same country a few days before.

Life is like a torrent;

the past is but a dream; the present, while we are thinking of it, escapes us, and is precipitated into the same abyss that has swallowed up the past; the future will not be of a different nature; it will pass as rapidly. A few moments, and a few more, and all will be ended; what has appeared long and tedious, will seem short when it is finished.

10. REV. JOHN JAMES, D.D.,

Prebendary of Peterborough.

It is no dreaming fancy to expect, that in another world we shall preserve our identity-shall know and be known even as in this. Let the mourner in Sion continue “patient in well-doing;"" looking for and hasting to the coming of the Lord," when shall begin the reunion of kindred spirits, whom in this world death had separated. Parent to child, sister to brother, husband to wife, friend to friend, shall then be restored-a blessed communion of saints, whom nor sin nor sorrow shall sever more.

11. REV. THOMAS SMYTH, D.D.

Can we not with David rejoicingly declare, "They cannot come to us, but we can go to them?" Yes, we can go to them. "They are not lost, but gone before." There in that world of light, and love, and joy, they await our coming. There do they beckon us to ascend. There do they stand ready to welcome us. There may we meet them, when a few more suns or seasons shall have cast their departing shadows upon our silent grave. Then shall our joy be full and our sorrows ended, and all tears wiped from our eyes.

-one in

Death separates, but it can never disunite those who are bound together in Christ Jesus. To them, death in his power of an endless separation, is abolished. It is no more death, but a sweet departure, a journey from earth to heaven. Our children are still ours. We are still their parents. We are yet one family-one in memoryhope-one in spirit. Our children are yet with us, and dwell with us in our sweetest, fondest recollections. We too are yet with them in the bright anticipations of our reunion with them, in the glories of the upper sanctuary. We mingle together indeed no more in sorrow and in pain, But we shall join love's buried ones again

In endless bands, and in eternal peace.

12. REV. S. S. SCHMUCKER, D.D.,

Professor of Theology, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

And how could Abraham's bosom, the region of the blessed, be other than a state of enjoyment to the Christian? There we shall see Lazarus, and be comforted with him! There we shall see father Abraham, and rest from all our sorrows, reclining on his bosom! There we shall see the ancient patriarchs and prophets! There we shall see Jeremiah, who wept over the desolations of Israel; and Daniel, who, in defiance of the king and all his nobles, prayed three times a day to his God, and whom his God saved from the mouth of the lions! There we shall find the apostles, and Luther, and Calvin, and Zwinglius, and all that host of worthies of whom the world was not worthy, who, amid a wicked and perverse generation, maintained their fidelity to the end, and received not the mark of the beast. How can the place of departed spirits

fail to be a place of joy to the Christian? for there he shall meet all those pious relatives and friends whom heaven indulgent gave to him awhile, and heaven mysterious soon resumed again.

CHAPTER X.

Beavenly Recognition among the Poets.

Poetry has been to me its own "exceeding great reward:" it has soothed my afflictions; it has multiplied and refined my enjoyments; it has endeared solitude; and it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the Good and the Beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me.— COLERIDGE.

THAT is a significant and instructive fable, which the ancients record, of Orpheus the god of Poetry and Song. His wife Eurydice, according to the story, died of the bite of a serpent. Her husband was so affected by grief for her loss, that he followed her into the shades, whither her spirit had gone. As music and poetry were natural to Orpheus, he employed their powerful influence in the infernal regions with such success as to move even Pluto and Proserpine to compassion, and induced them to restore to him his beloved wife. Thus the injury which the serpent inflicted was repaired, and even death and hell were induced to let go their hold, charmed by the song of Orpheus. Is not this a prophecy of another charmer, who heals the poisonous wounds of another serpent, and turns back the captivity of death into a life everlasting? Not less significant is the end of the fable, according to which Orpheus concluded his life on earth by being changed into

a swan, which is the cause of its sweet notes in dying. We know of another, from whose death saints and angels have learned their sweetest song, which, like the notes of the dying swan, has lingered upon the lips of the saints in the hour of death in unearthly strains.

This is a fable, but it may show us what a powerful and soothing influence poetry and song were known to exert in all ages and among all nations. Though it will not bring our loved ones back, as did the notes of Orpheus, it may teach us whither they have gone, and encourage us to look for them again, and this it will do, not in cold abstract logic, but in the sweet persuasive language of the heart. It may be to our hearts what the warm breath of the south is to flower-buds-it can cause them to open in love and hope towards those whose warm affections seem for a time to have retired from us into the silent mysteries of the tomb. It can soothe us, as with a soft friendly voice, while we continue to weep along life's checkered way. Who has not felt its power? The wisest and the best have crowned, their wisdom with its garlands, and have sat, like children, at its feet in the quiet hours of life. Even the Bible is not ashamed of it. It hangs its heavenly colourings around the visions of the prophets, and mingles its strains with the public and private devotions of the saints.

"The great end of Poetry is to instruct, at the same time that it gives pleasure. By the decorations of elegance, and the harmony of numbers, it is well calculated to win its way both to the heart and understanding,—like a still and placid stream which beautifies and enriches all around it. Hence, from the earliest ages, when the first hymn of praise, as it were the song of the morning star, was borne