heaven, and exclaimed, “God is love." "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

At the end of the year 1810, the duty at Pendennis not requiring his constant attendance, he brought his family to London. In the following August, he proceeded to Pendennis, on business-but ere he had completed his arrangements for returning home, the stroke of disease fell on him. Scarcely had he recovered, when, in another form, his frame was again laid low and then was given that manifestation of the power of divine grace to sustain in death; that illustration of the connexion between a holy life and a happy death, to which the reader's attention has been already directed.

He had not to learn to die, when the transition out of time into eternity was actually to be made. His hope of heaven was based-not on what he had done, but on what Jesus had done and suffered for him. His meetness for heaven was discovered in the delight which his renewed mind found in communion with God; in his aspiration after perfect holiness; his dread of every sin. The testimony of one who was competent to bear witness, is this-"His life, from the time of his conversion, was a life of prayer. Five times a day did he statedly renew this essential duty—and his soul returned from the world to God, in pious ejaculation or mental aspirations, during the disengaged moments of the day and the sleepless hours of the night. So tender was his conscience, as not to admit the distinction of little and great sins. In every the smallest offence he discerned the essence of moral evil, and violation of duty to the Most High God—and bewailed it, as proceeding from the ' fountain of evil in himself-a natural alienation of the heart from the Majesty of Heaven." To a mind in this state, how delightful must have been the perfect purity of heaven; the full and uninterrupted communion with God, which is there enjoyed! Thus entered he into rest: and as he departed to be re-united with those who had preceded him to glory, he gave another proof that parental instruction is a means of grace which God deigns richly to bless; and that there is a connexion, close and intimate, between the prayers of pious parents and the conversion, sanctification, and salvation, of those who bear their name and fill up their place, when themselves can continue no longer by reason of death.

J. F. SHAW, BOOKSELLER, SOUTHAMPTON ROW, LONDON.

J. & W. Rider, Printers, Bartholomew Close, London.

LIFE, THE ANTECEDENT OF

IMMORTALITY.

IT will not admit of a moment's doubt, by any seriously reflecting mind, that the most proper and solemn view we can possibly take of time is the close relation which it sustains, and the near approach it is ever making, to Eternity. In this light it must be regarded as the brief period allotted to the soul for its preparation and training for another, a higher, and an endless state of being. Before this, all other considerations, circumstances, and events, to which, in the present life, we are wont to attach an undue and artificial importance, vanish as into thin air. Yea, everything, however gorgeous and imposing, intellectual and refined it may appear, which would exclude from the mind of man the probationary character which, as a reasonable, accountable, and immortal being, he sustains, and which would cause him to lose sight of the disciplinary nature of God's dealings with him in his present progress towards an eternal world, were a splendid impertinence. There is something solemn, I might say appalling, in the fact, that the character of each individual of the human race is every moment forming for a future state. Across the wide and mysterious gulf which separates time from eternity, every step of his life, every event of his history, every act of which he is the author, stretches its influence. He is educating for eternity. That eternity receives its complexion and its character from the present. Oh! it is the moral influence and bearing of the present life which gives us a strange feeling of interest in every individual we meet; and which attaches to every circumstance and incident of our own existence a character and an importance infinitely beyond the power of human thought to calculate.

We have already affirmed of the present life that it is probationary. All that follows belongs to retribution. It is, as has been remarked, the causal period, and the only period of causa

tion; everything beyond it is effect. It is the preface to the mysterious volume of eternity, which man will be for ever reading; it is the prologue to the solemn scene hereafter to transpire, when the curtain rises and reveals the great white throne, the judgment-seat, and the books opened. It is the sowing of the harvest then to be reaped. But away with the testimony of man on a question of such moment as this. The Spirit of God shall himself testify. And thus it is written in the Volume of Inspiration, from whose records we shall be judged in the last day:-"Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting," Gal. vi. 7, 8. Awful words! Solemn announcement! Yes, reader, on this momentary existence-for "what is your life? it is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away,"-a feather falling from the pinion of eternity, as it rushes on in its interminable course;—yet on this moment of existence turn, as upon a pivot, the immense realities of your higher and advancing state of being. We know of no consideration of paralleled power and weight with this. What an amazing importance does it give to every breath of air which inflates the lungs and breathes in the nostrils! On this single breath what mighty results depend! Eternal happiness !—eternal woe! Oh, were we only to remember that we are acting for eternity, what a new mould, and how different a complexion, would the thought give to the daily concerns and pursuits of life! Of what incalculable value, then, is the present moment! Suppose the next were to be spent in the eternal world; once the "silver cord is loosed," and the "golden bowl is broken," your destiny is unchangeably settled -your doom irrevocably fixed. A million ages then, supposing you to have lost your soul, would be of less value and importance to you than the moments of time spent in reading these solemn statements of truth, in which it were possible for you to send forth from the very centre of your deeply-stirred spirit and alarmed soul the shortest but the sublimest and most

comprehensive prayer that ever passed from earth to heaven: "God be merciful to me a sinner." 66 Suppose," to quote the illustrations of another, "that a kingdom were offered to a man, and that he must comply with the conditions in an hour, or lose it for ever, how much more would depend upon that hour than upon all the rest of his life! Or suppose that you had been condemned to suffer perpetual imprisonment in chains, and in a dungeon, and that an hour were granted you to sue for pardon, and the most humble confession to attain your liberty— how much more valuable would that hour be than fifty subsequent years of night, solitude, and chains!" But, oh, what language can describe, what imagery can depict, what figure can illustrate, the amazing value of a moment of time, the antecedent of a long, long eternity!

upon

"Great God! on what a brittle thread,
Hang everlasting things!'

But these are general statements-let us consider the present life in two of its particulars. Think of the brevity of its duration. What is your life? The dissolving vapour-the weaver's swift shuttle-the fleeting ship-the fading leafthe withering flower-the tale that is told, are some of its Scripture emblems. At one period, the ordinary term of human existence approached a thousand years. Seventy years, less than one-tenth of its former measure, is the utmost that the many now arrive at. Some pass a little beyond it, "yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away." But how few of those who read this page will ever reach their fourscore years!

The uncertainty of its continuance is a view of time no less solemn and instructive. How treacherous does it often appear ! Blooming with health, budding with promise, beguiling with hope, it sheds its brilliant light around our path, and again, like a meteor, in a moment disappears. I met my friend but yesterday; his manly countenance beamed with health; his eye was bright with gladness; his warm hand pressed mine in fond affection; and he spoke of coming joys and pleasing anticipa

him to

tions, with a voice whose deep and mellow intonations seemed
to rise from the very fountain of health. I called upon
day, and was ushered into his chamber. There reposed his
body as it was wont to do, as in calm and placid slumber, but
he himself was not there; he had, in the still watches of night,
passed suddenly away. I called to him, but he heard not; I
spoke to him, but he answered not again. I took his hand in
mine, but it was cold as a clod; I pressed my lips to his, but
they were as marble. My friend had laid himself down to
sleep, but he woke no more, nor will wake again until the
archangel's trump shall sound," Arise, ye dead, and come to
judgment." Oh, by what an uncertain tenure do we hold our
present lease of life!-the strongest often the first to droop;
the fairest often the first to die. Ye votaries of worldly plea-
sure and pursuit, think of it in connection with your sweetest
and most lasting joys! Are they not born but to die? Compress
them between the periods of feeble infancy and grey decrepi-
tude, what is their value? Take an inventory of them, when
you come to lie down upon your bed of death; what is their
sum? What fruit will ye have in them then? See! they pass
before you, one by one-rank, birth, beauty, health, estate,
honour, pleasure, each casts its farewell look upon you as it
flits away. But what avail they now? Will they smooth your
dying pillow? Will they cool your fevered brain? Will they
bring back to the heart the warm and genial current of life?
Will they bribe the king of terrors to stay awhile? Will they
fit the soul for its passage to eternity? In that awful moment,
when the curtain parts asunder, and lets down the light of the
judgment-seat, streaming upon your pillow, what will be all the
bygone joys and delights of the fancy, of the taste, of the
imagination, of the intellect—the "lust of the flesh, the lust of
the eye, and the pride of life?" Awful moment! Tremendous
crisis! See, the soul

"looks wistfully

On all she's leaving-now no longer hers!

A little longer, yet a little space

O might she stay!

THE ENGLISH MONTHLY TRACT SOCIETY, 27, RED LION SQUARE.