meekness; of fortitude and gentleness; of a life hopeful and happy, but thoughtful of death; of a world bright and beautiful, but passing away! So let us live, and act; and think, and feel; and let us thank the good providence, the good ordination of heaven, that has made the dead our teachers. III. But they teach us more. They not only leave their own enshrined and canonized virtues for us to love and imitate; they not only gather about us the glorious and touching associations of the past, to hallow and dignify this world to us, and to throw the soft veil of memory over all its scenes; but they open a future world to our vision, and invite us to its blessed abodes. They open that world to us, by giving, in their own deaths, a strong proof of its existence. The future, indeed, to mere earthly views, is often “a land of darkness as darkness itself, and of the shadow of death without any order, and where the light is as darkness." Truly, death is "without any order." There is in it, such a total disregard to circumstances, as shows that it cannot be an ultimate event. That must be connected with something else; that cannot be final, which, considered as final, puts all the calculations of wisdom so utterly at defiance. 'he tribes of animals, the classes and species of the vegetable creation, come to their perfection, and then die. But is there any such order for human beings? Po the generations of mankind go down to the grave, in ranks and processions? Are the human, like the vegetable races, suffered to stand till they have made provision for their successors, before they depart? No; without order, without discrimination, without provision for the future, or remedy for the past, the children of men depart. They die-the old, the young; the most useless, and those most needed; the worst and the best, alike die; and if there be no scenes beyond this life, if there be no circumstances nor allotments to explain the mystery, then all around us is, as it was to the doubting spirit of Job, "a land of darkness as darkness itself." The blow falls, like the thunder-bolt beneath the dark cloud; but it has not even the intention, the explanation that belongs to that dread minister. The stroke of death must be more reckless than even the lightning's flash; yes, that solemn visitation that cometh with so many dread signs--the body's dissolution, the spirit's extremity, the winding up of the great scene of life, has not even the meaning that belongs to the blindest agents in nature, if there be no reaction, no revelation hereafter! Can this be? Doth God take care for things animate and inanimate, and will he not care for us? Let us look at it for a moment. I have seen one die-the delight of his friends, the pride of his kindred, the hope of his country: but he died! How beautiful was that offering upon the altar of death! The fire of genius kindled in his eye; the generous affections of youth mantled in his cheek; his foot was upon the threshold of life; his studies, his preparations for honoured and useful life, were completed; his breast was filled with a thousand glowing, and noble, and never yet expressed aspirations: but he died! He died; while another, of a nature dull, coarse and unrefined, of habits low, base and brutish, of a promise that had nothing in it but shame and misery-such an one, I say, was suffered to encumber the earth. Could this be, if there were no other sphere for the gifted, the aspiring and the approved, to act in? Can we believe that the energy just trained for action, the embryo thought just bursting into expression, the deep and earnest passion of a noble nature, just swelling into the expansion of every beautiful virtue, should never manifest its power, should never speak, should never unfold itself? Can we believe that all this should die; while meanness, corruption, sensuality, and every deformed and dishonoured power, should live? No, ye goodly and glorious ones! ye godlike in youthful virtue! ye die not in vain : ye teach, ye assure us, that ye are gone to some world of nobler life and action. I have seen one die; she was beautiful; and beautiful were the ministries of life that were given her to fulfil. Angelic loveliness enrobed her; and a grace as if it were caught from heaven, breathed in every tone, hallowed every affection, shone in every actioninvested as a halo, her whole existence, and made it a light and blessing, a charm and a vision of gladness, to all around her: but she died! Friendship, and love, and parental fondness, and infant weakness, stretched out their hand to save her; but they could not save her and she died! What! did all that loveliness die? Is there no land of the blessed and the lovely ones, for such to live in? Forbid it reason, religion!-bereaved affection, and undying love! forbid the thought! It cannot be that such die in God's counsel, who live even in frail human memory forever! : I have seen one die in the maturity of every power, in the earthly perfection of every faculty; when many temptations had been overcome, and many hard lessons had been learned; when many experiments had made virtue easy, and had given a facility to action, and a success to endeavour; when wisdom had been learnt from many mistakes, and a skill had been laboriously acquired in the use of many powers; and the being, I looked upon, had just compassed that most useful, most practical of all knowledge, how to live, and to act well and wisely: yet I have seen such an one die! Was all this treasure gained, only to be lost? Were all these faculties trained, only to be thrown into utter disuse? Was this instrument, the intelligent soul, the noblest in the universe; was it so laboriously fashioned, and by the most varied and expensive apparatus, that on the very moment of being finished, it should be cast away forever? No, the dead, as we call them, do not so die. They carry our thoughts to another and a nobler existence. They teach us, and especially by all the strange and seemingly untoward circumstances of their departure from this life, that they, and we, shall live forever. They open the future world, then, to our faith. They open it also, and in fine, to our affections. No person of reflection and piety can have lived long, without beginning to find, in regard to the earthly objects which most interest him, his friends, that the balance is gradually inclining in favour of another world. How many, after the middle period of life, and especially in declining years, must feel, if the experience of life has had any just effect upon them, that the objects of their strongest attachment are not here. One by one, the ties of earthly affection are cut asunder; one by one, friends, companions, children, parents, are taken from us; for a time, perhaps, we are "in a strait betwixt two," as was the apostle, not deciding altogether whether it is better to depart; but shall we not, at length, say with the disciples, when some dearer friend is taken, "let us go and die with him ?" The dead have not ceased their communication with us, though the visible chain is broken. If they are still the same, they must still think of us. As two friends on earth, may know that they love each other, without any expression, without even the sight of each other; as they may know though dwelling in different and distant countries, without any visible chain of communication, that their thoughts meet and mingle together, so may it be with two friends of whom the one is on earth, and the other is in heaven. Especially where there is such an union of pure minds that it is scarcely possible to conceive of separation, that union seems to be a part of their very being: we may believe that their friendship, their mutual sympathy, is beyond the power of the grave to break up. "But ah! we say, if there were only some manifestations ; if there were only a glimpse of that blessed land; if there were, indeed, some messenger bird, such as is supposed in some countries to come from the spirit land, how eagerly should we question it!" In the words of the poet, we should say, "But tell us, thou bird of the solemn strain, Can those who have loved, forget? We call-but they answer not again Do they love, do they love us yet? We call them far, through the silent night, And they speak not from cave nor hill; We know, we know, that their land is bright, The poetic doubt, we may answer with plain reasoning, and plainer scripture. We may say, in the language of reason, if they live there, they love there. We may answer in the language of Jesus Christ, "he that liveth and believeth in me, shall never die." And again "have ye not read," saith our Saviour, " that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the : |