With life worn out some grieve to die,
To end their griefs here others fly.
Life is but that which woke it, breath-
Look here, and tell me, what is death?

ANONYMOUS.

THE FIRST GRAVE.

The following pathetic little poem was written on the circumstance of the first grave being formed in the churchyard of the new church at Brompton: the place was recently a garden, and some of the flowers yet show themselves among the grass, where this one tenant, the forerunner of its population, has taken up his last abode.

A SINGLE grave !-the only one

In this unbroken ground,

Where yet the garden leaf and flower
Are lingering around.

A single grave!—my heart has felt
How utterly alone

In crowded halls, where breathed for me
Not one familiar tone;

The shade where forest-trees shut out
All but the distant sky ;-
I've felt the loneliness of night
When the dark winds past by;

My pulse has quickened with its awe,
My lip has gasped for breath;
But what were they to such as this-
The solitude of death!

A single grave!—we half forget
How sunder human ties,

When round the silent place of rest
A gathered kin red lies.

We stand beneath the haunted yew,
And watch each quiet tomb;
And in the ancient churchyard feel
Solemnity, not gloom :

The place is purified with hope,
The hope that is of prayer;

And human love, and heavenward thought,
And pious faith, are there.

The wild flowers spring amid the grass;
And many a stone appears,
Carved by affection's memory,
Wet with affection's tears.

The golden chord which binds us all
Is loosed, not rent in twain;
And love, and hope, and fear unite
To bring the past again.

But this grave is so desolate,
With no remembering stone,
No fellow-graves for sympathy-
'Tis utterly alone.

I do not know who sleeps beneath,
His history or name-
Whether if, lonely in his life,

He is in death the same:

Whether de died unloved, unmourned,
The last leaf on the bough;

Or if some desolated hearth
Is weeping for him now.

Perhaps this is too fanciful:
Though single be his sod,
Yet not the less it has around
The presence of his God.

It may be weakness of the heart,
But yet its kindliest, best;
Better if in our selfish world
It could be less represt.

Those gentler charities which draw
Man closer with his kind-
Those sweet humanities which make
The music which they find.

How many a bitter word 'twould hush-
How many a pang 't would save,
If life more precious held those ties
Which sanctify the grave!

L. E. L.

THE DEATH OF JESUS.

THE importance of an event cannot be accurately estimated by the degree of interest which it immediately excites, or the magnitude of the consequences which it immediately produces. Events, which, on their occurrence, excited deep and general interest, and seemed big with the fate of many nations and generations, have sometimes failed of producing any important or permanent result. They have passed by, and are forgotten; or, if remembered at all, the recollection is accompanied by a sentiment of wonder, that incidents so trivial should ever have attracted so much regard. On the other hand, the most extensive and lasting revolutions in human affairs, have often flowed from incidents obscure in their origin, casual in their occurrence, and apparently trifling in their importance. There is not to be found, in the history of the human race, from the commencement of time to the present moment, an instance in which the

apparent insignificance of an event was more strongly contrasted by its real importance than the death of the Lord Jesus.

In this event, if we look merely at its external circumstances, there is nothing to merit record, or to secure remembrance. Man's giving up the ghost, is an event of daily, of hourly recurrence. There was indeed something peculiar in this case, for Jesus died upon a cross. But is there any thing uncommonly interesting in the fact, that a poor and unfriended person, accused by his country. men of violating the law of their fathers, should fall a victim to their hatred, and expiate his supposed crimes by crucifixion? The severity of his punishment might indeed be supposed likely to excite some degree of sympathy in the spectators; but certainly the probability was, that his life and death, his guilt or his innocence, would soon cease to be an object of interest, and that every vestige of his existence would, in the course of a very few years, perish from the earth.

Yet, this event, so apparently trivial and inconsiderable, formed the grand and concluding feature in a scene the most interesting and important which ever was, which ever will be, which ever can be exhibited on earth. Amid apparent meanness there was real grandeur; amid seeming insignificance there was infinite importance. That Jesus, who on the cross yielded up his spirit, was the only begotten Son of God in human nature. That life, which he there voluntarily laid down, was the ransom of men innumerable; heaven, earth, and hell, felt the Saviour's dying groan. From that event consequences infinitely numerous, immensely important, and unspeakably interesting, have flowed; revolutions in this world, deeply

affecting the present and immortal interests of mankind have been its result; while among its consequences in the invisible state, faith beholds a guilty world restored to the favour of its Creator; the rights of the divine government vindicated, the everlasting covenant ratified; and the gates of paradise set open.

While thrones, the most ancient and stable, have been crumbled into dust, and their proud possessors forgotten among men; while the renown of the warrior and the statesman, the philosopher and the poet, has passed away; the death of Jesus on a cross is not merely remembered, but remembered with the deepest interest, and the most profound veneration. And now, at the distance of nearly two thousand years since this decease was accomplished in Palestine, we, the inhabitants of a remote district in a distant part of the earth, meet together to celebrate a rcligious rite instituted for its commemoration; and thus testify our sense of its importance, and our wish that it may be held in everlasting remembrance.

BROWN.

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.

THIS is the most remarkable miracle in the Gospel. Peruse the history with care; and you must conclude, either that he rose, or that his disciples stole the body away. The more the last is considered, the more improbable it appears. Jesus had declared, that he would rise again on the third day. The heads of the Jewish nation knew this, and determined to prevent any craft or force being employed by his followers, to take the body from the tomb, and then pretend that he was