and so died of an internal complaint, of old age, of a fever, of consumption, or of some other disorder; and then we move along as though the destroyer was far away from ourselves. It may be we go a little further into the subject, especially when the loved and the dear are taken away from our own hearts and homes, and pause a moment in our career of pleasure and traffic, to wonder at the stroke, to bend in sorrow beneath it, and to ask the question, the individual question, 'What would be my fate, my destiny hereafter, if I should soon die too? But this is only a momentary pause; a rapidly passing wonder; a slight and shallow impression. Things, we say, must and will take their own natural courses. We cannot alter them, why then should they trouble us? "Let us eat and drink," say some. 'Soul, thou hast laid up much store for the future; take thine case,' says another. And thus, amid our engagements and procrastinations, worldly hopes and expectations, passions and tendencies of heart, death tolls out its summons from the church-tower and the grave opens and closes upon its victim.

1. But is there nothing more connected with the death of the body, than its mere passing away into the dust-than the blank it makes in our hearts and homes? Why was the young man, in the text, snatched from his mother? Why is this dark visitant of man allowed to cast his shadow upon our hearths, to fill our souls with mourning, and to crowd our cemeteries with monuments. of woe? Why? To teach us the dreadful nature of sin! Sin, in its first entrance into our common parents—in its transmission from generation to generation-in its actual commission. And, we ask you, must there not be something very awful and dreadful in the nature of sin itself, when its "wages is death"-death physical, death spiritual; death as it stops and freezes up the current of

our blood, and death as it hardens the heart and banishes the soul from God, from Christ, from heaven! Regard it, not simply in its different aspects, neither only in its miserable results, nor merely in its final destiny, but as a principle waging war against the majesty and holiness of Deity, and against our best interests, our noblest and highest faculties, our peace and happiness on earth, and our hopes of glory in the world to come. It is God's bitterest enemy. It is man's curse and destroyer. We are too apt to pass it over with indifference. We give to sin a narrow and a temporal limitation, both as to its character and its consequences. We have so many excuses for it, so many apologies. We say it does no harm, if we deem it simple and natural. We think God is too merciful to punish us for little negligences or trifling acts of disobedience; we think that a lie or an oath may pass our lips unheeded, unheard, and be forgotten. We think a violated Sabbath, or an unread Bible, or an unoccupied pew in the time of Divine service, is of no consequence-a matter easily to be overlooked and forgiven. We draw our distinctions between omissions of good and commissions of evil; and we readily, most readily, come to any plausible conclusions, which suit our own notions. about what is right and about what is wrong, irrespectively of the Scriptures. But think of sin as it is in the sight of God a principle of disobedience, showing itself in a firm habitual forgetfulness of God. And in order that you may form a right conception of His anger against it, look upon the corpse-the corpse of the young -in its passage to corruption; and as your eye rests upon the bleeding heart behind the bier, let your imagination carry you further into Hades, where God's anger follows sin still in the bitter outcry of a Dives, and in the fire which is never extinguished, and in the worm which never dies.

2. It is said, the "dead man was carried out." How humiliating to our human nature! What a mockery at pride! What a blow to the proud vauntings of ambition! What a lesson on the folly of pampering that which ere long will be the food of worms! Carried out! a mass of clay, yielding to the inroads of a loathsome rottenness-helpless, without strength, without life! A young man too; an only son. The vigor of his days are cut off. His eye no longer looks upon the fond and weeping mother dear, bending over him,-no longer upon the beautiful things of earth, nor upon the shining stars, and sun, and moon. His ear also is deaf to the voice of affection, to the sound of music or the roar of thunder. All is still and dumb now upon that deathcouch of his. Carried out! as you and I shall be when our time comes. But the soul, was that carried out too? We have no authority for saying it was in the body; for if that had been the case it would not have been dead. When the body dies the soul quits its tabernacle; it passes into its eternity; it lives on when the house that sheltered it is crumbled into ashes. The soul, then, is invaluable. What will a man give in exchange for it? How ought we to watch over it-to pray to God our Saviour for its pardon, its deliverance, its sanctification, and for its everlasting safety and glorification! It must be admitted, that no sacrifice is too dear, nor any effort is too strong, for the reward to be carried by angels into Abraham's bosom, and for the avoidance of the punishment to be carried by fiends into the terrors of the lost.

II. This young man, we are told, had a mother, and that mother was a widow. She had followed one beloved to his tomb, and she was now following another. The bonds of her heart had loosened their hold upon one dear object, but in their loosening they clung to her child. While he lived, there was still a link between her and

her home; but when this link was broken her home and her spirit were made desolate. Who does not feel for this widow and childless mother?

But all this affliction was sent to her in mercy, to teach her, and us also, the uncertain hold we all have of earthly comforts. These comforts may fix themselves so deeply, so fixedly, and so endearingly within our hearts, as to become idols there. They may be ever imaged in our memories, entwined about our brightest hopes, centered in our warmest affections, swallowing up the greatest portion of our thoughts, united to our most anxious cares, and forming the mightiest motive of our daily exertions. God is jealous of these idols; and He sweeps them down. He wrings from the soul of one, "O Absalom, my son, my son !" and from another, "Let the day perish wherein I was born. . . . . For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me"-(Job iii : 3, 25). He takes the infant from the mother's bosom, in order that her spirit may travel after it to the realms of angels; He smites the gourd which has promised to flourish and to shelter, that we may set our affections upon things heavenly, and not upon things earthly.

Happy shall we be, my brethren, if the end of the affliction is answered in our own salvation; if the aching and bleeding heart turns to its Redeemer, and leans and builds upon Him as the Rock of Ages, the unchangeable and everlasting foundation of all those who trust in His mercy, and who give the whole of their hearts to God, and who fly to Him as the never-failing refuge of His people. Even now, beloved, does He say to us, "He that loveth father or mother, sister or brother, husband or wife, son or daughter, more than Me, is not worthy of Me" still does He say to us individually-"Give Me thy heart." And if our hearts be given to Him, He will so

bless them, that we shall say with Asaph-" Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and what is there upon earth I desire beside Thee ?"

THE DEATH OF THE BELIEVER IN JESUS.

WE

REV. JAMES HENRY GWITHER, ENGLAND.

IN THE PARISH CHURCH OF YARDLEY, ENGLAND.

ON THE DEATH OF MISS ELIZABETH II.

"Them also which sleep in Jesus."-1 THESS. iv: 14.

E are indebted to Divine revelation for all the certain knowledge we possess of a future state. It is true that a light of nature afforded strong indications of this fact, which philosophy set down as evidences, and the desire of a future existence implanted in the human mind-magnified into proofs; but all was dark, confused, and absurd speculation, until the Gospel-day dawned upon the world, and the shadows of doubt and uncertainty fled away. Hence "life and immortality_are brought to light by the Gospel :" and what philosophy could not do, in that it was weak and imperfect, Christianity has done in so satisfactory and comprehensive a manner, that we may say with the apostle, "Thanks be to God, who always causeth us to triumph in Christ."

Now a vista is opened through the dark valley of death, and the eye of faith may descry the glory which waits to be revealed. The place of the Great King rises before our enlightened vision, and seems to extend its gates spread wide for our reception. The gloom of death is illuminated, its solitude cheered, its bitterness destroyed, by the light, comforts, promises and hopes of the Gospel; and the dying Christian is encouraged to descend with confidence into the cold streams of Jordan,