Our adventurer, accordingly, was presently initiated in those arts of luxury and pleasure which were there well understood. He was introduced by his obliging host to their public games and festivals; to their theatrical diversions and convivial assemblies: and in a short time he began to feel some relish for amusements, the meaning of which, at first, he could scarcely comprehend. The next lesson which it became desirable to impart to him was the necessity of acquiring wealth as the only means of obtaining pleasure—a fact which was no sooner understood by the stranger, than he gratefully accepted the offer of his friendly host to place him in a situation in which he might amass riches. It was but a few weeks after his arrival on our earth, when, walking in the cool of the day with his friend in the outskirts of the city, his attention was arrested by the appearance of a spacious enclosure near which they passed; he inquired the use to which it was appropriated. "It is," replied the nobleman, "a place of burial." "I do not understand you," said the stranger. "It is the place," repeated his friend, "where we bury our dead." "Excuse me, sir," replied his companion, with embarrassment, "I must trouble you to explain yourself yet further." The nobleman repeated the information more plainly. "I am still at a loss to comprehend you perfectly," said the stranger, turning deadly pale. "This must relate to something of which I was not only totally ignorant in my own world, but of which I have, as yet, had no intimation in yours. I pray you, therefore, to satisfy my curiosity; for if I have any clue to your meaning, this, surely, is a matter of more mighty concernment than any to which you have hitherto directed me." "My good friend,” replied the nobleman, "you must be indeed a novice amongst us, if you have yet to learn that we must all, sooner or later, submit to take our place in these dismal abodes; nor will I deny that it is one of the least desirable of the circumstances which appertain to our con dition; for which reason it is a matter rarely referred to in polished society, and this accounts for your being hitherto uninformed on the subject. But truly, sir, if the inhabitants of the place whence you came are not liable to any similar misfortune, I advise you to betake yourself back again with all speed; for be assured there is no escape here ; nor could I guarantee your safety for a single hour." "Alas!” replied the adventurer, "I must submit to the conditions of my enterprise; of which, till now, I little understood the import. But explain to me, I beseech you, something more of the nature and consequences of this wondrous metamorphosis, and tell me at what period it most commonly happens to man.' While he thus spoke his voice faltered, and his whole frame shook violently; his countenance was pale as death, and a cold dew stood in large drops upon his forehead. By this time his companion, finding the discourse becoming more serious than was agreeable, declared that he must refer him to the priests for further information; this subject being very much out of his province. "How!" exclaimed the stranger, "then I cannot have understood you; do the priests only die? are you not to die ?" His friend, evading these questions, hastily conducted his importunate companion to one of their temples, where he consigned him to the instructions of the priesthood. The emotion which the stranger had betrayed when he received the first idea of death was yet slight in comparison with that which he experienced as soon as he gathered from the discourses of the priests some notion of immortality, and of the alternative of happiness or misery in a future state. But this agony of mind was exchanged for transport when he learned that, by the performance of certain conditions before death, the state of happiness might be secured; his eagerness to learn the nature of these terms excited the surprise of his teachers. They advised him to remain satisfied for the present with the instructions he had received, and to defer the discussion till the morrow. "How!" exclaimed the novice, "say you not that death may come at any hour? May it not then come this hour? and what if it should come before I have performed these conditions? Oh! withhold not this excellent knowledge from me a single moment !" The priests, suppressing a smile at his simplicity, then proceeded to explain their theology to their attentive auditor: but who shall describe the ecstacy of his happiness when he was given to understand that the required conditions were, generally, of easy and pleasant performance; and that the occasional difficulties or inconveniences which might attend them would entirely cease with the short term of his earthly existence. "If then I understand you rightly," said he to his instructors, this event which you call death, and which seems in itself strangely terrible, is most desirable and blissful. What a favour is this which is granted to me, in being sent to inhabit a planet in which I can die!" 66 When the first transports of his emotion had subsided, he began to reflect with sore uneasiness on the time he had already lost since his arrival. "This 66 Alas, what have I been doing!" exclaimed he. gold which I have been collecting, tell me, will it avail me anything when the thirty or forty years are expired, which, you say, I may possibly sojourn in your planet ?" "Nay," replied the priests; "but verily you will find it of excellent use so long as you remain in it." "A very little of it shall suffice me," replied he; "for consider how soon this period will be past. What avails it what my condition may be for so short a season? I will betake myself from this hour to the grand concerns of which you have charitably informed me." Accordingly from that period, continues the legend, the stranger devoted himself to the performance of those conditions on which he was told his future welfare depended; but in so doing he had an opposition to encounter wholly unexpected, and for which he was even at a loss to account. By thus devoting his chief attention to his chief interests, he excited the surprise, the contempt, and even the cnmity of most of the inhabitants of the city; and they rarely mentioned him but with a term of reproach, which has been variously rendered in all the modern languages. Nothing could equal the stranger's surprise at this circumstance, as well as at that of his fellow-citizens appearing, generally, so extremely indifferent as they did to their own interests. That they should have so little prudence and forethought as to provide only for their necessities and pleaures for that short part of their existence in which they were to remain in this planet, he could consider only as the effect of disordered intellect; so that he even returned their incivilities to himself with affectionate expostulation, compassion, and amazement. If ever he was tempted for a moment to violate any of the conditions of his future happiness, he bewailed his own madness with agonising emotions; and to all the invitations he received from others to do anything inconsistent with his real interests, he had but one answer-" Oh," he would say, "I am to die !-I am to die!" "The Contributions of Q. Q." A Thought for the Closing Wear. A FEAST miraculous is o'er, The multitude with praise depart; Your cup of blessing runneth o'er; If you ungraciously have turned From him who all this banquet bought Have thrown away some gifts of God; You yet may eat if you will come, Now hasten! 'tis the eleventh hour, Your good resolves, your better hopes, Fulfil them, trusting in his Name. Some feeble sparks you now shall find A fire Divine they yet may prove, Your precious time, each point improve, Your influence and your every power, ; LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. |