us with their heaviest preffure, it lightens the load by many confolations to which others are strangers. While bad men trace, in the calamities with which they are vifited, the hand of an offended Sovereign, Christians are taught to view them as the well intended chastisements of a merciful Father. They hear amidst them, that still voice which a good confcience brings to their ear: "Fear not, for I am with thee; be not difmayed, for I am thy God." They apply to themfelves the comfortable promises with which the gospel abounds. They difcover in thefe the happy iffue decreed to their troubles; and wait with patience till Providence shall have accomplished its great and good defigns. In the mean time, Devotion opens to them its bleffed and holy fanctuary: that fanctuary in which the wounded heart is healed, and the weary mind is at reft; where the cares of the world are forgotten, where its tumults are hushed, and its miferies difappear; where greater objects open to our view than any which the world prefents; where a more ferene fky fhines, and a fweeter and a calmer light beams on the afflicted heart. In those moments of devotion, a pious man, pouring out his wants and forrows to an almighty Supporter, feels that he is 'not left folitary and forfaken in a vale of wo. God is with him Chrift and the Holy Spirit are with him; and, though he fhould be bereaved of every friend on earth, he can look up in heaven to a friend that will never defert him. BLAIR,

SECTION IV.

The Close of Life.

WHEN We contemplate the clofe of life; the termination of man's defigns and hopes; the filence that now reigns among thofe who a little while ago, were fo bufy, or fo gay; who can avoid being touched with fenfations at once awful and tender? What heart but then warms with the glow of humanity? In whofe eye does not the tear gather, on revolving the fate of paffing and short lived man?

Behold the poor man who lays down at laft the burden of his wearifome life. No more fhall he groan under the load of poverty and toil. No more fhall he hear the infolent calls of the mafter, from whom he received his fcanty wages. No more fhall he be raised from needful flumber on his bed of firaw, nor be hurried away from his homely meal, to under

go the repeated labours of the day. 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, neglected as he was by the world, he poffeffed perhaps both a found understanding, and a worthy heart; and is now carried by angels to rest in Abraham's bofom, At no great distance fron him, the grave is opened to receive the rich and proud man: For, as it is faid with emphafis in the parable," the rich man alfo died, and was buried." He alfo died. His riches prevented not his fharing the fame fate with the poor man; perhaps, through luxury, they accelerated his doom. Then, indeed, "the mourners go about the ftreets ;" and while, in all the pomp and magnificence of wo, his fineral is preparing, his heirs, impatient to examine his will, are looking on one another with jealous eyes, and already beginning to dif pute about the divifion of his fubftance. One day, we see carried along the coffin of the fmiling infant; the flower juft nipped as it began to bloffom in the parent's view and the next day, we behold the young man, or young woman, or blooming form and promifing hopes, laid in an untimely While the funeral is attended by a numerous uncongrave. cerned company, who are difcourfing to one another about the news of the day, or the ordinary affairs of life, let our thoughts rather follow to the houfe of mourning, and represent to themselves what is paffing there. There we should fee a difconfolate family, fitting in filent grief, thinking of the fad breach that is made in their little fociety; and, with tears in their eyes, looking to the chamber that is now left vacant, and to every memorial that prefents itself of their departed friend. By fuch attention to the woes of others, the felfifh hardness of our hearts will be gradually foftened, and melted down into humanity.

Another day, we follow to the grave, one who, in old age, and after a long career of life, has in full maturity funk at laft into rest. As we are going along to the manfion of the dead, it is natural for us to think, and to difcourfe, of all the changes which fuch a perfon has feen during the courfe of his life. He has paffed, it is likely, through varieties of for

tune. He has experienced profperity, and adverfity. He has feen families and kindreds rife and fall. He has feen peace and war fucceeding in their turns; the face of his country undergoing many alterations; and the very city in which he dwelt rifing, in a manner, new around him. After all he has beheld, his eyes are now clofed forever. He was becoming a stranger in the midft of a new fucceffion of men, A race who knew him not, had arifen to fill the earth. Thus paffes the world away. Throughout all ranks and conditions, "one generation paffeth, and another generation cometh ;" and this great inn is by turns evacuated, and replenished by troops of fucceeding pilgrims. O vain and inconstant world! O fleeting and tranfient life! When will the fons 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 fenfe of their own fugitive state.

SECTION V.

BLAIR.

Exalted Society, and the Renewal of virtuous Connections, two Sources of future Felicity.

BESIDES the felicity which fprings from perfect love, there are two circumstances which particularly enhance the bleffedneis of that "multitude who ftand before the throne;" thefe are, accefs to the most exalted fociety, and renewal of the most tender connections. The former is pointed out in the Scripture, by joining the innumerable company of angels, and the general affembly and church of the first-born; by fitting down with Abraham, and Ifaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven;" a promife which opens the fublimest profpects to the human mind. It allows good men to entertain the hope, that, feparated from all the dregs of the human mafs, from that mixed and polluted crowd in the midst of which they now dwell, they fhall be permitted to mingle with prophets, patriarchs, and apoftles, with all those great and illuftrious fpirits, who have fhone in former ages as the fervants of God, or the benefactors of men; whofe deeds we are accustomed to celebrate; whofe fteps we now follow at a distance; and whofe names we pronounce with veneration. United to this high affembly, the bleffed, at the fame time, renew those ancient connections with virtuous friends, which

had been diffolved by death. The prospect of this awakens in the heart, the most pleasing and tender fentiment that perhaps can fill it, in this mortal ftate. For of all the forrows which we are here doomed to endure, none is fo bitter as that occafioned by the fatal stroke which feparates us, in appearance for ever, from thofe to whom either nature or friendship had intimately joined our hearts. Memory, from time to time, renews the anguish; opens the wound which feemed once to have been clofed; and, by recalling joys that are past and gone, touches every spring of painful fenfibility. In these agonizing moments, how relieving the thought, that the feparation is only temporary, not eternal; that there is a time to come of reunion with those with whom our happieft days were spent ; whofe joys and forrows once were ours; whofe 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 fhall ever be able to part us more? Such is the fociety of the bleffed above Of fuch are the multitude compofed, who "ftand before the throne."

SECTION VI,

BLAIR.

The Clemency and amiable Character of the Patriarch Joseph. No human character exhibited in the records of Scripture, is more remarkable or instructive than that of the patriarch Jofeph. He is one whom we behold tried in all the viciftudes of fortune; from the condition of a flave, riting to be ruler of the land of Egypt; and in every ftation acquiring, by his virtue and wifdom, favour with God and man. When overfeer of Potiphar's houfe, his fidelity was proved by ftrong temptations, which he honourably refifted. When thrown into prifon by the artifice of a falfe woman, his integrity and prudence foon rendered him confpicuous, even in that dark manfion. When called into the prefence of Pharaoh, the wife and extentive plan which he formed for faving the kingdom from the miferies of impending famine, jufly raised him to a high ftation, wherein his abilities were eminently difplayed in the public fervice. But in his whole hif tory, there is no circumftance fo ftriking and interefing, as his behaviour to his brethren who had fold him into flavery. The moment in which he made himself known to them, was

the moft critical one of his life, and the most decifive of his character. It is fuch as rarely occurs in the courfe of human events; and is calculated to draw the highest attention of all who are endowed with any degree of fenfibility of heart. From the whole tenor of the narration it appears, that though Jofeph, upon the arrival of his brethren in Egypt, made himself ftrange to them, yet from the beginning, he intended to difcover himfelf; and ftudied fo to conduct the difcovery, as might render the furprife of joy complete. For this end, by affected feverity, he took meafures for bringing down into Egypt all his father's children. They were now arrived there; and Benjamin among the reft, who was his younger brother by the fame mother, and was particularly beloved by Jofeph. Him he threatened to detain; and feemed willing to allow the reft to depart. This incident renewed their distress. They all knew their father's extreme anxiety about the fafety of Benjamin, and with what difficulty he had yielded to his undertaking this journey. Should he be prevented from returning, they dreaded that grief would overpower the old man's fpirits, and prove fatal to his life. Judah, therefore, who had particularly urged the neceffity of Benjamin's accompanying his brothers, and had folemnly pledged himself to their father for his fafe return, craved, upon this occafion, an audience of the governor; and gave him a full account of the circumftances of Jacob's family.

Nothing can be more interefting and pathetic than this difcourfe of Judah. Little knowing to whom he spoke, he paints in all the colours of fimple and natural eloquence, the diftreffed fituation of the aged patriarch, haftening to the clofe of life; long afflicted for the lofs of a favourite fon, whom he fuppofed to have been torn in pieces by a beast of prey; labouring now under anxious concern about his youngeft fon, the child of his old age, who alone was left alive of his mother, and whom nothing but the calamities of fevere famine could have moved a tender father to fend from home, and expofe to the dangers of a foreign land. "If we bring him not back with us, we fhall bring down the hairs of gray thy fervant, our father, with forrow to the grave. I pray thee therefore let thy fervant abide, inftead of the young man, a bɔndman to our lord. For how fhall I go up to my