It is selfish to dwell on our griefs, as though some strange thing had happened to us, as though they were too important to be relieved, or, it were a virtue to sink under them. I would revere all grief of this kind; yet I would say there is such a thing as a will of cherishing it, which makes it rather killing than improving in its effect. This may be done under a conceit of duty or gratitude to the dead. It may be done as a sacrifice to what we deem is expected of us, or as a thing becoming in the eyes of others. But that bereavement seems rather sanctified, which saddens not the heart overmuch, and softens without withering it; which refuses no comfort or improvement we can possibly receive, and imposes no restraints on the rising hopes of the heart; which, in short, gives way and is lost in an over-growth of kind and grateful affections. HOOKER.

The day goes by

On which our soul's beloved dies! The day
On which the body of the dead is stretched
By hands that deck'd it when alive; the day
Of burial-one and all pass by! The grave
Grows green ere long; the churchyard seems a place
Of pleasant rest; and all the cottages,

That keep for ever sending funerals

Within its gates, look cheerful every one,
As if the dwellers therein never died,
And this earth slumbered in perpetual peace.
For every sort of suffering there is sleep
Provided by a gracious Providence,
Save that of sin. We must endure

The simple woe of knowing they are dead,
A soul-sick woe in which no comfort is,
And wish we were beside them in the dust!
That anguish dire cannot sustain itself,
But settles down into a grief, that loves
And finds relief in unreproved tears;
Then cometh sorrow like a Sabbath.
Sends resignation down and faith; and last of all-
JOHN WILSON.

Heaven

We strove, and prayed, and hoped, and feared, and laboured, but all in vain. The ties of earth were too feeble to hold the rising immortal, and we are left to mourn in the valley. We are at first inconsolable—but we go to the Holy Word again and again for consolation. After the early bursts of sorrow are over, a calm comes over us, and we feel as if it were the presence of the dead raising our attention upward-heavenward, and a secret assurance enters the soul and intimates, "He is risen." Heaven becomes more to us of a real home, since it already contains those who were the charm of our home here. B.

Now I can love thee truly;
For nothing comes between
The senses and the spirit,
The seen and the unseen;
Lifts the eternal shadow,

The silence bursts apart,

And the soul's boundless future

Is present in my

heart.

LOWELL.

Between him, and her who survives him, there was a reciprocity of taste and sympathy-a living in each other, so that her thoughts seemed but the pictures of his-her mind but a glass that showed the very beauty that looked into it or rather became itself that beauty-dying in his dying she did not all die. Her love, the heart's animation, lifted her up; her sense of loss was merged for a while in her love and confidence in his good estate. In strong and trusting thoughts of him as a happy spirit, and of God as his and her portion, she rested as in a cloud. A falling from this elevation, was truly a coming to oneself from God—a leaving of heaven for earth. Let her tell the rest in words as beautiful as they are true to nature: "My desolating loss I realize more and more. For many weeks his peaceful and triumphant departure left such an elevating influence on my mind, that I could only think of him as a pure and happy spirit. But now my feelings have become more selfish, and I long for the period to arrive, when I may lie down by his side, and be united in a nobler and more enduring union than even that which was ours here.”

HOOKE R.

How often do we see strokes fall on the heart, which it would be but mockery for man to attempt to relieve, and which yet served to unlock the treasures of that heart, and reveal a sweetness to it which it had not known before. See that mother. She loves and mourns, as none but a mother can. Behold the greatness and the sweetness of her grief! Her child is dead, and she says, "It is well with me, and it is well with my child. It is well, because God has taken him; He has said, 'Of such is the kingdom of heaven,'-that He doth not willingly afflict, and I know it must be well." Can there be any greatness greater than this? Did ever any prince at the head of invincible armies win a victory like it? Her heart is in heaviness, and her home is desolated; but she has been to her Heavenly Father, and unbosomed her griefs before Him. There is peace on her saddened countenance, peace in her gentle words. The peace of God has come down, and is filling her trusting soul. How sweet and soft is her sorrow, and how it softens and awes without agitating others! We cannot think she was unhappy, though there was a remembered grief in her heart. A grieved heart may be a richly stored one. Where charity abounds misery cannot.

HOOKER.

And we have often said, how sweet it were
With unseen ministry of angel-power

To watch the friends we loved.

Edmund, we did not err !

Sure I have felt thy presence! Thou hast given

A birth to holy thought,

Hast kept me from the world unstain'd and

Edmund! we did not err.

Our best affections here

They are not like the toys of infancy :

The soul outgrows them not;

We do not cast them off;

Oh! if it could be so,

It were indeed a dreadful thing to die!
Not to the grave, not to the grave, my soul,
Follow thy friend beloved!

But in the lonely hour,

But in the evening walk

Think that he companies thy solitude;
Think that he holds with thee

Mysterious intercourse;

And though remembrance wake a tear,
There will be joy in grief.

pure.

R. SOUTHEY.

It is an exquisite and beautiful thing in our nature that, when the heart is touched and softened by some tranquil happiness or affectionate feeling, the memory of the dead comes over it most powerfully and irresistibly. It would almost seem as though our better thoughts and sympathies were charms, in virtue of which the soul is enabled to hold some vague and mysterious intercourse with the spirits of those whom we dearly loved in life. Alas! how often and how long may those patient angels hover above us, watching for the spell which is so seldom uttered, and so soon forgotten. DICKENS.