that existence into which the immortal spirit is to be ushered.

In vain the fancy strives to paint

'The moment after death,

The glories that surround the saint
In yielding up his breath.

The old poet, Henry Vaughan, in his fragment on Heaven in prospect, refers to the same uncertainty, in stanzas that, though somewhat quaint, are very striking.

Dear, beauteous Death, the jewel of the just,
Shining no where but in the dark,

What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,

Could man outlook that mark!

He that hath found some fledg'd bird's nest, may know

At first sight if the bird be flown,

But what fair field or grove he sings in now

That is to him unknown.

And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams

Call to the soul when man doth sleep,

So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep.

Indeed, our most definite views of that glory is but a glimpse, a guess, a look as through a dim glass darkly, and what we know of the intermediate or immediate state of untabernacled souls is but little and in part. Perhaps the most general conception is that of an immediate, instantaneous transition into the vision and presence of God and the Lamb. But Bunyan has with great beauty and probability brought in the ministry of angels, and regions of the air, to be passed through in their company, rising and still rising, higher and higher, before they come to that mighty mount, on which he has placed the gates of the Celestial City. The angels receive his Pilgrims as they come up from the

River of Death, and form for them a bright, glittering, seraphic, loving convoy, whose conversation prepares them gradually for that exceeding and eternal weight of glory, which is to be theirs as they enter in at the Gate. Bunyan has thus, in this blissful passage from the River to the Gate, done what no other devout writer, or dreamer, or speculator, that we are aware of, has ever done; he has filled what perhaps in most minds is a mere blank, a vacancy, or at most a bewilderment and mist of glory, with definite and beatific images, with natural thoughts, and with the sympathising communion of gentle spirits, who form, as it were, an outer porch and perspective of glory, through which, the soul passes into uncreated light. Bunyan has thrown a bridge, as it were, for the imagination over the deep, sudden, open space of an untried spiritual existence, where it finds ready to receive the soul that leaves the body, ministering spirits, sent forth to minister unto them who are to be heirs of salvation.

These ministering spirits he can describe, with the beauty and glory of their form and garments, and the ravishing sweetness of their conversation; he can also describe the feelings of the Pilgrims in such company, and their glorious progress up throgh the regions of the air to their eternal dwelling-place. He can image to us their warm thoughts about the reception they are to meet with in the City, and the blessedness of beholding "the King in his beauty," and of dwelling with such glorious company forever and ever; but Bunyan goes no farther; he does not attempt to describe, or even sha

dow forth their meeting with the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb in that Celestial City. This would have been presumption. He has gone as far as the purest devotion, and the sweetest poetry could go, as far as an imagination kindled, informed, and sustained by the Holy Scriptures, could carry us; he has set us down amidst the ministry and conversation of angels, at the Gate of the City, and as the Gate opens to let in the Pilgrims, he lets us look in ourselves; but farther nor revelation nor imagination traces the picture.

But in all the untrodden space which Bunyan has thus filled up, he has authority as well as probability on his side. For our blessed Lord said of the good man Lazarus, that when he died he was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom, that is, into the abode of the blessed. It is not said that the instant Lazarus died he was with Christ in glory, but the mind has an intermediate transaction, a passage, a convoy, to rest upon; "he was carried by angels;" there is time occupied, and a passage from this existence to the sight of God and the eternal life of glory, which passage Bunyan has filled up with the utmost probability, as well as with an exquisite warmth and beauty of imagery, which finds no rival in the language. The description comes from the heart, and from an imagination fed, nourished, and disciplined by the Scriptures; and this is the secret of its power, the secret of the depth and heavenly glow of its ravishing colors, and of the emotions with which it stirs the soul even to tears. For it is almost impossible in a right frame of heart, to read this description with

out weeping, especially that part of it where Christian and Hopeful pass the River of Death together.

How full of sweet feeling and Christian wisdom is this passage! How gentle, and tenderly affectionate are Hopeful's efforts to encourage his fainting brother! And how instructive the fact that here the older and more experienced Christian of the two, and that soldier in the Christian conflict who had the most scars upon him for Christ, should be the one to whom the passage of the River of Death was most difficult-instructive, as showing us that safety does not depend upon present comfort, but upon Christ, and that it is wrong to measure one's holiness and degree of preparation för death, by the degree in which the fear of death may have departed. The Pilgrims, especially Christian, began to despond in their mind when they came to the River. Notwithstanding the angels were with them, and though they had been for many days abiding in the Land Beulah, and though they were now in full view of the Celestial City, and though they heard the bells ringing, and the melodious music of the City ravishing their hearts, yet were their hearts cast down as they came to the borders of this river, and found no means of being carried across it.

For timorous mortals start and shrink,

To cross that narrow sea,

And linger, shivering on the brink,
And fear to launch away.

They looked about them on this side and on that, and inquired of their shining seraphic companions if there were no other way of getting over the

river, and they must go into it and when told there was none, they were at a stand. With all the glory before them, it was death's cold flood still. The fear of death is not always taken away, even from experienced and faithful Christians, nor is the passage without terrors. Christian had much darkness and horror, while to Hopeful there was good ground all the way. Christian was wrong when he said, If I were right, He would now arise to help me; for he had, as Hopeful told him, forgotten that it was of the wicked that God saith, There are no bands in their death. However, it is observable that Christian's darkness did not last quite over the River. The Saviour was at length revealed to him, the clouds and darkness fled away, the evil spirits, and the shades of unbelief that had invited and strengthened their temptations, were subdued and put to flight forever, and the Enemy after that was as still as a stone, and the rest of the River was but shallow.

"Brother, I see the Gate," Hopeful would say, while Christian was sinking, "and men standing by to receive us." But Christian would answer, "It is you, it is you, that they wait for; you have been hopeful ever since I knew you." "And so have you," said he to Christian. What affecting simplicity, and faith and love in this last, stern, dark scene and conflict of their pilgrimage! The Great Tempter and Accuser of the saints was busy now with Christian, as he had been under the form of Apollyon, and in the Valley of the Shadow of