31. What is your life? It is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. James iv. 14.

1. If life be thus brief, then let us diligently improve every moment.-2. If it be thus evanescent, let us not rely upon it.-3. If it is thus to terminate soon, and perhaps suddenly, then let us prepare for its termination, and for an introduction to a higher and more enduring life in heaven.

Lord, what is life?-if spent with thee,

In humble praise and prayer,

How long or short our life may be,
We feel no anxious care:

Though life depart, our joys shall last
When life and all its joys are past.

THE BIBLE.

HAST thou ever heard

Of such a book? The author God himself;
The subject, God and man, salvation, life
And death-eternal life, eternal death:

Dread words! whose meaning has no end, no bounds.

Most wondrous book; bright candle of the Lord!
Star of eternity! the only star

By which the bark of man could navigate
The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss
Securely only star which rose on time,
And on its dark and troubled billows, still,
As generation, drifting swiftly by,
Succeeded generation, threw a ray

Of heaven's own light, and to the hills of God,
Th' eternal bills, pointed the sinner's eye.
This book, this holy book, on every line
Marked with the seal of high Divinity,
On every leaf bedewed with drops of love
Divine, and with th' eternal heraldry
And signature of God Almighty stamped
From first to last-this ray of sacred light,
This lamp from off the everlasting throne,

Mercy took down, and in the night of time
Stood, casting on the dark her gracious bow,
And evermore beseeching men with tears
And earnest sighs, to hear, believe, and live.
And many to her voice gave ear, and read,
Believed, obeyed; and now, as the Amen,
True, faithful Witness swore, with snowy robes
And branchy palms surround the fount of life,
And drink the streams of immortality,
Forever happy, and forever young.

"Within this awful volume lies
The mystery of mysteries.
Oh! happiest they of human race
To whom our God has given grace
To hear, to read, to fear, to pray,
To lift the latch, and force the way:
But better had they ne'er been born,
Who read to doubt, or read to scorn."

THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.