THE RAVAGES OF DEATH.

THE records of time are emphatically the history of death. A whole review of the world, from this hour to the age of Adam, is but the vision of an infinite multitude of dying men. During the more quiet intervals, we perceive individuals falling into the dust, through all classes and all lands. Then come floods and conflagrations, famines and pestilence, and earthquakes, and battles, which leave the most crowded and social scenes silent. The human race resembles the withered foliage of a wide forest; while the air is calm, we perceive single leaves scattering here and there from the branches; but sometimes a tempest, or a whirlwind, precipitates thousands in a moment. It is a moderate computation which supposes a hundred thousand millions to have died, since the exit of righteous Abel. O! it is true that ruin hath entered the creation of God, that sin has made a breach in that innocence which fenced man round with immortality; and even now the great spoiler is ravaging the world. As mankind have still sunk into the dark gulf of the past, history has given buoyancy to the most wonderful of their achievements and characters, and caused them to float down the stream of time to our own age. It is well; but if, sweeping aside the pomp and deception of life, we could draw from the last hours and death-beds of our ancestors, all the illuminations, convictions, and uncontrollable emotions of the heart, with which they have quitted it, what a far more affecting history of man should we possess ! Behold all the gloomy apartments opening, in which the wicked have died; contemplate first the triumphs of iniquity and here behold their close; witness the terrific faith, the too late repentance, the prayers suffocated by despair, and the mortal agonies! These once they would not believe, they refused to

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consider them; they could not allow that the career of crime and pleasure was to end. But now, truth, like a blazing star passing through a midnight sky, darts over the mind, and but shows the way to that "darkness visible" which no light can cheer. Dying wretch! we say in imagination to each of these, Is religion true? Do you believe in a God, and another life, and a retribution? "Oh, yes!" he answers, and expires!

But the righteous hath hope in his death." Contemplate, through the unnumbered saints that have died, the soul, the true and inextinguishable life of man, charmed away from this globe by celestial music, and already respiring the gales of eternity! If we could assemble in one view all the adoring addresses to the Deity, all the declarations of faith in Jesus, all the gratulations of conscience, all the admonitions and benedictions to weeping friends, and all the gleams of opening glory, our souls would burn with the sentiment, which made the wicked Balaam devout for a moment and exclaim, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."

These revelations of death would be the most emphatic commentary on the revelation of God. What an affecting scene is a dying world! Who is that destroying angel, whom the Eternal has employed to sacrifice all our devoted race? Advancing onward over the whole field of time, he hath smitten the successive crowds of our hosts with death; and to us he now approaches nigh. Some of our friends have trembled, and sickened, and expired, at the signals of his coming; already we hear the thunder of his wings; soon his eye of fire will throw mortal fainting on all our companies; his prodigious form will to us blot out the sun, and his sword sweep us all from the earth; "for the living know that they shall die."

THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH.

"Is that a death-bed where the Christian lies?
Yes, but not his: 'tis death itself that dies."

LIFT not thou the wailing voice,

Weep not, 'tis a Christian dieth. Up, where blessed saints rejoice,

Ransomed now, the spirit flieth; High in heaven's own light, she dwelleth; Full the song of triumph swelleth ; Freed from earth and earthly failing, Lift for her no voice of wailing.

Pour not thou the bitter tear;

Heaven its book of comfort opeth;

Bids thee sorrow not, nor fear,

But as one who always hopeth,

Humbly here in faith relying,

Peacefully in Jesus dying,

Heavenly joy her eye is flushing

Why should thine with tears be gushing?

They who die in Christ are blest.

Ours be, then, no thought of grieving;

Sweetly with their God they rest,

All their toils and troubles leaving.

So be ours the faith that saveth,

Hope that every trial braveth,

Love that to the end endureth,

And, through Christ, the crown secureth.

THE LOST SOUL.

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DEATH NOT DREADED.

THOU art gone to the grave! but we will not deplore thee,
Though sorrows and darkness encompass the tomb;

The Saviour has passed through its portal before thee,
And the lamp of His love is thy guide through the gloom.

Thou art gone to the grave! we no longer behold thee,
Nor tread the rough path of the world by thy side;
But the wide arms of mercy are spread to enfold thee;
And sinners may die, since the Sinless has died.

Though art gone to the grave! and, its mansion forsaking,
Perhaps thy weak spirit in fear lingered long :

But the sunshine of Paradise beamed on thy waking,
And the sound which thou heardst was the seraphim's song.

Thou art gone to the grave! but we will not deplore thee,
Whose God was thy ransom, thy Guardian, and Guide.
He gave thee,-He took thee,-and He will restore thee;
And death has no sting,-for the Saviour has died.

THE LOST SOUL.

BUT what, my brethren, if it be lawful to indulge such a thought, -what should be the funeral obsequies of a lost soul? Would it suffice for the sun to veil his light, or the moon her brightness; to cover the heavens with sackcloth, and the ocean with mourning: or, could the whole fabric of nature become animated and vocal, would it be possible for her to utter a groan too deep, or a cry too piercing, to express the magnitude and extent of such a catastrophe ?

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GOING HOME.

Suggested by the words of a dying friend-"Before morning I shall be at Home."

HOME! Home! its glorious threshold,

Through parting clouds I see,
Those mansions by a Saviour bought,
Where I have longed to be.
And, lo! a bright unnumbered host
O'erspread the heavenly plain,

Not one is silent-every harp

Doth swell th' adoring strain.

Fain would my soul be praising
Amid that sinless throng,
Fain would my voice be raising

Its everlasting song.

Hark! hark! they bid me hasten

To leave the fainting clay,

Friends! hear ye not the welcome sound
"Arise, and come away?"

Before the dawn of morning

These dark skies shall grow bright,
I shall have joined their company
Above this realm of night.
Give thanks, ye weeping loved ones,
Thanks to th' Eternal King,

Who crowns my soul with victory,

And plucks from Death his sting.