have failed to indulge, like Mr. Deacon, in serious contemplation. The review of the hours of friendship, which they had passed together, was a striking reverse to the period which had elapsed up to this awful time, and the prospect beyond was painful and sickening. To a sensitive mind like his, the death of his former friend, under such a horror of circumstances, suggested various feelings. He saw, lifeless before him, one who had possessed every advantage, and had been endowed with every faculty, the use of which ennobles, and the abuse degrades humanity. He contemplated also the secret, the inscrutable workings of Providence, which is extended over the evil and the good, the just and the unjust. And from comparing these together, he felt more than ever assured of the truth, that human nature is corrupt, weak, and sinful, unable to save itself, and consequently dependent on the gracious assistance of some higher power; which assistance, he felt equally assured, is always extended to all who seek, or strive to obtain it. From these considerations, also, he derived additional reasons to believe in that great work of heaven, which, without diminishing its fulness, prepared a way to purify,

enlighten, and confirm mortality, by the sacrifice of one who, uniting both natures, exacted, and paid the penalty for all, which man could never have paid; and who conferred the means of redemption, from which his still imperfect ability may obtain continual supplies of assistance to enable him to "fight the good fight of faith," and come "to honour, and glory, and immortality." How sickening, therefore, was the sight before him-"The noblest work of God," so "infinite in faculties," and embellished with all that is "express and admirable," is now unoccupied and laid in ruins, whilst the tenant, whom God himself housed there, is driven away by a rash act, the fatal consequence of a complexity of vicious practices, to appear before his Creator, unsummoned, unprepared. This was an awful thought, and though as a man he might not pronounce eternal death upon a fellow mortal, yet the page of Revelation too clearly denounces tribulation and anguish,' and everlasting punishment on all those, who wilfully rush from a life they received for gracious purposes into an eternity of endless woe and neverdying misery. He could not fail, also, to feel what he had often preached, and thought, that

whilst the Christian unfearingly meets his end, and relying upon the merits of the Saviour to be imputed to him, with the eye of hope anticipates the pure delights of heaven, the hardened sinner, however vice may have bewildered his sense, and blunted his feelings, finds his pilgrimage of life full of suffering, and, filled with dreadful doubts and gloomy fears, shrinks in the hour of death from that futurity which it is not permitted man to fathom.

66

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION.

ARTHUR Oswald had been left an orphan in early life, when his guardians sent him to a large school, through which he rapidly passed by the force of a natural and powerful genius, which like a strong current, carried him impetuously forward, despite the various obstacles which presented themselves to check him in his career. As a very moderate exertion was sufficient to buoy him on the surface of that scholastic distinction which his companions by more laborious efforts attempted to gain, no studies were to him difficult; and as there was nothing to excite application, he was altogether a stranger to it. This was a circumstance to be regretted, for they only can truly appreciate fame who acquire it after much toil and difficulty. Diligence in itself constitutes one of the most refreshing and invigorating exercises of the mind, by which, alone, the intellectual soil

is loosened and turned over, and adapted to the reception of the seed to be implanted in it. The facility with which his exercises were accomplished, while it gave him greater leisure than was profitable, had the effect to restrain the powers of his mind, as it was expedient to retard his progress to admit of the advancement of those with whom he was classed. His lessons were prepared in half the time which they commonly engaged others, and thus while his companions were busied in making their way up to him, he was left to the indulgence of exclusive amusement, to the idle thoughts of a fanciful imagination, or to the perusal of trifling works of wit and genius, which, while they contributed to make him a more agreeable companion, had the tendency to fill his mind with unsubstantial acquirements.

As a young man, he was prepossessing in his appearance, and not less so in his address. Tall and well made, his manly countenance and decisive gait commanded attention, while a brilliancy of intellect, a vivid fancy, and an uniform flow of language, gave him a marked superiority in every circle in which he moved; and though neither retiring in his manners,