Pilgrim safely on the other Side of the Dark River, Bunyan,

Flavel,

228

Barton,

G. Moore,

231

Dana,

Melvill,

Rev. A. C. Coxe, 242

THE SILENT LAND.

DEATH.

BERNARD BARTON.

IT is when death and darkness come, men learn, if not before, what their nature is; to what it is exposed, and by what sustained; what it needs and craves. The future and eternity are made sure. They are brought close around them. They have an interest there now; they have treasure there. A part of themselves is there. The parent who gave them being; the brother or sister who shared that being; the child who was all their own, is there-and they are there also. Their nature, all their affections, were reposed in those objects; and you cannot, no power can change-death, worlds, cannot sever them wholly. Their very removal to an unknown state makes that state known. Their flight into the distant and dark future illumes that future. The angel of death, who bore the loved away, opened the heavens as he ascended; and now the eye of faith penetrates, the heart of faith lives, in that spiritual world. There is sorrow and trembling yet. But there is hope, the anchor of the soul. There is faith, the very substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

14

THE DEAD ARE EVERY WHERE.

There is prayer and communion, the soul's pinions, on which it soars to the bright presence of the spirits it here loved, the Savior whom it trusts, the Father in whom it dwells. From the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up. It is the light of God's countenance; it irradiates the features, the souls, with which we have been long familiar with which we may now live forever.

THE DEAD ARE EVERY WHERE.

ANON.

THE dead are every where!

The mountain side, the plain, the wood profound,
All the wide earth, the fertile and the fair,
Is one vast burial ground!

Within the populous streets,

In solitary homes, in places high,

In pleasure domes, where pomp and luxury meet,
Men bow themselves to die.

The old man at his door,

The unweaned child, murmuring his wordless song, The bondman and the free, the rich, the poor, All-all to death belong!

The sunlight gilds the walls

Of kingly sepulchres, inwrought with brass;

And the long shadow of the cypress falls
Athwart the common grass.

The living of gone time
Builded their glorious cities by the sea;
And, awful in their greatness, sat sublime,
As if no change could be.

There was the eloquent tongue;
The poet's heart, the sage's soul was there;
And loving women, with their children young,
The faithful and the fair.

They were, but they are not.

Suns rose and set, and earth put on her bloom; Whilst man, submitting to the common lot,

Went down into the tomb.

And still amid the wrecks

Of mighty generations passed away,

Earth's honest growth, the fragrant wild flower, decks The tomb of yesterday.

And in the twilight deep,

Go veiled women forth, like her who went

Sister of Lazarus

to the grave to weep,

To breathe in low lament.

The dead are every where!
Where'er is love, or tenderness, or faith;
Where'er is pleasure, pomp, or pride; where'er
Life is or was, is death!

16

BLESSED ARE THE DEAD.

BLESSED ARE THE DEAD.

SIMON DACH.

O, HOW blessed are ye whose toils are ended!
Who, through death, have unto God ascended!
Ye have arisen

From the cares which keep us still in prison.

We are still as in a dungeon living,

Still oppressed with sorrow and misgiving;
Our undertakings

Are but toils, and troubles, and heart-breakings.

Ye, meanwhile, are in your chambers sleeping,
Quiet, and set free from all our weeping;
No cross nor trial

Hinders your enjoyments with denial.

Christ has wiped away your tears forever;
Ye have that for which we still endeavor.
you are chanted

Το

Songs which yet no mortal ear have haunted.

Ah, who would not, then, depart with gladness,
To inherit heaven for earthly sadness?

Who here would languish

Longer in bewailing and in anguish?