friend of man, rejoicing in the love and approbation of our God and FATHER, and secure of enjoying for ever those sources of inexpressible delight, we find our happiness adequate each moment to our capacities, though growing FOR EVER in proportion to their continual enlargements !" Bretland.

GRAVE, the guardian of our dust,

GRAVE, the treasury of the skies;
Every atom of thy trust

Rests in hope again to rise !

Hark! the Judgment Trumpet calls,

Soul, rebuild thy house of clay ;
IMMORTALITY its walls,

And ETERNITY-its day!

MONTGOMERY.

Even the dark unenlightened heathen looked eagerly to futurity as a ground of consolation under the calamities of the present life. When deprived of RELATIVES and FRIENDS_blank annihilation must have been the consummation of human misery. For that unbeliever must be dead to the sensibilities of the heart, who does not admire that fine exclamation of Cicero, at the close of his Treatise De Senectute—which has often impressed my mind-o præclarum diem, cum ad illud divinum ANIMORUM concilium, &c. This passage Melmoth has translated with his usual elegance—“O GLORIOUS DAY! when I shall retire from this low and sordid scene to associate with the divine assembly of departed spirits; and not with those only whom

21*

I have just mentioned, but with my dear Cato, that best of sons and most valuable of men. It was my sad fate to lay his body on the funeral pile, when, by the course of nature, I had reason to hope he would have performed the same last office to mine. His soul, however, did not desert me, but still looked back upon me in its flight to those happy mansions to which he was assured I should, one day, follow him. If I seemed to bear his death with fortitude, it was by no means that I did not most sensibly feel the loss I had sustained—it was because I supported myself with the consoling reflection, that we could not long be separated !"Much more sublime and animating is the exclamation of Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles—(2 Tim. iv. 7, 8.) I have fought a good fight—I have finished my course--I have kept the faith—HENCEFORTH there is laid up-for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day—AND NOT TO ME ONLY, BUT UNTO ALL THEM ALSO THAT LOVE HIS APPEARING

What is the worst of woes that wait on AGE?

What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each lov'd one blotted from life's page,

And be alone on earth as I am now !
Before THE CHASTENER humbly let me bow,

O'er hearts divided, and o'er hopes destroy'd :
Roll on, vain days! full reckless may ye flow,

Since Time hath reft whate'er my soul enjoy'd,
And with the ills of eld mine earlier years alloy'd !

BYRON.

THIS MORTAL SHALL PUT ON IMMORTALITY.-Paul.

That ends this strange eventful history.

Is SECOND CHILDISHNESS, and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing!

SECOND CHILDISHNESS.

Last scene of all

That ends this strange eventful history,

IS SECOND CHILDISHNESS, and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing!*

WHAT is finite must have had a beginning, and will have a termination. This is the law which the God of nature hath imposed on all things beneath the sun. Inanimate objects, however firm in their texture, or fair in their appearance, are of transitory duration. Beings, rational and irrational, are subjected to the same revolution. They have their rise, their progress, their decline, and their extinction. The world, vast and ponderous, undergoes its destined changes, and will one day be consigned to destruction. THE HEAVENS shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the EARTH also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned up—

Stand still, refulgent orb of day,

A Jewish hero cries!

So shall at last an ANGEL say,

And tear it from the skies!

*I scarcely need remark, that the term sans is the French for without, and occurs in other parts of Shakspeare's writings.