To have a friend go before us to heaven, is of all things best fitted to make heaven familiar to our minds. Constituted as we are with the sympathies of human nature, it is impossible but that the thought of heaven, as the abode of one whom we have familiarly known and loved, should give the anticipation of it a new power, by divesting it of the strangeness with which an unknown place is presented to our thoughts.

"Our dying friends are pioneers, to smooth

Our rugged pass to death: to break those bars
Of terror and abhorrence nature throws

Cross our obstructed way, and thus to make
Welcome, as safe, our port from every storm."*

In closing our contemplations of MOUNT AUBURN, how can we forbear to speak of it as destined to be a place of unutterable interest and solemnity at the world's last day. The time is coming when the multitudes who will throng these graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. This place will be one of peculiar interest as the scene of the resurrection not so much of a promiscuous multitude as of families. Then the family-tomb will open its long closed gate, and the whole household of its dead will keep silence no more. There will then be a recognition of each by all, with looks and words of intense meaning. The father and mother will hang upon the child and the child upon the parents, and brothers and sisters and husbands and wives will embrace as though they had returned from distant climes. No imagination can conceive of the transport in such a circle, if it is found that all are in the number of those that awake to everlasting life. No separation is thenceforth to be made amongst them; they are to spend eternity together in the employments and bliss of heaven. On the other hand, whole families may come forth with every kind of emotion but that of joyful transport; for "of them that sleep in the dust of the earth, some shall awake to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." How different on that day will be the feelings of many who make this place a scene of Sabbath breaking, and of thoughtless mirth; wasting here that time in sin, of which at that day one hour will not be found for prayer and repentance though they seek it carefully, with tears.

How

blessed will they be who awake from these tombs and recognize this as the former scene of their pious contemplation, and of their preparation to meet their God in peace. The Son of God will then proceed to summon each family before Him: those of its members who may have been scattered in the earth or sea, will have heard his voice and come forth; and they will stand together and look upon him who was once the Saviour and is now to be the Judge of the world. Blessed are they who will then have that Judge for their friend, and who, when "He cometh with clouds and every eye shall see Him, and they also that pierced Him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him," will be able to say, "Lo! this is our GOD; we have waited for him and he will save us; this is the Lord; we will rejoice and be glad in his salvation." Blessed are they who for the profession of their belief in him before men, will be confessed by him before his Father and his holy angels.

Whenever we enter the consecrated cemetery, let us remember that it is one day to be to us, if we sleep there, the scene of unutterable emotions, and that we are now forming the character with which we shall awake at the morning of the resurrection, and which will make our tomb the threshhold of an eternity of joy or sorrow. Blessed are those families whose members shall each of them die in the Lord, and thus preserve the beloved circle unbroken, and when the night of death has passed away, shall send up from their tomb their united morning hymn, and enter together into that home where earthly love shall be crowned with an everlasting consummation.

ARTICLE IX.

MORAL REFORM.

MORAL REFORM, in a more general sense, would comprehend the object of all benevolent effort, both human and divine. The great purpose-ostensibly, at the least-of every individual who labors to ameliorate the condition of

mankind, whether it be by instructing them, or improving their physical condition, is their moral elevation and advancement. In this view, all our social institutions-families, schools, lyceums, colleges, churches, and benevolent associations; all our teachers, ministers, printing presses, and pulpits, statutes and penalties-nay, all the doctrines and discipline of Heaven itself, are, or should be, but so many instruments and agents in the grand work of human elevation and reform.

Of late, however, it has been customary to use the phrase moral reform in a much more restricted sense, as embracing one department only-though by no means a narrow oneof benevolent effort. The decree of public sentiment having gone forth against intemperance in the use of distilled spirits, philanthropic individuals were led to extend their inquiries, and it has been found that there are other forms of intemperance, very prevalent ;-that there are other abuses of the animal appetites, than an indulgence in the use of spirituous and fermented liquors. The press, and even the pulpit, are already beginning to awake to the importance of yielding obedience, nationally and individually, to all the commands of the decalogue, as well as to nine-tenths of them.

Foremost in effort, through the press, has been a monthly journal, in one of our sister cities. This journal has labored long and hard, boldly and fearlessly, to drag the master vice which it aims at, so far into the light of day, and expose it so far to the public gaze, as to rouse the public sentiment, and lead to its extermination. To this end the journal has been widely circulated, either gratuitously or otherwise, and has undoubtedly contributed to spread, largely, a knowledge of the extent of the evils in question. At the same time, several other periodicals have lent a helping hand, and two or three volumes have appeared, either in part or wholly devoted to this subject, in some of its various branches. Nor should it be forgotten that in several of our cities, courses of lectures have been given in aid of the same object. As the result, at least in part, of this diffusion of light in the community, several associations of public spirited individuals have sprung up, in different parts of the country, generally under the name of societies for promoting moral reform.

Now these efforts, so far as they are judicious, should be hailed by every friend of God or his country, as indications of great good. Nor is it always easy to determine, in our

first efforts to rouse the public mind to a great, and growing, and dangerous evil, how far prudence requires that we should go, and when and where we overstep the confines of safety, to the defeat, ultimately, of our dearest and most laudable purposes. It is not yet proved that there may not exist a necessity, arising from the nature of things, as the world now is, that in the beginning of a reformation, some, at least, of those efforts, which afterwards appear to have been premature, were not indispensable. It is not yet proved, at least so it seems to us, that Luther, with all his errors, was not needed to begin the work of a reformation, whose results involved some of the most precious blessings that in later times have descended on our race.

Much, we think, may depend on the circumstances and condition-the moral and intellectual elevation, generallyof the community in which these efforts are to be made. Where there is full liberty of the press, and facilities and means for circulating every where such information as will prepare the way, for a work of reform, we cannot help thinking that our course of action should be widely different from what it ought to be under other circumstances.

If we were to affirm, however, that the friends of "moral reform," in the popular acceptation of the term, have not sufficiently prepared the way, for acting advantageously on the public sentiment, we should undoubtedly be told that the same remarks have been made in regard to every reformation, in every age of the world. We should at once be referred to the temperance cause, as it has been conducted in this country; and should no doubt be asked triumphantly where, as a nation, we should now have been, had we waited for the diffusion of more light, before we began to act, lest we should defeat our purposes. The action-the effort —it will be said, has been the very means of pouring a flood of light upon the common mind, which could not otherwise have been elicited or communicated.

Now although we believe that great good has been done in this cause of temperance, yet surely it is no heresy to question whether the balance of good over the evil which has been produced is as great as it might have been, had a different course of proceeding been adopted. The excellence of a cause, and the propriety of a particular mode of conducting it, we suppose few will be likely to maintain are to be determined by immediate apparent success; we mean

that success which is indicated by a rapid increase of its adherents. Some of the most faithful reformers the world ever saw, must on that principle be regarded as very unsuccessful.

We have been led to make this remark, because it is common to appeal to the number of converts to this new standard, as bona fide evidence that a crusade against any predominating vice is all that is indispensable; and that any thing which has the appearance of a work of preparation, is treasonable. It is most deeply to be regretted that this propensity to despise the good old maxim, "Make haste slowly," has gained such strength among us. We deem it one of the most inauspicious signs of the times.

Would we drive vice from its strong holds forever; would we not only war successfully, 'but make our victory certain and permanent, a great work of preparation is demanded. Light is to be diffused, and men are to be shown clearly, not only the position of the foe, but how they are to act, in their movements to dislodge him; and not only how to obtain a temporary victory, but in what way they can best maintain their conquests. But, in the war against ardent spirits, has this been done? And has not this important cause suffered on account of it?

In the cause of moral reform, we cannot avail ourselves of "the pledge." Such is the nature of several of the vicious practices which it is the object of this reform to expose and eradicate, that were a public pledge of abstinence to be either adopted or demanded, it could do little good. The temptation to violate it would perpetually recur, while the chance of exposure would be so improbable, that the individual would be likely to fall, and his last state become worse than the first. As to other forms of criminality, seduction and infidelity, if they are not equally intangible, one of them, at least, is guarded against as far as possible by a pledge, instituted by the Creator, nearly six thousand years ago. If this pledge has proved insufficient, will any new one be likely to be efficacious?

Our only adequate, if not sole resort, then, must be to the diffusion of proper information. "Light and love" must be the principal agents in this, if not in every work of reformation. We do most sincerely believe that if more speedy means might be adopted to effect a reform, there are none which promise to make the work so complete or so perfect.