written on the minds of his countrymen; it would be remembered with applause so long as the nation subsists, without this artificial expedient to perpetuate it. And such, such is the monument I would wish for myself. Let me leave a memorial in the breasts of my fellowcreatures. Let surviving friends bear witness, that I have not lived to myself alone, nor been altogether unserviceable in my generation. Oh! let an uninterrupted series of beneficent offices be the inscription; and the best interests of my acquaintance the plate that exhibits it.

Let the poor, as they pass by my grave, point at the little spot, and thankfully acknowledge, "There lies the man, whose unwearied kindness was the constant relief of my various distresses; who tenderly visited my languishing bed, and readily supplied my indigent circumstances. How often were his counsels a guide to my perplexed thoughts, and a cordial to my dejected spirits! 'Tis owing to God's blessing, on his seasonable charities, and prudent consolations, that I now live, and live in comfort." Let a person, once ignorant and ungodly, lift up his eyes to heaven, and say within himself, as he walks over my bones, "Here are the last remains of that sincere friend, who watched for my soul. I can never forget with what heedless gaiety I was posting on in the paths of perdition; and I tremble to think into what irretrievable ruin I might quickly have been plunged, had not his faithful admonitions arrested me in the wild career. I was unacquainted with the Gospel of peace, and had no concern for its unsearchable treasures: but now, enlightened by his instructive conversation, I see the all-sufficiency of my Saviour, and animated by his repeated exhortations, I count all things but loss, that I may win Christ. Methinks, his discourses, seasoned with religion, and set home by the divine Spirit,

which happened could make any impression upon him: and his example kept others from taking any thing ill, or at least seeming to do so. In a word, a brighter courage and a gentler disposition were never married together, to make the most cheerful and innocent conversation." CLAR. HIST. REB. vol. ii.

still tingle in my ears, are still warm upon my heart? and, I trust, will be more and more operative, till we meet each other in the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

The only infallible way of immortalizing our characters, a way equally open to the meanest and most exalted fortune, is, "To make our calling and election sure," to gain some sweet evidence that our names are written in heaven. Then, however they may be disregarded or forgotten among men, they will not fail to be had in everlasting remembrance before the Lord. This is, of all distinctions, far the noblest. Ambition, be this thy object, and every page of Scripture will sanctify thy passion; even grace itself will fan thy flame. As to earthly memorials, yet a little while, and they are all obliterated. The tongue of those, whose happiness we have zealously promoted, must soon be silent in the coffin. Characters cut with a pen of iron, and committed to the solid rock, will ere long cease to be legible.* But as many as are enrolled in the Lamb's book of life," He himself declares, shall never be blotted out from those annals of eternity. When a flight of years has mouldered the triumphal column into dust; when the brazen statue perishes under the corroding hand of time; those honors still continue, still are blooming and incorruptible in the world of glory.

Make the extended skies your tomb;

Let stars record your worth:

Yet, know, vain mortals, all must die,
As nature's sickliest birth.

Would bounteous Heaven indulge my prayer,

I frame a nobler choice;

Nor, living, wish the pompous pile;

Nor, dead, regret the loss.

In thy fair book of life divine,

My God, inscribe my name:

There let it fill some humble place,
Beneath the slaughter'd Lamb.

-Data sunt ipsis quoque futa sepulchris.—Juv.
+ Rev. iii. 5.

Thy saints, while ages roll away,
In endless fame survive ;-
Their glories, o'er the wrongs of time
Greatly triumphant, live.

Yonder entrance leads, I suppose, to the vault. Let me turn aside, and take one view of the habitation, and its tenants. The sullen door grates upon its hinges; not used to receive many visitants, it admits me with reluctance and murmurs. What meaneth this sudden trepidation, while I descend the steps, and am visiting the pale nations of the dead? Be composed, my spirits; there is nothing to fear in these quiet chambers. "Here, even the wicked cease from troubling."

Good heavens! what a solemn scene! How dismal the gloom! Here is perpetual darkness, and night even at noon-day. How doleful the solitude! Not one trace of cheerful society; but sorrow and terror seem to have made this their dreadful abode. Hark! how the hollow dome resounds at every tread. The echoes, that have long slept, are awakened; and lament; and sigh along the walls.

A beam or two finds its way through the grates, and reflects a feeble glimmer from the nails of the coffins. So many of those sad spectacles, half concealed in shades, half seen dimly by the baleful twilight, add a deeper horror to these gloomy mansions. I pore upon the inscriptions, and am just able to pick out, that these are the remains of the rich and renowned. No vulgar dead are deposited here. The most illustrious and right honorable have claimed this for their last retreat: and, indeed, they retain somewhat of a shadowy pre-eminence. They lie, ranged in mournful order, and in a sort of silent pomp, under the arches of an ample sepulchre; while meaner corpses, without much ceremony, go down to the stones of the pit."

How

My apprehensions recover from their surprise. I find here are no phantoms, but such as fear raises. ever, it still amazes me to observe the wonders of this nether world. Those who received vast revenues, and

called whole lordships their own, are here reduced to half a dozen feet of earth, or confined to a few sheets of lead. Rooms of state and sumptuous furniture are resigned, for no other ornament than the shroud, for no other apartment than the darksome niche. Where is the star that blazed upon the breast, or coronet that glittered round the temples? The only remains of departed dignity, are, the weather-beaten hatchment and the tattered escutcheon. I see no splendid retinue surrounding this solitary dwelling. The lordly equipage hovers no more about the lifeless master. He has no other attendant than a dusty statue, which while the regardless world is as gay as ever, the sculptor's hand has taught to weep.

Those who gloried in high-born ancestors and noble pedigree, here drop their lofty pretensions. They acknowledge kindred with creeping things, and quarter arms with the meanest reptiles. They say to corruption, Thou art my father; and to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister. Or, should they still assume the style of distinction, ah! how impotent were the claim; how apparent the ostentation! Is it said by their monument, "Here lies the great?" How easily is it replied by the spectator!

False marble! where;

Nothing but poor and sordid dust lies here.

Mortifying truth! Sufficient, one would think, to wean the most sanguine appetite from this transitory state of things; from its sickly satisfactions, its fading glories, its vanishing treasures:

For now, ye lying vanities of life!

Ye ever-tempting, ever-cheating train!

Where are ye now? And what is your amount?

What is all the world to these poor breathless beings? What are their pleasures? A bubble broke. What their honors? A dream that is forgotten. What the sum total of their enjoyments below? Once, perhaps, it appeared, to inexperienced and fond desire, something considerable; but now death has measured it with his

line and weighed it in his scale, what is the upshot? Alas! it is shorter than a span; lighter than the dancing spark; and driven away like dissolving smoke.

Indulge, my soul, a serious pause. Recollect all the gay things that were wont to dazzle thy eyes and inveigle thy affections. Here examine those baits of sense; here form an estimate of their real value. Suppose thyself first among the favorites of fortune, who revel in the lap of pleasure, who shine in the robes of honor, and swim in tides of inexhausted riches. Yet, how soon will the passing bell proclaim thy exit? And, when once that iron call has summoned thee to thy future reckoning, where would all these gratifications be? At that period, how will all the pageantry of the most affluent, splendid, or luxurious circumstances, vanish into empty air! And, is this a happiness so passionately to be coveted?

I thank you, ye relics of sounding titles and magnificent names. Ye have taught me more of the littleness of the world than all the volumes of my library. Your nobility arrayed in a winding-sheet, your grandeur mouldering in an urn, are the indisputable proofs of the nothingness of created things. Never, surely, did Providence write this important point in such legible characters, as in the ashes of my lord, or on the corpse of his grace.* Let others, if they please, pay their obsequious court to your wealthy sons, and ignobly fawn, or anxiously sue, for preferments: my thoughts shall often resort, in pensive contemplation, to the sepulchres of their sires; and learn, from their sleeping dust-to moderate my expectations from mortals, to stand disengaged from every undue attachment to the little interests of time, to get above the delusive amusements of honor, the gaudy tinsels of wealth, and all the empty shadows of a perishing world.

Hark! what sound is that? In such a situation every noise alarms. Solemn and slow, it breaks again upon the silent air. 'Tis the striking of the clock; designed,

Mors sola fatetur

Quantula sint hominum corpuscula !—JUVENAL.