sons present, that she rushed from the room. In due course of time letters were received announcing the death of the brother in India, which had occurred some time before his dying sister seemed to recognize him.

Again, in another case one who had lost his only son some years previously, and who had never recovered the afflicting event exclaimed suddenly when dying, with the air of a man making a most rapturous discovery, "I see him! I see him!"

Not to multiply such anecdotes too far-anecdotes which certainly possess a uniformity pointing to some similar cause, whether that cause be physiological or psychical- I will now conclude with one authenticated by a near relative of the persons concerned. A late colonial Bishop was commonly called by his sisters "Charlie," and his eldest sister bore the pet name of "Liz." They had both been dead for some years, when their younger sister, Mrs. W——————————, also died, but before her death appeared to behold them both. While lying still and apparently unconscious, she suddenly opened her eyes and looked earnestly across the room as if she saw some one entering. Presently, as if overjoyed, she exclaimed, "O Charlie!" and then, after a moment's pause, with a new start of delight, as if he had been joined by some one else, she went on, "And Liz!" and then added, "How beautiful you are!" After seeming to gaze at the two beloved forms for a few minutes, she fell back on her pillow and died. An instance in many respects especially noteworthy, of a similar impression of the presence of the dead conveyed through another sense besides sight, is recorded in Caroline Fox's charming "Journals," Vol. II, p. 247. She notes under date September 5th, 1856, as follows:-

"M. A. Schimmelpennick is gone. She said just before her death, 'Oh, I hear such beautiful voices, and the children's are loudest.""

Can any old Italian picture of the ascending Madonna, with the cloud of cherub heads forming a glory of welcome around her as she enters the higher world, be more significant than this actual fact-so simply told of a saintly woman in dying hearing "beautiful voices, and the children's the loudest ?" Of course, like all the rest it may have been only a physiolgical phenomenon, a purely subjective impression; but it is at least remarkable that a second sense should thus be under the same glamour,--and that again, we have to confront, in the case of hearing as of sight, the anomaly of the (real or supposed)

presence of the beautiful and the delightful, instead of the terrible and the frightful, while Nature is in the pangs of dissolution. Does the brain, then, unlike every unknown instrument, give forth its sweetest music as its chords are breaking?

THE REVELATIONS TO THE DYING.

BISHOP D. W, CLARK, d. d.

Is there not a large class of facts which have a most distinct and impressive bearing upon the relation that exists between the present and the eternal world and the revelations that may be made to the soul while in its transition state? Said a dying Sunday-school scholar from my flock, while in the very article of death, but with perceptive and reasoning powers still unimpaired, "The angels have come." The pious Blumhardt exclaimed, "Light breaks in! Hallelujah!" and expired. Dr. McLain said, "I can now contemplate clearly the grand scene to which I am going." Sargent, the biographer of Martin, with his countenance kindled into a holy fervor, and his eye beaming with unearthly lustre, fixed his gaze as upon a definite object, and exclaimed, "That bright light!" and when asked what light, answered, "The light of the Sun of righteousness." The Lady Elizabeth Hastings, a little before she expired, cried out, with a beaming countenance and enraptured voice, "Lord, what is it that I see?" and Olympia Morata, an exile for her faith, as she sank in death, exclaimed, "I distinctly behold a place filled with ineffable light!" Dr. Bateman, a distinguished physician and philosopher, died exclaiming, "What glory! the angels are waiting for me!" the midst of delirium, Bishop Wilson was transported with the vision. of angels. Not unfrequently the mind is filled with the most striking conceptions of the presence of departed friends. Most touching is the story of Carnaval, who was long known as a lunatic wandering about the streets of Paris. His reason had been unsettled by the early death of the object of his tender and most devoted affections. He could never be made to comprehend that she was dead; but spent his life in the vain search for the lost object of his love. In most affecting terms he would mourn her absence, and chide her long delay. Thus

life wore away; and when its ebbing tide was almost exhausted, starting as from a long and unbroken revery, the countenance of the dying man was overspread with sudden joy, and stretching forth his arms, as if he would clasp some object before him, he uttered the name of his long-lost love, and exclaiming, "Ah, there thou art at last!" expired. The aged Hannah More, in her dying agony, stretching out her arms as though she would grasp some object, uttered the name of a much-loved deceased sister, cried, "Joy!" and then sank down into the arms of death.

"Then, then I rose; then first, humanity
Triumphant pass'd the crystal ports of light,
Stupendous guest, and seized eternal youth."

YOUNG.

HEAVEN-NOT FAR AWAY.

Oн, heaven is nearer than mortals think,
When they look with trembling dread,
At the misty future that stretches on,

From the silent home of the dead.

The eye that shuts in a dying hour,

Will open the next in bliss,

The welcome will sound in the heavenly world
Ere the farewell is hushed in this.

We pass from the clasp of mourning friends,
To the arms of the loved and lost;
And those smiling faces will greet us there,
Which on earth we have valued most.

Yet oft in the hours of holy thought,
To the thirsting soul is given,

That power to pierce through the mist of sense,
To the beauteous scenes of heaven.

I know when the silver cord is loosed,
When the vail is rent away,
Not long and dark shall the passage be,
To the realm of endless day.

Dying Experiences and
TESTIMONIES.

THE DYING HUSBAND.

SCENE.

LEIGH HUNT.

A female sitting by a bedside, anxiously looking at the face of her

husband, just dead. The soul within the dead body soliloquizes.

HAT change is this! What joy! What depth of rest!
What suddenness of withdrawal from all pain

Into all bliss! into a balm so perfect

I do not even smile! I tried but now,

With that breath's end, to speak to the dear face
That watches me-and lo! all in an instant,

Instead of toil, and a weak, weltering tear,

I am all peace, all happiness, all power,

Laid on some throne in space.-Great God! I am dead!

[A pause.] Dear God! Thy love is perfect; Thy truth unknown. [Another.] And He,-and they,-How simple and strange! How

beautiful!

But I may whisper it not,-even to thought,

Lest strong imagination, hearing it,

Speak, and the world be shattered.

[Soul again pauses.] O balm! O bliss! O saturating smile

Unvanishing! O doubt ended! certainty

Begun! O will, faultless, yet all indulged,

Encouraged to be wilful;-to delay

Even its wings for heaven;-and thus to rest

Here, here, ev'n here,-'twixt heaven and earth awhile,

A bed in the morn of endless happiness.

I feel warm drops falling upon my face;

-My wife! my love!-'tis for the best thou canst not

Know how I know thee weeping, and how fond

A kiss meets thine in these unowning lips.