who, a little while ago, were so busy, or so gay; who can avoid being touched with sensations at once awful and tender? What heart but then warms with the glow of humanity? In whose eye does not the tear gather, on revolving the fate of passing and short-lived man?

2. Behold the poor man who lays down at last the burden of his wearisome life. No more shall he groan under the load of poverty and toil. No more shall he hear the insolent calls of the master, from whom he received his scanty wages. No more shall he be raised from needful slumber on his bed of straw, nor be hurried away from his homely meal, to undergo the repeated labours of the day.

3. While his humble grave is preparing, and a few poor and decayed neighbours are carrying him thither, it is good for us to think, that this man too was our brother; that for him the aged and destitute wife, and the needy children, now weep; that, neg lected as he was by the world, he possessed, perhaps, both a sound understanding, and a worthy heart; and is now carried by angels to rest in Abraham's bosom.

4. At no great distance from him, the grave is opened to receive the rich and proud man. For, as it is said with emphasis in the parable, "the rich man also died, and was buried." He also died. His riches prevented not his sharing the same fate with the poor man; perhaps, through luxury, they accelerated his doom. Then, indeed, "the mourners go about the streets;" and, while, in all the pomp and magnificence of wo, his funeral is preparing, his heirs, impatient to examine his will, are looking on one another with jealous eyes, and already beginning to dispute about the di

vision of his substance.

5. One day, we see carried along the coffin of the smiling infant; the flower just nipped as it began to blossom in the parent's view: and the next day, we behold the young man, or young woman, of blooming form and promising hopes, laid in an untimely grave. While the funeral is attended by a numerous unconcerned company, who are discoursing to one another about the news of the day, or the ordinary affairs of life, let our thoughts rather follow to the house of mourning, and represent to themselves what is passing there. 6. There we should see a disconsolate family, sitting in silent grief, thinking of the sad breach that is made in their little society; and with tears in their eyes, looking to the chamber that is now left vacant, and to every memorial that presents itself of their departed friend. By such attention to the woes of others, the selfish hardness of our hearts will be gradually softened, and melted down nto humanity.

7. Another day, we follow to the grave, one who, in old age, and after a long career of life, has in full maturity sunk at last into rest. As we are going along to the mansion of the dead, it is natural for us to think, and to discourse, of all the changes which such a person has seen during the course of his life. He has passed, it is likely, through varieties of fortune. He has experienced prosperity, and adversity. He has seen families and kindreds rise and fall. He has seen peace and war succeed in their turns; the face of his country undergoing many alterations; and the very city in which he dwelt, rising, in a manner, new around him.

men.

8. After all he has beheld, his eyes are now closed for ever. He was becoming a stranger in the midst of a new succession of A race who knew him not, had arisen to fill the earth.Thus passes the world away. Throughout all ranks and conditions, one generation passeth, and another generation cometh;" and this great inn is by turns evacuated and replenished, by troops of succeeding pilgrims.

9. O vain and inconstant world! O fleeting and transient life! When will the sons of men learn to think of thee as they ought? When will they learn humanity from the afflictions of their brethren; or moderation and wisdom, from the sense of their own fugitive state?

BLAIR.

Exalted society, and the renewal of virtuous connexions, two sources of future felicity.

1. BESIDES the felicity which springs from perfect love, there are two circumstances which particularly enhance the blessedness of that "multitude who stand before the throne;" these are, access to the most exalted society, and renewal of the most tender connexions. The former is pointed out in the Scripture, by "joining the innumerable company of angels, and the general assembly and church of the first-born; by sitting down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven;" a promise which opens the sublimest prospects to the human mind.

2. It allows good men to entertain the hope, that, separated from all the dregs of the human mass, from that mixed and polluted crowd in the midst of which they now dwell, they shall be permitted to mingle with prophets, patriarchs, and apostles, with all those great and illustrious spirits, who have shone in former ages as the servants of God, or the benefactors of men; whose deeds we are accustomed to celebrate; whose steps we now follow at a distance, and whose names we pronounce with veneration.

3. United to this high assembly, the blessed, at the same time, renew those ancient connexions with virtuous friends, which had been dissolved by death. The prospect of this awakens in the heart, the most pleasing and tender sentiment that perhaps can fill it, in this mortal state. For of all the sorrows which we are here doomed to endure, none is so bitter as that occasioned by the fatal stroke which separates us, in the appearance for ever, from those to whom either nature or friendship had intimately joined our hearts.

4. Memory, from time to time, renews the anguish; opens the wound which seemed once to have been closed; and, by recalling joys that are past and gone, touches every spring of painful sensibility. In these agonizing moments, how relieving the thought, that the separation is only temporary, not eternal; that there is a time to come of re-union with those with whom our happiest days were spent: whose joys and sorrows once were ours; whose piety and virtue cheered and encouraged us; and from whom after we shall have landed on the peaceful shore where they dwell, no revolutions of nature shall ever be able to part us more! Such is the society of the blessed abode. Of such are the multitude composed, who "stand before the throne.".

BLAIR.

SECTION VI.

The clemency and amiable character of the patriarch JOSEPH. 1. No human character exhibited in the records of Scripture, is more remarkable and instructive than that of the patriarch Joseph. He is one whom we behold tried in all the vicissitudes of fortune; from the condition of a slave, rising to be ruler of the land of Egypt; and in every station acquiring, by his virtue and wisdom, favour with God and man. When overseer of Potiphar's house, his fidelity was proved by strong temptations, which he honourably resisted.

2. When thrown into prison by the artifices of a false woman, his integrity and prudence soon rendered him conspicuous, even in that dark mansion. When called into the presence of Pharaoh, the wise and extensive plan which he formed for saving the kingdom from the miseries of impending famine, justly raised him to a high station, wherein his abilities were eminently displayed in the publick service.

3. But in his whole history, there is no circumstance so striking and interesting, as his behaviour to his brethren who had sold him into slavery. The moment in which he made himself known to them, was the most critical one of his life, and the most decisive of his character. It is such as rarely occurs in the course of human events; and is calculated to draw the highest attention of all who are endowed with any degree of sensibility of heart.

4. From the whole tenour of the narration it appears, that though Joseph, upon the arrival of his brethren in Egypt, made himself strange to them, yet from the beginning he intended to discover himself; and studied so to conduct the discovery, as might render the surprise of joy complete. For this end, by affected severity, he took measures for bringing down into Egypt all his father's children.

5. They were now arrived there; and Benjamin among the rest, who was his younger brother by the same mother, and was particularly beloved by Joseph. Him he threatened to detain; and seemed willing to allow the rest to depart. This incident renewed their distress. They all knew their father's extreme anxiety about the safety of Benjamin, and with what difficulty he had yielded to his undertaking this journey.

6. Should he be prevented from returning, they dreaded that grief would overpower the old man's spirits, and prove fatal to his Tife. Judah, therefore, who had particularly urged the necessity of Benjamin's accompanying his brothers, and had solemnly pledged himself to their father for his safe return, craved, upon this occasion, an audience of the governour; and gave him a full account of the circumstances of Jacob's family.

7. Nothing can be more interesting and pathetick than this discourse of Judah. Little knowing to whom he spoke, he paints in all the colours of simple and natural eloquence, the distressed situation of the aged patriarch, hastening to the close of life; long afflicted for the loss of a favourite son, whom he supposed to have been torn in pieces by a beast of prey; labouring now under anxious concern about his youngest son, the child of his old age, who alone was left alive of his mother, and whom nothing but

the calamities of severe famine could have moved a tender father to send from home, and expose to the dangers of a foreign land. 8. "If we bring him not back with us, we shall bring down the gray hairs of thy servant, our father, with sorrow, to the grave. pray thee therefore let thy servant abide, instead of the young man, a bondman to our lord. For how shall I go up to my father, and Benjamin not with me? lest I see the evil that shall come on my father."

9. Upon this relation Joseph could no longer restrain himself, The tender ideas of his father, and his father's house, of his ancient home, his country, and his kindred, of the distress of his family, and his own exaltation, all rushed too strongly upon his mind to bear any farther concealment. "He cried, Cause every man to go out from me; and he wept aloud."

10. The tears which he shed were not the tears of grief. They were the burst of affection. They were the effusions of a heart overflowing with all the tender sensibilities of nature. Formerly he had been moved in the same manner, when he first saw his brethren before him. "His bowels yearned upon them; he sought for a place where to weep. He went into his chamber; and then washed his face and returned to them."

11. At that period his generous plans were not completed. But now, when there was no farther occasion for constraining himself, he gave free vent to the strong emotions of his heart. The first minister to the king of Egypt was not ashamed to show, that he felt as a man, and a brother. "He wept aloud; and the Egyptians, and the house of Pharaoh, heard him."

12. The first words which his swelling heart allowed him to pronounce, are the most suitable to such an affecting situation that were ever uttered;"I am Joseph; doth my father yet live ?"-What could he, what ought he, in that impassioned moment, to have said more? This is the voice of nature herself, speaking her own language; and it penetrates the heart; no pomp of expression; no parade of kindness; but strong affection hastening to utter what it strongly felt.

13. "His brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence." Their silence is as expressive of those emotions of repentance and shame, which, on this amazing discovery, filled their breasts, and stopped their utterance, as the few words which Joseph speaks, are expressive of the generous agitations which struggled for vent within him.

14. No painter could seize a more striking moment for displaying the characteristical features of the human heart, than what is here presented. Never was there a situation of more tender and virtuous joy, on the one hand; nor, on the other, of more overwhelming confusion and conscious guilt. In the simple narration of the sacred historian, it is set before us with greater energy and higher effect, than if it had been wrought up with all the colouring of the most admired modern eloquence.

SECTION VII.

7

* ALTAMONT,

BLAIR.

The following account of an affecting, mournful exit, is related by Dr. Young, who was present at the melancholy scene. 1. The sad evening before the death of the noble youth, whose

last hours suggested the most solemn and awful reflections, I was with him. No one was present, but his physician, and an intimate whom he loved, and whom he had ruined. At my coming in, he said, "You and the physician are come too late. I have neither life nor hope. You both aim at miracles. You would raise the dead!" 2. Heaven, I said, was merciful-"Or," exclaimed he,-"I could not have been thus guilty. What has it not done to bless and to save me!-I have been too strong for Omnipotence! I have plucked down ruin." -I said, the blessed Redeemer,-"Hold! hold! you wound me!-That is the rock on which I split:-I denied his name!"

3. Refusing to hear any thing from me, or take any thing from the physician, he lay silent, as far as sudden darts of pain would permit, till the clock struck: Then with vehemence he exclaimed; "Oh! time! time! it is fit thou shouldst thus strike thy murderer to the heart!-How art thou fled for ever!-A month!Oh, for a single week! I ask not for years! though an age were too little for the much I have to do."

4. On my saying, we could not do too much: that heaven was a blessed place- So much the worse.-"Tis lost! 'tis lost!Heaven is to me the severest part of hell!" Soon after, I proposed prayer,-"Pray you that can, I never prayed. I cannot praynor need I. Is not Heaven on my side already? It closes with my conscience. Its severest strokes but second my own."

5. Observing that his friend was much touched at this, even to tears-(who could forbear? I could not)-with a most affectionate look he said, "Keep those tears for thyself. I have undone thee. Dost thou weep for me? that is cruel. What can pain me more ?" 6. Here his friend, too much affected, would have left him."No, stay-thou still mayst hope; therefore hear me. How madly have I talked! How madly hast thou listened and believed: but look on my present state, as a full answer to thee, and to myself. This body is all weakness and pain; but my soul, as if stung up by torment to greater strength and spirit, is full powerful to reason; full mighty to suffer. And that, which thus triumphs within the jaws of immortality, is, doubtless, immortal-And, as for a Deity, nothing less than an Almighty could inflict what I feel."

7. I was about to congratulate this passive, involuntary confessor, on his asserting the two prime articles of his creed, extorted by the rack of nature, when he thus, very passionately exclaimed:-"No, no! let me speak on. I have not long to speak.-My much injured friend! my soul, as my body, lies in ruins; in scattered fragments of broken thought.

8. "Remorse for the past, throws my thought on the future. Worse dread of the future, strikes it back on the past. I turn, and turn, and find no ray. Didst thou feel half the mountain that is on me, thou would struggle with the martyr for his stake; and bless Heaven for the flames!-that is not an everlasting flame; that is not an unquenchable fire."

9. How were we struck! yet, soon after, still more. With what an eye of distraction, what a face of despair, he cried out! "My principles have poisoned my friend; my extravagance has beggared my boy! my unkindness has murdered my wife!-And is there