purified spirits who have preceded us into the regions of eternal day. We may learn the mysteries of the universe and of God, from those with whom we have here taken sweet counsel; and who have opened their eyes on the light of eternity, while we are left to wander among the shadows of time. With such a faith, we need not be ignorant concerning those who are asleep. We need not sorrow, as those who have no hope. Death is no longer the king of terrors, with authority to execute the sentence, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou must return;" but a mes senger of peace, to bear the souls of the righteous to the presence of God. G. R. Jesus Christ, the true Source of Consolation. Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of The THE scene in which we live is one of perpetual change and disappointment. morning sun rises bright and beautiful, and we promise ourselves a fair and a happy day. But before noon the horizon is overcast with clouds; and when we look to the west for the gorgeous pictures that are wont to be painted on the evening sky, we find that the heavens are veiled in darkness and in gloom. We have enjoyed it may be a long period of prosperity. The blessings of Providence have descended upon us in an uninterrupted and unmingled stream. Our plans have all been prospered. Our adventurous enterprises have all succeeded. Our hopes, our desires, our vainest wishes, have all been gratified. Health, and ease, and tranquillity, have been the constant inmates of our dwellings; and the glad voices of contentment and joy have responded to each other from every side. Our friends have been about us, and our family has been a blessed society, bound together by the ties of natural affection and mutual esteem. For years, all things have gone well with us. We have floated down the stream of time on a current so placid and noiseless, that we have been insensible even to our progress. We have admired the pleasant scenery about us, and caught a glimpse of a still fairer prospect beyond it, and have settled down in the quiet luxury of unmingled bliss. On a sudden, a change comes over this happy scene. Affliction, sickness, bereavement, take up their abode in our dwelling. In the affecting language of scripture, "beauty is changed into ashes, the oil of joy into mourning, and the garment of praise into the spirit of heaviness." God changeth the countenances of friends and relatives, and sendeth them away. A venerated parent, whose head was silvered by the frosts of many winters, is removed from the sight of the children, whom she led up along the paths of infancy and childhood with a mother's tenderness, and whom she guided and counselled, in their maturer years, with a mother's instinctive wisdom. A husband is snatched away from the bosom of his family—his wife is a widow and his children are fatherless. Parents are called to mourn the early departure of a child who, by its innocence and young affection, had twined itself about their hearts, and whose dissolution was felt like the dismembering of their own frame. One after another we are all called to drink of the bitter cup of bereavement, and to resign those respected and beloved ones, in whom we had treasured up our hopes. There is no exemption from this common lot of humanity. The tears that we once shed with such a true and ready sympathy for the sorrows of others, at last fall warm and frequent for our own. Observation is now turned into experience, and we feel that we never knew before the anguish of a bereaved heart. Such being the universal and inevitable lot, mankind have been led in every age to look around them for support and comfort. They called upon Nature, and besought her, by her marvellous and mysterious agency, to give them knowledge and relief. But Nature, though she every where displays the marks of a designing mind and a contriving hand, could not tell why the wheels of life stood still, or whether they would ever again be put in motion. They looked up to the heavens, and conjured the stars, that never faint in their watches, to send down their benign influences, to impart light to the benighted mind and peace to the troubled heart. But the bright orbs above, though they move on as if they were animated and guided by an angel's power, were deaf to the cry of their worshippers, and could afford them no intelligence concerning the spirit that once tenanted that cold and lifeless form. They applied to the oracles of wisdom and to the sages of a lettered age for succor and consolation. But the responses of Philosophy were as chill and cheerless as the marble forehead that lay before them. The best consolations that she had to offer were, that separation and bereavement were inevitable; that tears and lamentations were unavailing; that there could be no remedy nor relief; and that therefore it was wrong and impious to grieve. How cold and comfortless must these suggestions have appeared to the mourner, as he bent over the lifeless remains of his friend! Well might the Roman emperor say, when these vain comforts were administered to him, that so far from soothing they served only to aggravate his grief. We have seen how inefficacious and unsatisfactory are the consolations of nature, of reason, and of human wisdom. We have |