ther. Long after every enjoyment and even every comfort is gone, we continue to cling to this miserable existence. We still cast a "lingering longing look" on the world we are about to quit; it still attracts a portion of our regards, our hopes and fears, But even these at our wishes and our desires.

last leave us: "And desire shall fail." The last tie that binds us to this state of existence is broken. We cease to regard the world and its concerns with interest. The desire of life, the last feeling of the heart, becomes extinct. Man submits to unavoidable fate, and resigns his body to the dust from whence it was originally taken.

The images which are employed to paint the concluding scene of this tragedy-the separation of the etherial soul from its frail tenement of clay— are, in the highest degree, bold and poetical: “Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken." How beautifully is represented, under these similitudes, the end of all that is great and noble-the ruin of God's chiefest work—the apparent extinction of that being who was created in the image of his Maker, placed a little lower than the angels, and crowned with glory and honour!

Man is elsewhere likened to the grass of the field -to the flower that cometh forth and is cut down and withereth. This simile, however beautiful, and in some respects just, is hardly consistent with the

dignity of our nature, and the immortality which awaits us in another state. But the silver cord and the golden bowl, afford many images of all that is excellent and durable in material objects; and though the one is for a time loosed, and the other broken, the power which at first called them into existence, is able to repair their unsightly breaches, and to make them appear again in more than their pristine splendour.

The next images presented to us by the inspired writer, not only afford another instance of the minute propriety of his figures, but exhibit a knowledge of the true constitution of the human frame, of which no vestige is to be found in the most enlightened nations of antiquity, and which the pride of modern philosophy has claimed as exclusively her own. Could the fact of the circulation of the blood be alluded to in more unequivocal language than in the words," or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern?"

These images of the last triumph of the king of terrors, are very affecting. Though simple, they convey volumes. They set before us the humbling— the heart-breaking spectacle of mortality. This is the struggle at which nature shudders, and the stoutest heart is appalled. The soul is now treading the valley of the shadow of death, unconscious of the weeping relatives who surround the bed upon which

the almost lifeless body is extended, and before the awful veil is rent which separates her from the world of spirits. The last sigh now hovers on the lips. The feeble pulse is extended to perform its last beat.

And now it is over: the body, that masterpiece of workmanship-in form and moving so express and admirable-is now reduced to a lump of lifeless clay, and numbered with the clods of the valley.

But we are not left to the exclusive contemplation of this mournful side of the picture. The last image presented to us is one of hope and joy. "The spirit shall return to God who gave it." The spirit-the animating principle, the living, thinking, sensible soul is not dead. It cannot die. It survives in another state; and it is only removed from this transitory life to one which has no end.

After all its toils and wanderings, it has returned to its proper and final home-to its first, best, only friend, Creator, Saviour, Comforter-" Lord! to whom would we desire to go but unto thee!"—to love and to enjoy Him for ever.

CONSOLATION.

"Blessed are ye that mourn now, for ye shall be comforted."

It is in seasons of affliction, when earthly blessings fail us, that we feel most firmly and surely the comforts and hopes of the Gospel.

When the sun shines, our view is limited to objects, and of these but a few on the surface of the earth ; but when his beams are withdrawn, our eyes are opened to the far higher glories of the firmament. So when the delusive sunshine of prosperity is removed, which bounded our view to "the world," the eyes of our moral nature are endued with a clearer perception, and there is opened to us a full prospect of the great realities of heaven.

We formerly believed, but now we see and know: and by the blessing of God, and comfort of his holy

word, we are enabled to embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life.

"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." For such we need not weep. They may grieve for us, exposed to the evils, the distresses, the dangers, and the sins incident to humanity; but why should we grieve for them? They are far removed from all these evils. They are in bliss. They are in safety. They are in heaven. They are not dead.

Our

God is not a God of the dead, but of the living. They are but gone upon a journey, whither we shall soon follow them. They have arrived at the place of their rest. We are still sojourning in the wilderness of this world, surrounded with many perils which they have escaped.

It was said by a wise heathen, that "no one can be pronounced happy till his death." The truth of the saying will be acknowledged by the Christian, but in a higher sense than that in which it was originally applied. Those who have passed through this world unstained by its allurements, unpolluted by its vices-who are now safe from all its toils and its snares, are happy, thrice happy. What is there worth desiring in the world for ourselves, but that we also may die the death of the righteous, and that our last end may be like his ?

"Whom the gods love die young," was the saying of another heathen. The thought is beautiful,