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knowledge such for instance as a city, a kingdom, a church, an assembly. We meet .with an extraordinary number of these words, in a short and continuous passage of the epistle to the Hebrews, xii. 22. "But ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect."

Passages and expressions similar to these we shall often find in the holy volume. The least that can be said of them is, that they countenance an opinion which is prompted by affection and confirmed by reason. To my

mind they complete the proof of a recognition and re-union of friends in the future state.

In endeavoring to maintain this belief, I cannot perceive that I have wandered into the region of mere speculation. It has been my object to make it appear a reasonable doctrine. For as reasonableness is a quality which, as far as I can judge of it, I never fail to require for every article of my own creed, so it is a rule by which I desire to see every

opinion examined and adopted, or rejected by others.

After discussing the grounds of the doctrine, we are at liberty to speak of its moral effects. No one will deny that these are of great importance. Its consolations are abundant. Like an angel of mercy, it hastens to the house which the angel of death has overshadowed; wipes away the tears of its inmates before time can arrive with its tardy comfort; and gives peace to the bosom when philosophy and stoicism have done their utmost in forcing composure on the features. It tells us, that those who were not permitted to accompany us to the end of our earthly journey, have only been taken before us to their resting-place, where we shall soon rejoin them. It will teach us to look on dissolution as only a longer or shorter term of temporary absence from those who have made life pleasant to us; as a suspension merely of those friendships and intimacies, which have afforded us the best part of what we have known as happiness; and we shall wait with a holy patience for a renewal of them, where they will never again be interrupted nor broken.

The influence of such a belief on the affec

tions will naturally be extended to the conduct. It must be a purifying as well as a consolatory faith. The conviction that we shall meet our righteous friends in heaven, in the holy dwelling-place of God, if our own characters are such as will admit us to their company, will naturally make us anxious to amend and improve our lives, and separate ourselves from all defilement. We may expect that our union will then be immediate. But obstinate sin, we have every reason to believe, will prove a dreary banishment from the abodes of bliss, and from those who inhabit them. And it is my belief, that this separation of the wicked from the good will be one of the punishments of the former, and one of the inducements by which they will be moved to seek the forfeited favor of the Almighty, and a restoration to those friends from whom their evil deeds had estranged them.

I would observe in closing, that there are those on the earth whose days God has been pleased to prolong, till they have survived all that blessed their eyes or satisfied their affections, and till they have seen the dearest objects of their love fade away and fall around them, "like leaves in wintry weather." To

such, the doctrine of a speedy re-union must be something more than consolatory. It will prepare them to throw off life as an old and useless garment, and invite death as a redeeming friend.

If that high world, which lies beyond

Our own, surviving love endears;
If there the cherished heart be fond,
The eye the same, except in tears-
How welcome those untrodden spheres!
How sweet this very hour to die!
To soar from earth, and find all fears
Lost in thy light - Eternity!

F. W. P. G.

Christ's Legacy to his Disciples.

Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you.

A CALM and sacred peacefulness of mind is given to the devout and consistent christian, such as no worldly power can impart, and which no worldly power can destroy. Unlike the flashes of joy which kindle the countenance, and send the electric sparks of an excited spirit through the circles of the frivolous and gay, it is a peacefulness which dwells not on the surface, but an inward light; it burns clearly and brightly in the sanctuary of the soul. It is quenched not, dimmed not by the vicissitudes of life, and even when all earthly prospects are darkened and all earthly hopes destroyed, it points steadily to a bright and quiet and far-off spot, fast by the throne of God, where the weary will be at rest.

The christian derives peace from the conviction, that the events of life are ordered by a Providence which, though it inflict partial and temporary suffering, is administered for

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