SECTION V.

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

BESIDES the felicity which springs from perfeet 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. 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 proph ets, patriarchs, and apostles, with all those great and illastrious 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.

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 prehaps 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 appearnce forever, from those to whom either nature of friendship had intimately joined our hearts. Memory, from time to time, renews the anguish; opens the wounds 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 reunion 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 above. Of such are the multitude composed, "who stand before the throne."

BLAIB

When

*The Clemency and amiable Character of the Patriarch Joseph. No human character, exhibited in the records of Scripture, i 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 Ged and man. overseer of Potiphar's house, his fidelity was proved by strong temptations, which he honourably resisted. 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 public service. 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. From the whole tenor 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. 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 detail; 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. Should he be pre vented from returning, they dreaded that grief would overpower the old man's spirits, and prove fatal to his life Judah, therefore, who had particularly urged the necessi of Benjamin's accompanying his brothers, and had solem pledged himself to their father for his safe return, er

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on this occasion, an audience of the governor; end gave aim a full account of the circumstances of Jacob's family. Nothing can be more interesting and pathetic 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 bat the calamities of severe famine could have moved a tender father to send from home, and expose to the dangers of a fogn land. "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 1 father, and Benjamin not with me? lest I see the evil that shall come on my father."

Upon this relation Joseph could no longer restrain himI self. The tender ideas of his father and his father's house, of his ancient home, his country and his kindred, of the dis tress 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." 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. 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." 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 s brother. "He wept aloud; and the Egyptians, and the house of Pharaoh, heard him.”

6 His

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 impassionate moment, to have said more? This is the voice of nature erself; 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. "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 discovry, filled their breasts, and stopped their utterance, as the ew words which Joseph speaks, are expressive of the genebus agitations which struggled for vent within him. No ainter could seize a more striking moment for displaying he characteristical features of the human heart, than what here presented. Never was there a situation of more tendand virtuous joy, on the one hand; nor, on the other, of more overwhelming confusion and eonseious guilt. In the imple narration of the sacred historian, it is set before us ith greater energy and higher effect, than if it had been rought up with all the colouring of the most admired modin eloquenes.

BLAIR,

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SECTION VII.

ALTAMONT.

THE following Account of an affecting, mournful Exit, is related by Dr. YOUNG, who was present at the melancholy Scene:

THE sad evening before the death of the noble youth, hose last hours suggested the most solemn and awful relections, I was with him. No one was present, but his phyician, and an intimate whom he loved, and whom he had uined. At my coming in, he said, "You and the physiian are come too late. I have neither life nor hope. You oth aim at miracles. You would raise the dead!" Heavn, I said, was merciful, "Or," exclaimed he;" I could ot have been thus guilty. What has it not done to bless, ad to save me! I have been too strong for Omnipotence! have plucked down ruin." I said, the blessed Redeem*;*" Hold! hold! you wound me! That is the rock on hich I split I denied his name!"

Refusing to hear any thing from me, or take any thing om the physician, he lay silent, as far as sudden darts of in would permit, till the clock struck: Then with veheence he exclaimed; "Oh! time! time! it is fit thou ouldst thus strike thy murderer to the heart! How art ou fled forever! A month! Oh for a single week! I ask t for years though an age were too little for the much I ve to do." 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 pray, nor need I. Is not Heaven en my side already? It closes with my conscience. Its severest strokes but second my own." 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. Dest thou weep for me that is cruel. What can pain me more?" Here his friend, too much affected, would have left him "No, stay-thou still mayest 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 answe 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 d immortality, is doubtless immortal-And, as for a Deity nothing less than an Almighty could inflict what I feel."

I was about to congratulate this passive, involuntary con fessor, on his asserting the two prime articles of his creed, extorted by the rack of nature, when he thus, very passion ately 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 though 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 wouldst struggle with the martyr for his stake; and bless Heaven for the flames!that is not an everlasting flame; that is not unquenchala

fire."

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 extra agance has beggared my boy! my unkindness has murdere my wife!--and is there another hell? Oh, thou blaspheme yet indulgent LORD GOD! Hell itself is a refuge. if hide me from thy frown" Soon after his understandi failed. His terrified imagination uttered horrors not to b repeated, or ever forgotten. And ere the sun (which. hope, has seen few like him) arose, the gay, young, ingenious, accomplished, and most wretched Altamort, pired!

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