For she within my bosom lives, though from my presence fled,

And on her widow'd pillow shall no other lay her head.

When I retire to sleepless rest, I go with thrilling

fears,

When weary I arise from bed, my eyes are dim with tears;

I think of her whose faithful love my blessing was and pride,

Who, day and night, for twice ten years, seem'd safety by my side;

And still within my bosom lives, though from my dwelling fled,

Nor on her widow'd pillow shall another lay her head.

Ah! must not such lost treasure to memory be

dear,

When e'en the place that held it is all that now can cheer?

"Tis sorrow's soothing nourishment to feed on pleasures pass'd,

"Tis true affection's covenant to live while life shall last:

So live thou in my bosom, love! though thou to heaven art fled,

For on thy widow'd pillow I alone will lay my

head.

T. PARR.

THE SOUL'S FAREWELL TO EARTH.

Be thou ever, O my soul, holily ambitious; always aspiring towards thy heaven; not entertaining any thought that makes not towards blessed

ness.

For this cause, therefore, put thyself upon thy wings, and leave the earth below thee; and, when thou art advanced above this inferior world, look down upon this globe of wretched mortality, and despise what thou wast and hadst; and think with thyself, "There was I, not a sojourner so much as prisoner, for some tedious years. There have I been thus long tugging with my miseries, with my sins. There have my treacherous senses betrayed me to infinite evils, both done and suffered. How have I been there tormented with the sense of others' wickedness, but more with the sense of my own! What insolence did I see in men of power! what rage in men of blood! what gross superstition in the ignorant! what abominable sacrilege in those that would be zealous! what drunken revellings, what filthiness, what hellish profanations, in atheistic ruffians! what perfidiousness in friendship, what cozenage in contracts! what cruelty in revenges; shortly, what a hell upon earth! Farewell then, sinful world, whose favours have been no other than snares, and whose frowns no less than torments. Farewell for ever; for if my flesh cannot yet clear itself of thee, yet my spirit shall ever know thee at a distance, and behold thee no otherwise than the escaped mariner looks back upon the rock, whereon he was lately splitted. Let thy bewitched clients adore thee for a deity; all the homage thou shalt receive from me shall be no other than defiance; and if thy glorious shows have deluded the eyes of credulous spectators, I know thee for an impostor. Deceive henceforth those that trust thee; for me, I am out of the reach of thy fraud, out of the power of thy malice."

Thus do thou, O my soul, when thou art raised

up to this height of thy fixed contemplation, cast down thine eyes contemptuously upon the region of thy former miseries, and be sure ever to keep up in a constant ascent towards blessedness, not suffering thyself to stoop any more to these earthly vanities. For tell me seriously, when the world was disposed to court thee most of all, what did it yield thee but unsound joys, sauced with a deep anguish of spirit; false hopes, shutting up in a heartbreaking disappointment; windy proffers, mocking thee with sudden retractions; bitter pills in sugar; poison in a golden cup? It showed thee perhaps stately palaces, but stuffed with cares; fair and populous cities, but full of toil and tumult; flourishing churches, but annoyed with schism and sacrilege; rich treasures, but kept by ill spirits; pleasing beauties, but baited with temptation; glorious titles, but surcharged with pride; goodly semblances, with rotten insides; in short, death, disguised with pleasure and profits.

If, therefore, heretofore, thy inexperience have suffered thy feathers to be belimed with these earthly entanglements, yet now that thou hast happily cast those plumes and quitted thyself of these miserable incumbrances, thou mayest soar aloft above the sphere of mortality, and be still towering up towards thy heaven and as those who have ascended to the top of some Athos or Teneriffe, see all things below them, in the valleys, small, and scarcely in their diminution discernible; so shall all earthly objects, in thy spiritual exaltation, seem unto thee; either thou shalt not see them at all, or at least so lessened, that they have to thee quite lost all the proportion of their former dimensions.

It will not be long, O my soul, ere thou shalt

absolutely leave the world as the place of thy habitation, being carried up, by the blessed angels, to thy rest and glory; but, in the mean time, thou must resolve to leave it in thy thoughts and affections. Thou mayst have power over these, even before the hour of thy separation; and these, rightly disposed, have power to exempt thee beforehand, from the interests of this inferior world, and to advance thine approaches to that world of the blessed. While thou art confined to this clay, there is naturally a luggage of carnality that hangs heavy upon thee, and sways thee down to the earth; not suffering thee to mount upward to that bliss whereunto thou aspirest. This must be shaken off, if thou wouldst attain to any capacity of happiness. Even in this sense," flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." It behoves thee to be, so far as this composition will admit, spiritualized, ere thou canst hope to attain to any degree of blessedness.

Thy conjunction with the body doth necessarily clog thee with an irrational part, which will unavoidably force upon thee some operation of its own; and thy senses will be interposing themselves in all thy intellectual employments, proffering thee the service of their guidance in all thy proceedings; but if thou lovest eternity of blessedness, shake them off as importunate suitors; gather up thyself into thy own regenerated powers, and do thy work without and above them. It is enough that thou hast, at first, taken some hint from them, of what concerns thee; (as for the rest, cast them off as unnecessary and impertinent) the prosecution whereof is too high and too internal, for them to intermeddle with. Thou hast now divine and heavenly things in chase, whereof there cannot be the

least scent in any of these earthly faculties. Divest therefore, what thou possibly mayest, of all materiality both of objects and apprehensions; and let thy pure, renewed, and illuminated intellect work only upon matter spiritual and celestial.

And, above all, propose unto thyself, and dwell upon that purest, most perfect, simplest, most blessed object, the glorious and incomprehensible Deity. There thou shalt find more than enough to take up thy thoughts to all eternity. Be thou, O my soul, ever swallowed up in the consideration of that infinite self-being Essence, whom all created spirits are not capable sufficiently to admire. Behold, and never cease wondering at, the majesty of his glory. The bodily eyes dazzle at the sight of the sun; but if there were as many suns as there are stars in the firmament of heaven, their united splendour were but darkness to their all-glorious Creator. Thou canst not yet hope to see him as he is; but, lo, thou beholdest where he dwells in light inaccessible; the sight of whose very outward verge is enough to put thee into a perpetual ecstasy. It is not for thee, as yet, to strive to enter within the vail: thine eyes may not be free, where the angels hide their faces. What thou wantest in sight, O my soul, supply in wonder. Never any mortal man, O God, durst sue to see thy face, save that one entire servant of thine, whose face thy conference had made shining and radiant; but even he, though inured to thy presence, was not capable to behold such glory, and live. Far be it from me, O Lord, to presume so high. Only let me see thee as thou hast bidden me, and but so; as not to behold thee, after thy gracious revelation, were my sin. Let me sce,