Crime

in a countless variety of circumstances. War, famine, pestilence, have had their innumerable victims. has carried off, in one undistinguishable crowd, the ministers that did his pleasure the dupes that fell into his snares. Profligacy has slowly preyed on the pining souls and bodies of her votaries. Accident has suddenly snapped the thread of life. The tyrant, mingling men's blood with their sacrifices the falling tower, crushing its inmates under its weight-fire seizing the midnight dwelling, or the lonely ship in mid ocean afar-the assassin's knife-the poisoning cup-or the weary wear and tear of a prolonged battle with life's ills,-all have achieved their triumphs over the proud race that lords it in this lower world, Grave after grave has been opened and filled; man after man has gone the way of all living; new bodies have been consigned to the silent tomb; new sets of mourners have gone about the streets. And now, of the entire multitude that at some one point of time occupied the earth, not one remains,—all, all are gone. Various were their pursuits, their toils, their interests, their joys, their griefs-various their eventful histories; but one common sentence will serve as the epitaph of all—" Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation."

And another generation now fills the stage-a generation that, in all its vast circle of families, can produce not one individual to link it with the buried race on whose ashes it is treading. Make for yourselves, in imagination, the abrupt transition which the historian here makes in his narrative the sudden leap across an interval of years,

during which the gradual process of death and birth has been going on, ever emptying, but ever replenishing, the earth, and keeping it ever full. Make that interval, as

he does, an absolute blank,-a dreary void,—a great gulf. Let the sleep or oblivion of a century come in between; and as you awake out of a trance, let it be amid a throng as eager and as intensely active as that which you left, but a throng in which you see "not the face of one old friend rise visaged to your view." It is the same scene as before; but ah! how changed!

On a smaller scale, you have experienced something of what we now describe. In the sad season of bereavement, how have you felt your pain imbittered by the contrast between death reigning in your heart and home, and bustling life going on all around! Oh! to step out from the darkened chamber of sickness, or the house of solitary woe, and stand all at once in the glare and amid the tumult of the broad and busy day; to see the sun shine as brightly, and the green earth smile as gladly, and all nature rejoice as gloriously as ever, while all to you is a blank; to hear the concord of sweet voices mocking your desolation; to mix with dreary heart in the unsympathizing crowd;-it is enough often to turn distress into distraction, and make you loathe the light and life that so offend your sadness! In the prospect, too, of your own departure, does not this thought form an element of the dreariness of death, that when you are gone, and laid in the silent tomb, others will arise that knew not you?-your removal will scarce occasion even a momentary interruption in the onward course and in

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cessant hurry of affairs, and your loss will be but as that of a drop of water from the tide that rolls on in its career as mighty and as majestical as ever.

But here, it is a whole generation, with all its families, that is engulfed in one unmeasured tomb! And, lo! the earth is still all astir with the same activities, all gay with the same pomps and pageantries, all engrossed with the same vanities and follies, and, alas! the same sins also, that have been beguiling and disappointing the successive races of its inhabitants since the world began!

Is there no moral in the shadow which this gigantic burial of a whole generation in a single brief text casts upon all these things? What are they all,-the joys and sorrows, the cares, the toils, the pleasures of time,—as the gate of eternity opens to shut in from our view, with one wide sweep, the millions that once used them, as we are using them now? What are they all, with the tears and smiles which they caused, to these millions, to whom but now they seemed to be everything? What will they all be to us, when of each one of us, as of Joseph, the simple record shall be, that "Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation?"

It

This funeral of a whole generation!-the individual, the family, and the entire mass of life, mingled in one common tomb-surely it is a solemn thought. appeals to our natural sensibility. But does it not appeal also to our spiritual apprehension? Natural sensibility is but little trustworthy. It is easily moved by such musings; and it is as easily composed. Violent emotion

and frivolous apathy are the extremes between which it vacillates and vibrates. To win and command its sympathies for the moment is an insignificant and unworthy triumph. Faith, on the other hand, finds matter of deeper and more lasting impression here. Death is the great divider. It severs families and cuts friendships asunder, breaking closest ties, and causing the most compact associations to fall in pieces. Coming as it does upon the race of men one by one, singling out individually, one after another, its successive victims,-it resolves each hill or mountain into its constituent grains, taking separate account of every one of them, as separately it draws them into its insatiable jaws. But death is, after all, the great uniter too. Separating for a time, it brings all together at last. The church-yard opens its graves to part dearest brethren and friends; but soon it opens them again, to mix their kindred ashes in one common dust.

Is the union, however, that death occasions real, substantial, enduring?

Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation." Death passed upon them all, for they all had sinned. It is the common lot-the general history—the universal characteristic.

And there is another common lot-another general history-another universal characteristic: "After death, the judgment." Joseph rises again, "and all his brethren, and all that generation." And they all stand before the judgment-seat. There is union then. The small and the great are there; the servant and his master-all are brought together. But for what? And for how long?

"The wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal."

What a solemn contrast have we here! Death unites after separation: the judgment unites in order to separation. Death, closing the drama of time, lets the ample curtain fall upon its whole scenery and all its actors. The judgment, opening the drama of eternity, discloses scenery and actors once more entire. All die; all are judged : the two events happen alike to all.

And both are near; for the time is short, the Lord is at hand.

But before death, before the judgment, is the gospel, which is now freely preached to all. And a voice is heard, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man open unto me, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." Let this feast of love be begun in heart after heart, as one by one sinners die in Christ unto sin and live in Christ unto God. And when individuals, families, generations, are separated, and united, to be separated again-separated by death, united at the judgment, to be finally separated for eternity-may it be our privilege to meet at the marriage-supper of the Lamb, beyond which there is no parting any more for ever.