estimable passions and affections, virtue becomes more agreeable to us; the past more capable of understanding; the present more endurable; and the future. more pregnant with hope and animation.

XV.

Why, then, is death considered an evil of such gigantic magnitude? Is it indeed a feeling, implanted in our bosoms by the unconquerable hand of Nature? or is it the more probable effect of early association'

Alluding to the subject of early associations, I presume to record my gratitude to a lady, to whom I ought to esteem myself under a greater obligation, than if she had left me a fortune of five hundred pounds a-year! This lady is the accomplished Mrs. BARBAULD; whose hymns,-read in the season of comparative infaucy,-first implanted that ardent admiration of Nature, which, in all the trials to which I have been exposed, has been the charm, the pride, and consolation of my life.

Four and thirty years have now elapsed, since I read those beautiful little master-pieces;-and when I sent for them, in order that I might record my gratitude in these pages, the following sentences were as "green" to my imagination, as they had been in the morning of my life; and I could not, after an intercourse of so many years with worldly objects, worldly men, and worldly sentiments, trace the images, they so vividly represent, without a sedate feeling of melancholy transport.

"Come, let us praise God, for he is exceeding great; let us bless God, for he is very good.

"He made all things; the sun to rule the day, the moon to shine by night.

"He made the great whale, and the elephant; and the little worm that crawleth on the ground.

"The little birds sing praises to God, when they warble sweetly in the green shade.

"The brooks and rivers praise God, when they murmur melodiously amongst the smooth pebbles."

"Come,

and of vitiated education? I am inclined to believe, that were we, when children, taught to consider

"Come, let us go forth into the fields, let us see how the flowers spring; let us listen to the warbling of the birds, and sport ourselves upon the new grass.

"The winter is over and gone, the buds come out upon the trees, the crimson blossoms of the peach and the nectarine are seen, and the green leaves sprout.

“The hedges are bordered with tufts of primroses, and yellow cowslips that hang down their heads; and the blue violet lies hid in the shade."

"Come, and I will show you what is beautiful. It is a rose fully blown. See how she sits upon her mossy stem, like the queen of all the flowers! her leaves glow like fire: the air is filled with her sweet odour! she is the delight of every eye.

"She is beautiful, but there is a fairer than she. He that made the rose is more beautiful than the rose; he is all lovely; he is the delight of every heart.

"I will show you what is strong. The lion is strong; when he raiseth up himself from his lair;-when he shaketh his mane, when the voice of his roaring is heard, the cattle of the field fly, and the wild beasts of the desert hide themselves, for he is very terrible.

"The lion is strong, but he that made the lion is stronger than he his anger is terrible; he could make us die in a moment, and no one could save us out of his hand.

"I will show you what is glorious. The sun is glorious. When he shineth in the clear sky, when he sitteth on the bright throne in the heavens, and looketh abroad over all the earth, he is the most excellent and glorious creature the eye can behold.

"The sun is glorious, but he that made the sun is more glorious than he. The eye beholdeth him not, for his brightness is more dazzling, than we could bear. He seeth in all dark places; by night as well as by day; and the light of his countenance is over all his works. "Who is this great name, and what is he called, that my lips may praise him?

death only as a cavern, through which the old and the young must necessarily pass, in their road to a hap

"This great name is God. He made all things, but he is himself more excellent, than all which he hath made :-they are beautiful, but he is beauty; they are strong, but he is strength; they are perfect, but he is perfection."

"Child of reason, whence comest thou? What has thine eye ob. served, and whither has thy foot been wandering?

"I have been wandering along the meadows, in the thick grass; the cattle were feeding around me, or reposing in the cool shade; the corn sprung up in the furrows; the poppy and the harebell grew among the wheat; the fields were bright with summer, and glowing with beauty.

"Didst thou see nothing more? Didst thou observe nothing besides? Return again, child of reason, for there are greater things than these. "God was among the fields and didst thou not perceive hím? ́ his beauty was upon the meadows: his smiles enlivened the sunshine.

"I have walked through the thick forest; the wind whispered among the trees; the brook fell from the rocks with a pleasant murmur; the squirrel leapt from bough to bough; and the birds sung to each other amongst the branches.

"Didst thou hear nothing but the murmur of the brook? no whispers but the whispers of the wind? Return again, child of reason, for there are greater things than these. God was amongst the trees; his voice sounded in the murmur of the water. His music warbled in the shade; and didst thou not attend?

"I saw the moon rising behind trees; it was like a lamp of gold. The stars one after another appeared in the clear firmament. Presently I saw black clouds arise, and roll towards the south; the lightning streamed ir thick flashes over the sky; the thunder growled at a distance; it came ucarer, and I felt afraid, for it was loud and terrible.

"Did thy heart feel no terror, but of the thunderbolt? Was there nothing bright and terrible but the lightning? Return, O child of reason, for there are greater things than these.-God was in the storm, and didst thou not perceive him? His terrors were abroad, and did not thine heart acknowledge him?

"God

pier region;-did we, in our manhood, consider death as the sister of sleep, and the mother of rest;-were the unfortunate to hail it as a sliding from tumult, and the old as a translation to another country, where their youth would be renewed, and rendered

"God is in every place; he speaks in every sound we hear; he is seen in all that our eyes behold; nothing, O child of reason, is without God let God therefore be in all thy thoughts."

"I have seen the flower withering on the stalk, and its bright leaves spread on the ground. I looked again, and it sprung forth afresh; the stem was crowned with new buds, and the sweetness thereof filled the air.

"I have seen the sun set in the west, and the shades of night shut in the wide horizon; there was no colour, nor shape, nor beauty, nor music; gloom and darkness brooded around.—I looked, the sun broke forth again from the cast; he gilded the mountain tops; the lark rose to meet him from her low nest, and the shades of darkness fled away.

"I have seen the insect, being come to its full size, languish and refuse to eat it spuu itself a tomb, and was shrouded in the silken cone; it lay without feet, or shape, or power to move. I looked again, it had burst its tomb; it was full of life, and sailed on coloured wings through the soft air; it rejoiced in its new being.

"Thus shall it be with thee, O man! and so shall thy life be renewed. Beauty shall spring up out of ashes; and life out of the dust.

"A little while shalt thou lie in the ground, as the seed lieth in the bosom of the earth; but thou shalt be raised again; and, if thou art good, thou shalt never die any more.

"Who is he that cometh to burst open the prison doors of the tomb; to bid the dead awake, and to gather his redeemed from the four winds of heaven?

"He descendeth on a fiery cloud; the sound of a trumpet goeth before him; thousands of angels are on his right hand."

different stages of should we not hail

eternal:—were we, I say, in the
our existence, thus to consider it,
this creator of terrors as a friend, rather than as an
enemy? Yes, my friend, death in the ordeal, by which
our faculties are to be fully tried and developed.-—
Death is, in fact, the guide, which, after hope has
cheered the heart, and tranquillized the soul, will lead
us from the limits of time to the vestibule of eternity.
This is a species of philosophy, however, of which
we know but little. For in the present state of opinion,

The weariest and most loathsome life,
That ache, age, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on Nature, were a paradise,

To what we fear of death.

Measure for Measure, act iii. sc. 1.

XVI.

It is curious, that the only ancient gem, extant, personifying death,' represents him as an image dancing to the music of a flute: and when the poets would allegorize a child, dying in its bud, they fabled? Aurora to steal it from the arms of its parents.

The gods, says Seneca, conceal the happiness of death, in order to induce us to live: Juvenal3 directs us to pray for a mind, which considers death as a consummation most anxiously to be wished*: and the lesson has received the illustration of a Scythian king.5 1 Mus. Flor., tom. i. tab. 91. 2 Meurs : de Funére, c. 7.

3 Sat., x. v. 358.

4" Were our eyes," says Mad. de Stael, on the death of her father, p. 151,"permitted to take a clear view of the opposite shore, who would remain on this desolate coast ?"

5 Vid. Epiced. Olaus Wormius, st. 25.