fullest extent, and the rich look for their reward in Heaven.

Practical Christianity, and good works founded upon faith, in the spirit and promises of the Gospel, can best recommend us to the favor of Heaven. The rich and the poor would equally experience, that Jesus Christ has instituted a Religion of mercy, of peace, of spiritual happiness; and, whilst performing the various and important duties of their respective stations, pardon and the remission of sins, through repentance, and the belief that Christ was man's only Redeemer, shall be graciously vouchrich and poor !"

safed to all, both

129

THE HOUSE OF MOURNING..

"The heart of the wise is in the house of "mourning."?

SUPERFICIAL reflections on this scriptural sentence have often con demned it as unnecessary, severe, and gloomy, counteracting the very end of our being, and tending to that enthusiastic melancholy, inculcated by bigotry and superstition. The man of the world will pronounce it to be contrary to reason; he will, perhaps, talk of a be-neficent Creator, of the various blessings. which the goodness of God has be stowed; and avoiding the great, the:

Eccles. vii. 4..

important subject of revealed Religion, he will add, that life is too short, vo luntarily to seek the sad chamber of affliction or of death; but that, if fate should throw us in such situations, it were below the dignity of human nature not to meet them with due philosophy of spirit. It is well, if the theory of such opinions can always be reduced to practice yet few will allow, but that the man who is most devoted to worldly enjoyments and pursuits, can lese велов support the boasted dignity of human nature in any hour of trial, in the loss of friends, health, or fortune. In the first moments of affliction he might, probably, arraign the justice of God, and doubt the superintendence of his Providence in the affairs of the world. The loss of health might render him captious, morose, or tyrannical, and ungrateful to Heaven for every remaining blessing. The loss of fortune, the deprivation of every ac

8

customed luxury, would engender that false pride which, disdaining to submit, with fortitude and patience, to any subordinate stile of life, stings the heart with such bitterness, which neither sympathy of friends, nor the kindness of strangers can assuage; and he finds, too late, that worldly principles are not the best support in the day of disappointment or affliction. Life is sometimes compared unto a dream, a shadow, or a tale that is told. A dream, indeed, it is, for we are often awakened (as has. been just observed) from every visionary enjoyment! a shadow; for we pursue a shadow, unmindful of the real substance:: a tale, for we live and die, and are forgotten as a tale that is told. But while these reflections disturb the minds of those who worship the self-created images. of terrestrial enjoyment, they are consolatory to the pious Christian, by whom. disappointment and affliction are re-.

ceived with an humble and resigned spirit, familiarized with those awful scenes that lead to the valley and shadow of death; but which, from the frequent contemplation, fears no evil. All ages, all ranks, the fairest form that ever gave lustre to youth; the beauty which reigned unrivalled in the region of fashion, must pay that debt to nature, which sin and disobedience have exacted. This truth is incontrovertible. Whence then that carelessness, in all ages and ranks, on religious truths? that procrastination in considering the end of human greatness? that instinctive dread to witness, in the house of mourning, those scenes which must, eventually, be the lot of all?

By resolutely taking a nearer view of any dreaded adversity, its approach be-. comes less terrific, and its reality little more than an imaginary evil; and death, ⚫ when only regarded through the medium

of fear, sometimes embitters the present