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have lived like a man-we hope you will die like one;" he observed to one near him, "You see, sir, what miserable comforters I have." He declared, on one occasion," that if ever the devil had an agent upon earth, he had been one." "There was," says Dr. Manley, his physician," something remarkable in his conduct about this period, (which comprises about two weeks immediately preceding his death,) particularly when we reflect that Thomas Paine was the author of The Age of Reason.' He would call out during his paroxysms of distress, without intermission, O Lord, help me! God, help me! Jesus Christ, help me! O Lord, help me!'-repeating the same expressions, without any the least. variation, in a tone of voice that would alarm the house. This conduct induced me to think that he had abandoned his former opinions; and I was more inclined to that belief, when I understood from his nurse, who is a very serious, and, I believe, pious woman, that he would inquire, when he saw her engaged with a book, what she was reading; being answered, and at the same time asked whether she should read aloud, he assented, and would give particular attention." But when his physician repeatedly pressed him to confess his guilt and errors, and asked him, "Do you believe; or let me qualify the question, Do you wish to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?" After a pause of some minutes, he sullenly answered, "I have no wish to believe on that subject." Dr. Manley remarks, "For my own part, I believe, that had not Thomas Paine been such a distinguished infidel, he would have left less equivocal evidences of a change of opinion." The woman whom he had seduced from her husband and children in France, la. mented to a friend who visited Paine in his departing moments," For this man I have given up my family and friends, my property and my religion; judge, then, of my distress, when he tells me that the principles he has taught will not bear me out."

At nearly the same age with Voltaire died the venerable John Eliot, the apostle of the Indians. A strong constitution, untiring zeal, ardent love to Jesus Christ, and the most tender compassion for the souls of men, had enabled him to endure the most remarkable privations and excessive fatigue, in endeavouring to enlighten the poor Indians in the knowledge of a Saviour, and turn them from Satan to God. After a life of extensive usefulness, he approached the grave-but with no terrors. Seeing Mr. Walter, his assistant in the ministry, come to him, and fearing that, by praying that his

life might be spared, he would detain him in this vale of tears, he said, "Brother, thou art welcome to my very soul. Pray retire to thy study for me, and give me leave to be gone." Having been asked how he did, he answered, "Alas! I have lost every thing. My understanding leaves me-my memory fails me-my utterance fails me; but I thank God my charity holds out still. I find that rather grow, than fail." Referring to the object which lay so near his heart, the propagation of the Gospel among the Indians, he said, "The Lord revive and prosper his work, and grant that it may live when I am dead. It is a work in which I have been much and long engaged. But what was the word I spoke last? I recall that word. My doings!—alas! they have been poor, and small, and lean doings; and I will be the man who will cast the first stone at them all." Among the last expressions that were heard to drop from his lips were those emphatic words, "WELCOME JOY!" Thus, after a long, useful, and honourable course, full of days and rich in faith, the holy and indefatigable Eliot entered into his rest in the eighty-sixth year of his age.

Take a different scene. Hear the venerable Polycarp, standing before his accusers. The proconsul said to him,

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Blaspheme and defy Christ, and I will let thee go.' Polycarp answered, "Fourscore and six years have I served him, neither hath he ever offended me in any thing; and how can I revile my King, which hath thus kept me?" When he was condemned to be burnt, the executioners were about to nail him to the stake; "Nay," said he, "suffer me to remain as I am. He that gave me patience to endure this fire, will give me also an immoveable mind to persevere within this fiery pile without your fastening my body." When the executioner had tied his hands, Polycarp lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, "O Father of thy well-beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ, through whom we have known thee; O God of the angels and powers, and every living creature, and of all just men who live in thy presence; I thank thee that thou hast graciously vouchsafed, this day, and this hour, to allot me a portion among the number of martyrs, among the people of Christ, unto the resurrection of everlasting life, both of body and soul, in the incorruption of the Holy Ghost, among whom I shall be received in thy sight this day."

Can any one doubt that "the hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness?" Survey the deaths of these four hoary-headed men,-Voltaire and Paine, Eliot and Polycarp,-and say which are the senti

ments worthy to be embraced; those which the former two, when living, propagated, but cursed in their dying hours; or those which the latter published with inexpressible joy during a long and useful existence, and triumphed in believing, in the very article of death? I know your answer. The God of all grace preserve you from an infidel's life and death, and enable you to live a Christian's life. "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."

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THE FLIGHT OF TIME.

THE FLIGHT OF TIME.

We are accustomed almost from our childhood, to mark the commencement of each succeeding year-to observe as a sort of festival, each new year's day-to wish each other happiness, and then to let time slip on as before, unperceived, till another year revolves, and another new year's day comes, to remind us that time is flying-life advancing-and death and eternity drawing near.

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These annual periods are to us like milestones to the traveller, which mark his progress, but with this distinctive difference, that they cannot tell us how far we have yet to go, before we shall reach our journey's end.

An impartial spectator beholding the mass of mankind at these periods, would be apt to conclude, that to each of them, this "flight of time" was a subject of unfeigned pleasurethat these signs of festivity and of joy, indicated an assured hope and expectation of a state of being so transcendently happy, as to call for the liveliest expressions of delight that they were hastening so rapidly towards its consummation. But how stands the fact ?-comparatively few can be found, who have any certain hope, that when with regard to them, "time shall be no longer," the change then to be made, shall be for the better. The hopes and desires of the great mass of mankind, all centre in this world; and although placing the affections on the things of this life, to the exclusion of God from the thoughts, is declared to be incompatible with the enjoyment of a better state hereafter-yet are they willing to run the risk-to hazard eternity for time!

And is it fitting that "the flight of time" should be marked, so generally as it is, by revelry and drunkenness? Is it fitting that immortal beings, hastening to eternity, should strive

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