shall not be depressed by the death of believers; but that there shall be an immeasurable distance between our grief and the grief of unbelievers. I would not, says Paul, have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep; that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope.

That we may have a correct view of the importance of this counsel, let us briefly develope its leading principle.

Death is, in itself, a most serious and distressful event. It is nature's supreme evilthe abhorrence of God's creation-a monster from whose touch and sight every living thing recoils. So that to shrink from its ravages upon ourselves or upon those whom we love, is not an argument of weakness, but an act of obedience to the first law of being; a tribute to the value of that life which is our Maker's gift.

The disregard which some of old affected to whatever goes by the name of evil; the insensibility of others who yield up their souls to the power of fatalism; and the artificial gayety which has, occasionally, played the comedian about the dying bed of " philosophy, falsely so called," are outrages upon decency and nature. Death destroys both action and enjoyment; mocks at wisdom, strength, and beauty; dis

arranges our plans; robs us of our treasures; desolates our bosoms; breaks our heartstrings; blasts our hope. Death extinguishes the glow of kindness; abolishes the most tender relations of man; severs him from all that he knows and loves; subjects him to an ordeal which thousands of millions have passed, but none can explain; and which will be as new to the last who gives up the ghost, as it was to murdered Abel; flings him, in fine, without any avail from the experience of others, into a state of untried being. No wonder that nature trembles before it. Reason justifies the fear. Religion never makes light of it: and he who does, instead of ranking with heroes, can hardly deserve to rank with a brute.

Yet it is not the amount of actual suffering inflicted by the loss of those who are dear to us as our own souls that constitutes the chief pain of the privation. Death might come up into our windows; might rend from our embraces, and bear away, amidst our unavailing lamentations, all that our tenderest affections cling to here below; and the stroke would fall with comparative lightness, were its effect but temporary. It is from futurity that Grief, like Consolation, derives her power. The tears of separation will the more easily dry up, and be succeeded by the calm of cheerful

ness, when we expect to regain what we have lost. But when there is no such expectation; when the treasure ravished from us can neither be restored nor replaced; it is then that nature sickens, and joy descends to the tomb. Ah! who can paint the anguish of the last look! Who can endure, at parting, the distractions of that word, forever! Who, that has any thought of hereafter-that but inclines to the belief that man dieth not as a beast dieth, can sustain the rackings of wild uncertainty, unable to surmise whither the beloved one is gone, and to what condition of being?

This was the state of the poor pagans; others the rest, those that are without, as the apostle terms them. In the death of their friends they had no hope. Not that they were altogether without the notion of the existence of a soul detached from its body, or of happiness in a life to come. Tradition, fortified by the yearnings of nature, had preserved among the vulgar, the poets, and a few sober philosophers, something of distant kin to the truth. But all their conceptions were so obscure, so unwarranted, and therefore so unsatisfying, that they were rather the confused images of a dream, than the clear representations of waking vision. They were sufficient to agitate without convincing; they possessed the

torments of anxiety, without the possibility of certainty and the hope which they fostered, was, for every purpose of consolation and peace, no hope at all.

1. They knew nothing, whatever they might conjecture, of the state of departed man. Whether his soul, his vital and rational principle, survives the body; whether it remains conscious after death; whether, if conscious, it possesses any power of retrospect over earthly scenes; whether it is immortal; whether it enters, in its new mode of being, upon a fixed state of sorrow or joy, of shame or honor. On all these points the heathen were ignorant; although many of them were not quite so unconcerned as numbers who enjoy the pure light of the gospel, and boast of their liberal attainments; but with whom, in that great and terrible day of the Lord, the worst of the pagans would be unwilling to change places.

2. With the resurrection of the body the heathen was absolutely unacquainted. Flesh and blood could not reveal it to them. There are sighings, misgivings, reverential feelings towards the dead, analogies of nature, which eagerly fall in with the doctrine of the resurrection once made known: but which could never lead to the discovery, or even suspicion,

of its truth. The apostles who taught it, until God opened the eyes of their hearers, were regarded as fanatics. In respect to the body, therefore, Death brought with him into every pagan house, dejection, horror, black despondence.

Under these circumstances, what shall arrest the current of mourning, and lamentation, and woe? Where is the voice of the comforter? or what bosom can find room for comfort, which affords no entrance to hope? Oh! it is despair that kills!

Such was paganism bending over the remains of a deceased friend. Such, too, was Judaism, after it had rejected the Hope of Israel, and the Saviour thereof. Such are still the millions, whether of Gentiles or Jews, who know not God.

And wherein have unbelievers among ourselves the pre-eminence? What have they to gild their evening hour, to bind up their aching head, to soothe their laboring heart? What living hope descends from heaven to smile on the sinking features, whisper peace to the retiring spirit, and announce to the sad surrounding relatives that all is well? There is none! Astonishment, dismay, melancholy boding, are the portion of their cup. Sit down, ye unhappy, in the desolation of grief. Consolation heard the voice of your weeping: she