viewer: 1st, Supposing a certainty of the final cessation of conscious existence at death, this indifference to life, if it was not affected (which indeed we suspect it to have been in part) was an absurd undervaluation of a possession which almost all rational creatures, that have not been extremely miserable, have held most dear, and which is, in its own nature, most precious. To be a conscious agent, exerting a rich combination of wonderful faculties, to feel an infinite variety of pleasurable sensations and emotions, to contemplate all nature, to extend an intellectual presence to indefinite ages of the past and future, to possess a perennial spring of ideas, to run infinite lengths of inquiry, with the delight of exercise and fleetness, even when not with the satisfaction of full attainment, and to be a lord over inanimate matter, compelling it to an action and an use altogether foreign to its nature, to be all this, is a state so stupendously different from that of being simply a piece of clay, that to be quite easy and complacent in the immediate prospect of passing from the one to the other, is a total inversion of all reasonable estimates of things; it is a renunciation, we do not say of sound philosophy, but of common sense. The certainty that the loss will not be felt after it has taken place, will but little sooth a man of unperverted mind, in considering what it is that he is going to lose.

6. The jocularity of the philosopher was contrary to good taste. Supposing that the expected loss were not, according to a grand law of nature, a cause for melancholy and desperation, but that the contentment were rational; yet the approaching transformation was, at all events, to be regarded as a very grave and very strange event; and therefore jocularity was totally incongruous with the anticipation of such an event: a grave and solemn feeling was the only one that could be in unison with the contemplation of such a change.

7. There was, in this instance, the same incongruity which we should impute to a writer who should mingle buffoonery in a solemn crisis of the drama, or with the most momentous event of a history. To be in harmony with bis situation, in his own view of that situation, the expressions of the dying philosopher were required

to be dignified; and, if they were in any degree vivacious, the vivacity ought to have been rendered graceful, by being accompanied with the noblest effort of the intellect, of which the efforts were going to cease for

ever.

8. The low vivacity of which we have been reading, seems to be like the quickening corruption of a mind whose faculty of perception is putrifying and dissolving, even before the body. It is true, that good men, of a high order, have been known to utter pleasantries in their last hours; but these have been pleasantries of a fine ethereal quality, the scintillations of animated hope, the high pulsations of mental health, the involuntary movements of a spirit feeling itself free even in the grasp of death, the natural springs and boundings of faculties on the point of obtaining a still much greater and a boundless liberty.

9. These had no resemblance to the low and laboured jokes of our philosopher; jokes so laboured as to give strong cause for suspicion, after all, that they were of the same nature, and for the same purpose, as the expedient of a boy on passing through some gloomy place in the night, who whistles to lesson his fear, or to persuade his companion that he does not feel it.

10. Such a manner of meeting death was inconsistent with the scepticism to which Hume was always found to avow his adherence; for that scepticism necessarily acknowledged a possibility and a chance that the religion which he had scorned might, notwithstanding, be found true, and might, in the moment after his death, glare upon him with all its terrors. But how dreadful to a reflecting mind would have been the smallest chance of meeting such a vision! Yet the philosopher could be cracking his heavy jokes, and Dr. Smith could be much diverted at the sport!

11. Го а man who solemnly believes the truth of revelation, and therefore the threatnings of Divine vengeance against the despisers of it, this scene will present as mournful a spectacle as perhaps the sun ever shone upon. We have beheld a man of great talents and invincible perseverance, entering on his career with the profession of an inpartial inquiry after truth,

met at every stage and step by the evidences and expostulations of religion and the claims of his Creator, but devoting his labours to the pursuit of fame and the promotion of impiety, at length acquiring and accomplishing, as he declared himself, all he had intended and desired, and descending toward the close of life amidst tranquility, widely extending reputation, and the homage of the great and the learned.

12. We behold him appointed soon to appear before that Judge to whom he had never alluded but with malice or contempt; yet preserving to appearance an entire self complacency, idly jesting about his approaching dissolution, and mingling with the insane sport his references to the fall of superstition :' a term of which the meaning is hardly ever dubious when expressed by such men. We behold him at last carried off, and we seem to hear, the following moment, from the darkness in which he vanishes, the shriek of surprise and terror, and the overpowering accents of the messenger of vengence! On the whole globe there probably was not acting, at the time, so mournful a tragedy as that of which the friends of Hume were the spectators, without being aware that it was any tragedy at all.'

CHARACTER OF JOSIAH.

In the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David, his father.

Chronicles, xxxiv. 3.

WE have here a beautiful example of early piety! At the age of eight years he succeeded to the crown of Judah, after the death of Amon, who fell by the hand of violence; but happily for him, the care of his education was committed to good men, whose instructions were probably the means of his becoming truly religious; but God himself was doubtless the Great Teacher.

2. We have no particular account of him till he was sixteen years old. At that period, the seeds of piety

sprang up with uncommon vigour; at that period, when the passions become peculiarly strong, and when he was exposed to all the temptations of a court, then he began to seek after the God of David his father.

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3. Seeking God,' signifies the whole of religion. God, indeed, is not far from any one of us; for in him we live, and move, and have our being.' We need not go far to find him. If we do but open our eyes, we behold the ever present God. But, alas! few are willing to behold him! Most men live as much without God in the world,' as if he were at the greatest distance. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that we are disposed to seek him; and for this purpose he convinces us that his favour is better than life.' We are satisfied that nothing but an interest in his pardoning love, through Jesus, can render us safe or happy. Josiah possessed a crown; he was surrounded with numerous friends, and furnished with all the means of sensual gratification; but these could not satisfy; his soul thirsted for God, for the living God.'

4. It was the God of David his father,' that he sought. Not that Josiah was the next in descent from David; he was at several removes distant; and there had been a great falling off in some of his ancestors ; but David was that excellent prince whose pious example he wished to imitate, and chiefly because of bis eminent zeal for the worship of God.

5. Children may take much encouragement from the remembrance of their godly parents. God is ever ready to be found of all the children of men who seek him in Jesus; but the seed of a faithful Abraham, or a holy David, are peculiarly acceptable to him.

6. We have a striking proof of Josiah's sincerity in regard to the Bible. That holy book had been much neglected in his father's time; and copies of it seem to have been so scarce, that the king, and even the ministers of religion, appear to have been unacquainted with its sacred contents; but when a copy (probably the original one) was found in the temple, and it was read to Josiah, he was greatly affected; for he perceived how far the nation had departed from God, and to what dreadful wrath they were exposed.

7. O children! value the word of God! Be thankful that you can read and hear it with so much ease! and may you be among those that tremble at the word of God, where it denounces his wrath against sin, while you rejoice in the precious promises of salvation with which it abounds!

8. Josiah's sincerity was manifested by the zeal with which he propagated the knowledge of God's word among his subjects. He called the people together, and was not ashamed to appear as a preacher among them. He read to them what had so deeply impressed his own heart, and he publicly entered into a covenant with God to serve him faithfully, engaging them to do the same.

9. Thus he continued for many years an eminent blessing to his country; and he obtained this honourable character, That there was none like him for the firmness of his trust and confidence in God.

10 Children! if you begin betimes to seek and own the God of your fathers, you may indulge a hope of being permitted, for many years, to glorify him on earth, by being useful in your several stations, and then of being admitted to his glorious presence, where there is fulness of joy, and pleasures for evermore.'

MARY.

A CHARACTER.

WHILE Religion crowns the hoary head with dignity, it decorates the face of youth with a thousand charms! The youthful Mary's portrait is worthy of our regard. In her the great advantages of early and serious instruction were strikingly illustrated. The semi nary where this amiable girl was educated, enjoyed the privilege of a governess and teacher, who, in furnishing their pupils with suitable knowledge for domestic life, thought it highly requisite to pay the strictest attention to the concerns of their souls.

2. Worthy mothers in Israel, your labours have not been in vain in the Lord! How many blessings to soci