196 REFLECTIONS UPON DEATH. to the age of Adam, is but the vision of an infinite multitude of dying men. During the more quiet intervals, we perceive individuals falling into the dust, through all classes and all lands. Then come floods, and conflagrations, famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, and battles, which leave the most crowded and social scenes silent. The human race resemble the wither ing foliage of a wide forest; while the air is calm, we perceive single leaves scattering here and there from the branches; but sometimes a tempest, or a whirlwind, precipitates thousands in a moment. It is a moderate computation which supposes a hundred thousand millions to have died since the exit of righteous Abel. Oh! it is true that ruin hath entered the creation of God that sin hath made a breach in that innocence which fenced man round with immortality; and even now, the great spoiler is ravaging the world. As mankind have still sunk into the dark gulf of the past, history has given buoyancy to the most wonderful of their achievements and characters, and caused them to float down the stream of time to our own age. It is well but if sweeping aside the pomp and deception of life, we could draw from the last hours and deathbeds of our ancestors, all the illuminations, convictions, and uncontrollable emotions of heart, with which they have quitted it,-what a far more affecting history of man should we possess! Behold all the gloomy apart. ments opening, in which the wicked have died; con template first the triumphs of iniquity, and here behold their close; witness the terrific faith, the too late repentance, the prayers suffocated by despair, and the mortal agonies! These once they would not believe; they refused to consider them; they could not allow that the career of crime and pleasure was to end. But now truth, like a blazing star passing through a midnight sky, darts over the mind, and but shews the way to that "darkness visible," which no light can cheer. Dying wretch, we say in imagination to each of these, is religion true? Do you believe in a God, and another life, and a retribution? O, yes! he answers and expires." But the righteous hath hope in his death." Contemplate, through the unnumbered saints that have A REFLECTIONS UPON DEATH. 197 died, the soul, the true and unextinguishable life of man, charmed away from this globe by celestial music, and already respiring the gales of eternity! If we could assemble in one view all the adoring addresses to the Deity, all the declarations of faith in Jesus, all the admonitions and benedictions to weeping friends, and all the gleams of opening glory, our souls would burn with the sentiment which made the wicked Balaam devout for a moment, and exclaim, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his." These revelations of death would be the most emphatic commentary on the revelation of God. What an affecting scene is a dying world! Who is that destroying angel, whom the Eternal has employed to sacrifice all our devoted race? Advancing onward over the whole field of time, he hath smitten the successive crowds of our hosts with death; and to us he now approaches nigh. Some of our friends have trembled, and sickened, and expired, at the signals of his coming; already we hear the thunder of his wings: soon his eye of fire will throw mortal fainting on all our companies; his prodigious form will to us blot out the sun, and his sword sweep us all from the earth, for "the living know that they shall die." In the midst of such desolation, what an infinite and inconceivable mercy, that "God now commandeth all men, every where, to repent," seeing He hath fixed the "day for judging this world in righteousness!" Nor hath He "any pleasure in the death of him that dieth, but rather that he should turn from his way and live." As a proof of this, hath he not "so loved the world as to deliver up his only begotten and well-beloved Son unto death, even the death of the cross, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but inherit everlasting life?" Think not, reader, oh! think not, if you are still seeking your highest pleasures on this side the grave, that it is a matter of comparatively small importance whether you even on this occasion comply with the invitations of our God and Redeemer. refuse, or to beg to be excused, will another day, appear no small offence; nay, whatever men may insinuate to the contrary, it is even now a token of your To 198 PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION. proceeding on the path to ruin. Oh! be persuaded to think of Christianity for yourself, and with reference to yourself individually. Be not deceived. It is infinite condescension in God to invite you to believe and trust upon his Son. He now "waits to be gracious," but he will not always do so. You are therefore without excuse if you die in your iniquity, since but a slender portion of true wisdom can at any time rend the veil which conceals the enmity lurking in every objec tion against repentance unto life. You may now dismiss the subject, and resolve at least, never to quarrel with Christianity, nor any who profess it; but even this is not a harmless, nor even a safe course. Indecision here is criminal-neglect is fatal; and, with reference to the matter of acceptance with God in particular, it may be truly said, that "A soul without reflection, like a pile If, on the other hand, my friend, you have already obeyed the Gospel, you will not be offended with me for reminding you of Him who hath said, "Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity; for if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." Live! live indeed, in the favour of God here, and in his presence for evermore; for "to be spiritually minded is life and peace." In all ages this has been the case. "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the latter end of that man is peace." "Night-dews fall not more gently to the ground, Nor weary worn-out winds expire so soft." PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION. OH! blest of Heaven, whom not the languid songs Of luxury, the siren! not the bribes Of sordid wealth, nor all the gaudy spoils 199 PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION. Those ever-blooming sweets, which, from the store To charm th' enlivened soul! What though not all The princely dome, the column, and the arch, This fair inspir'd delight. Her temper'd powers 200 CREATION CONTEMPLATED WITH REVERENCE We feel within ourselves Whom nature's works instruct, with God himself CREATION CONTEMPLATED WITH HOLY REVERENCE. As soon as we open our eyes upon the natural world, what do we see in general but one majestic temple, full of the invisible mind himself; full of nothing but good and worthy movements and transactions, unless we (for none but we have the faculty) will add trifling, ludicrous, and absurd ones? The creation is sufficiently considered in our days as a subject for scrutiny, for wise experiments and disquisitions, and these perhaps well intended to induce veneration towards the Author. But, after all, the best, most extensive and practical veneration, is that which is occasioned by the plain and first face of things, as they present themselves to the peasant or to a child, who has not learned to profane, and barely thinks, in the gross, "God made all this world! God gave all these good creatures!" The former way produces panegyrics upon |