ferings, his delivered spirit has learned, are not worthy to be compared with the glory to be revealed." "Spirit, thy labor is o'er, Thy term of probation is run, Thy steps are now bound for the untrodden shore, How blessed and bright is the road, For which thou art now on the wing! Thy home, it will be with thy Saviour and God, CONCLUSION. Now planted in a world of light, Oh, who shall mourn the early flight, In Christ so beautiful and bright, That drew him from a world like this? THE scene has closed. At sea in that little cabin, amidst the storm, and in extreme weakness, though, by the mercy of God, with but little suffering, and in a spirit of calm, sweet confidence in the Redeemer, the last dying struggle of life has been passed through, and the soul has winged its way to Heaven. What a blissful change, from an existence, the protracted effort of which was a conflict with disease and suffering, and one continued trial of faith and patience, to the unclouded presence and perfect likeness of Christ, in a world of uninterrupted holiness, happiness, and glory. Looking at it as a whole, how singular the process of preparation for that world! Each changing scene and discipline of life, under the shape of hopes or efforts to be strengthened and spared for usefulness in this world, being only an application of God's refining and chastening instrumentalities, till the jewel, which was not to be set here on earth, should be fitted for the Redeemer's crown in heaven. Sometimes it seems as if God's only object in calling his children, and sanctifying them, is to carry them to glory, doing little or nothing with them by the way except as preparing them for the end. And yet the example of suffering affliction, and of patience, just so far as that is visible in a likeness to the Great Captain of our Salvation, is more wonderful, and may be, in some respects, more useful than the most brilliant and prosperous career of usefulness. One after another the treasured hopes and expectations of our dear brother were disappointed, and taken from him, till the last that was left was the earnest wish, the longing desire, to see once more his beloved Mother and Sister, and, if it might please God, to die among his kindred. Even that could not be permitted; but when all is gone-when every earthly hope is taken, how completely and calmly can Jesus satisfy the soul! Here, at length, God made it easy for him to dismiss the last desire of life, and submissively and serenely to know that never again on earth could he see the faces of those so dear to him. There was no conflict at last: all he had to do was quietly to fall asleep in Jesus. Christ views his image now! The victory's won! The veil is rent away! In endless peace, The soul beholds its Saviour face to face. Is this death's seal? The impression, oh how fair! That was the soul's farewell: the sacred dust Now, how little do we know, at the beginning, what God is going to do, or what is for the best! Any one who could have witnessed the frank, cheerful, faithful zeal, that characterized the earliest life in Christ of the youthful disciple, his spontaneous delight and perseverance in efforts for the winning of souls to the Saviour, would have predicted a course of great usefulness, if life were spared, and might perhaps have said: It is likely that God will train and discipline this youthful Christian for some great thing in his service. And yet, all the paths through which God brought him, seemed only to wind back upon himself, not ended, nor even intended to end, through any effectual door, in any post of labor or of influence for Christ. What God does thus for such a limited season, he sometimes does with a more advanced Christian, and for a still longer period, seeming to throw away from any active service the very vessels which he had afore prepared for such service, even while the Redeemer's cause appears to languish for want of just such instruments. But we are as clay in the hands of the potter, and God, in all things, is a sovereign. If we love God, all His discipline is best for us, besides being most for His glory. Yet, for the pre sent, it may be not joyous, but grievous, and not light but darkness: the meaning of the discipline may be not clear but hidden. The clouds that by and by are to break with blessings, sometimes all through this life roll up in black volumes, with thunderings, and lightnings, and tempests, overspreading our whole heavens, even till the night of death, which, for the believer, is the dawn of perfect day. Oh then, let God's will be done! When that is all our desire, then cometh the end. Then, in this world even, is an end of all real sorrow; then the object of the Redeemer's sufferings and death is in us almost perfectly accomplished, by saving us from our sins. Sometimes this purifying work seems, even this side the grave, to have gone so far towards the very transfiguration of heaven, that little, if anything, of sin is left in the believer, to die with him. He only needs to put off this tabernacle, all that is mortal and sinful seeming to have retreated from the inner man before the presence of Christ, and to have taken its last post and refuge in that which is outward and corruptible, that which is to be sown in the grave, and thence to be raised in a likeness to the Redeemer's glorified body, as blissful and perfect as the likeness between the regenerated soul and Christ's redeeming spirit. And the sea!—the sea, too, shall then give up its dead! They that sleep in Jesus, how quietly they slumber beneath the rolling waves! Once in early life, amidst the sufferings of his disease, our beloved Brother wrote an essay on the characteristics of true resig |