt at resistance, is a proof of the utmost imbecility.

And the proper business of death, how tremendous! Who is not seized with profound horror at the sight of it! Gradual decay of the vital powers, total cessation of all spontaneous and mechanical motion of the body, universal darkness, profound night, frigidity, numbness, rigor, separation from the whole visible world, the grave, corruption, dissolution: this is the work of death; this the victory which he obtains over all that is mortal! And now consider besides, the circumstances of this awful scene, the agony that seizes on the dying person, the wishes for longer life which are only abandoned so late, the ties which knit him to the bystanders soon to be dissolved, the multiplication of his sufferings by theirs, the reproaches which his conscience often makes him, and the apprehensions that so frequently torment him with prospects of an uncertain futurity: how much more dreadful must all this make the triumph of death!

Yes, terrific is this triumph; since even the consequences that attend the ravages which death commits, are deplorable, are abundant sources of tears and la

mentation. How painful the separation, how deep, how incurable the wounds of the widow and the orphan; how irreparible is frequently their loss! Here a worthy father taken from his still weak uneducated sons, a careful affectionate mother from her daughter, still in want of her further support and example; there one hearty, generous friend carried off from another. Here a thousand wise, public-spirited plans and projects are rendered abortive; there the quickest and most lively parts are checked in their activity and hopeful capacities prevented from unfolding. Here the industrious man is deprived of the fruits of his labour: there the buds of noble actions blighted in their first efforts. Here pleasure, transports, hopes, happiness of a thousand kinds are destroyed, there full and various sources of want, of trouble and misery are opened. Here the forlorn widow and helpless orphan, sit bathed in tears; there distress and indigence surround others who are bewailing the loss of their benefactors, their patrons, their guides. Thus sad and gloomy, my dear friends, is the path of death! Thus terrific his appearance and the doleful consequence of his destructive sway! Thus tremendous his triumph over all that lives and breathes! Yes, in this ghastly form must death appear to every one who considers it solely in itself, solely in its proximate effects, and without the light of superior information, without the prospect of a better futurity.

Is then, however, this triumph of death entirely what it appears to be? Is it likewise to the christian, what it must be to the unbeliever and to the doubter? Rests it on a solid basis? Will it last for ever? No, christians, to day ye are celebrating with me the resurrection of our Master and Lord. To-day we are celebrating the triumph of life, of life regained and fixed for ever by the risen Jesus. Oh rejoice in this with me, and ponder with me, how much grander, more glorious, more substantial in his triumph than the specious, evanescent triumph of death.

Is the dominion of death universal, does it extend over all that is transitory and mortal; so is the dominion of life no less, and yet far more extensive, as it extends over all that was, and is, and is to come. Nothing perishes, nothing dies totally and forever. Nothing perishes that shall not be restored, nothing dies that shall not live again. Even in the vegetable kingdom, death and corruption are the germ and preparatives for new entrances and forms of life. The seed corn cannot spring up, not blossom, not bear fruit, except it die. And if the winter with its frosts seem to starve and kill, yet the genial spring revives all again with renovated pomp and beauty. Let then the earth be covered with graves, and the dead be heaped on the dead; all this is no more than sowing for the future general harvest, and this harvest will be the richer and more glorious, the richer the sowing was.

In the long, wide field of God, the father of mankind, nothing is sown that shall not again shoot up, and bloom in far more beauty and perfection, than it did in its former state. Nay, even without regard to this revivification of all that once was dead, the dominion of death, apparently so universal, is not so in fact. No, only dust, only substances that are formed of dust, only the visible, gross, terrestial shell of living and spiritual beings are subject to his destructive power, The energy by which they are animated, is indestructible, the spirit that inhabits them has no death to fear, no dissolution and corruption; it thinks and lives and acts even then, and thinks and lives and acts still more freely and nobly, when its shell is demolished, when its shell in the gaave lies a prey to corruption. Only the dust returns to the earth from whence it is taken; but the spirit ascends to God, whose breath, whose image it is, with whom it has already been in affinity and communion. And to whom it is destined and able ever nearer to approach, with whom to have ever greater communion. O death, where is then thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? How limited is thy power! How fallacious is