pleasing and tender emotions in the heart. We are formed for social intercourse, and our relations and friendships are strong and binding. But death dissolves the closest bonds, separates, one from another, the dearest earthly friends, and deprives them of the joys of social intercourse. While it leaves survivors forlorn and desolate; while it takes from the wife the companion of her retired hours, and from the child the guide of his youth; it consigns the remains of the departed to the grave, a dreary dwelling-place, a frightful solitude. "I shall see man no more in the land of the living." "As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more." "His children come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them." We willingly remove from our presence what was once the desire and delight of our eyes. "Give me," said Abraham of Sarah, who for many years had been his much beloved companion, “Give me a possession for a burial place, that I may bury my dead out of my sight."

He

Death dissolves our natural being. It destroys that dear and intimate connexion which has long subsisted between the soul and the body. "The silver cord is loosed, and the golden bowl is

broken the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern." It tears asunder the material and spiritual parts of our nature; and while it flings the immortal spirit into unknown regions, and associates it with invisible realities, the body, once so beautiful and vigorous, becomes the prey of corruption and of worms. It commits all that is mortal to the grave, a cold and cheerless mansion, there to moulder till the morning of the resurrection. An important distinction was made, under the law, between such vessels as were clean, and such as were unclean. The earthen vessel that was ceremonially defiled was commanded to be broken in pieces; while those vessels that were made of more costly materials were only to be cleansed with water, or purified by fire. "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." A separation, so painful and agonizing, nature yields to with reluctance. An apostle has declared, "not that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon;" that is, not finally put off the body, but have it glorified with the soul. And even our blessed Lord felt the reluctance of nature to dissolution when he said, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me." Most men would prefer a translation to heaven, like that of Enoch or Elijah, to the natural horrors of dying.

Death is the introduction of the soul into the immediate presence of God, its offended Sovereign, and final Judge. Sin has rendered every intimation of an approaching Deity alarming and awful. No sooner had our first parents fallen, by transgression, than they fled and hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden, on hearing his voice in the cool of the day. When Manoah saw the angel ascending in the flame of the burnt-sacrifice which he had offered to the Lord, he said unto his wife, "we shall surely die, because we have seen God." Our consciences accuse us of guilt, and lead us to forebode the infliction of punishment, so that every messenger from the invisible world seems charged with heavy tidings; and even when God himself comes to us on an errand of love, we not unfrequently misinterpret his design, and our fears present him armed with the instruments of vengeance. "The sinners in Zion are afraid: fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" If such be the natural operations of the human mind, at the distant sound of the footsteps of the Deity, in this scene of labour and combat, what must be the emotions of the disembodied spirit, on its entrance into the unseen state— placed, for the first time, in the full blaze of the divine glory, and summoned before the tribunal

of the Majesty of heaven? How many sins, at that moment, will flash on our recollection; how many threatenings, which we have perused with indifference, will then startle and awaken the conscience; and with what terrors will our guilty fears invest the divine character? How solemn to feel ourselves standing alone in the presence of God, without a friend to help, or an advocate to plead our cause, deeply sensible of our deserts, and waiting, with trembling anxiety, the sentence which is to determine, for ever, our future destiny! Nothing can allay the fever of the mind, and calm the perturbation of the soul, at this dread hour, but an act of faith on the atoning blood of Jesus, and the humble hope of interest in his finished righteousness.

Death fixes, and that irrevocably, our future destiny. The present world is a scene of probation and trial. Our continuance in this state of being is in order to our preparation for another. We are amply furnished with the means of salvation, and are stimulated to faith and repentance by the doctrines and promises of the gospel. In the Holy Scriptures we are warned, intreated, and expostulated with, that we may turn from our evil way and live. The blood-stained banner of the cross is planted in our solemn assemblies; and, as it waves its crimson folds, we see written in legible characters, THE BLOOD OF JESUS

CHRIST HIS SON CLEANSETH US FROM ALL SIN and HIM THAT COMETH TO ME, I WILL IN NO WISE CAST OUT. All the treasures of divine love are opened, and all the springs of divine mercy are broken up, to us, in the ministrations of religion. God is, in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; and, we are beseeched, in his name, not to continue one day, nor one moment, longer, in a course of daring impiety and rebellion. But death is the close of that which is preparatory, and the commencement of that which is final and eternal, in the destiny of man. It subjects our immortal spirits to an ordeal which countless millions have passed, but none can explain; and flings them, without any avail from the experience of others, into a state of untried being. If we have not secured the pardon of our sins, and the sanctification of our souls, it will be in vain to seek for these inestimable blessings, when once we have left the world, and entered on the confines of eternity. The sound of mercy reaches not to the regions of the dead: those who die before they are reconciled unto God, die under the load of their sins, and perish for ever. Sabbaths are ended; the volume of inspiration is closed; the ministry of man ceases; and the ordinances of religion are no longer dispensed. "If the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where