What a view do these facts give us of the deep pollution, and infinite evil, of sin! It has turned this world into a wide and spacious hospital, in every ward of which we see the halt and the blind, the sick and the dying. Instead of a blooming paradise of joy, there rises to our sight an Aceldama, a field of blood; a Golgotha, a place of skulls. Every thing around us evinces the melancholy truth that the misery of man is great upon him. If, like Lot, we imagine that we have made choice of plains well watered every where, even as the garden of the Lord, the illusion is soon dispelled, by finding that they are infested with enemies, and that even here our comforts are ravaged, and our bliss impaired. Care lodges beneath the fretted roof; and the gilded mansion is not less exempt from suffering than the humble cottage. The history of mankind, like Ezekiel's roll, is written within and without, with lamentations, and mourning, and woe.

Nor are natural evils, alas! the only sad inheritance which sin has entailed on the human race. It has infected our moral constitution, and is the disease which, deeply seated in the heart, has impaired and perverted its noble powers-deranged and vitiated its tender passions. The soul, which was once the spring of holy affections and desires, and the object of divine complacency and delight, is now averse to the knowledge, obedience,

and love of the Great Supreme, and is exposed to the bitter reproaches of an accusing conscience, and the angry frown of an offended Judge. A state of strange insensibility has been induced to the paramount importance of eternal things; so that men, alive only to the perishing and unsatisfying pursuits of time, have neither taste nor ability to aim at "honour, glory, and immortality." And shall we still continue in league with this enemy to the divine government, and to human happiness? Can we carry the viper in our bosoms, and play at the hole of the cockatrice den? Shall we trifle with an evil which has marred the beauty, imbittered the pleasures, and broken the harmony of this lower world; which has despoiled man of his original dignity, the divine image in which he was created, and left him a miserable outcast from paradise, bereft of all communion with God, and enjoyment of his favour; which dissolves the tenderest ties and dearest bonds of social life, lessening the number of our living friends, and peopling the dreary mansions of the dead; and which has infested the body we inhabit with acute and loathsome diseases, and doomed it to corruption, worms, and earth? Rather, let us avoid the very appearance of evil, hating even the garments spotted by the flesh, and watching against all those circumstances which may prove occasions, or temptations to sin. And deeply sensible of the

depravity of our hearts, and the pollution of our nature, may we earnestly pray for the renewing influences of the Holy Spirit; and apply, by faith, to "the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness."

"Great God! how awful is the scene!
A breath, a transient breath, between,
And can I trifle life away?

To earth, alas! too firmly bound,
Trees deeply rooted in the ground

Are shiver'd, when they're torn away!

Vain joys, which envied greatness gains,
How do ye bind with silken chains,

Which ask immortal strength to break!
How with new terrors have ye arm'd
That power, whose slightest glance alarm'd!
How many deaths of one ye make!

Yet, dumb with wonder, I behold
Man's thoughtless race, in error bold,
Forget, or scorn, the laws of death;
With these no projects coincide,

Nor vows, nor toils, nor hopes, they guide-
Each thinks he draws immortal breath!

Yet a few years, or days perhaps,
Or moments, pass in silent lapse,

And time to me shall be no more;

No more the sun these eyes shall view;
Earth o'er these limbs her dust shall strew;
And life's fantastic dream be o'er.

Alas, I touch the dreadful brink!

From nature's verge impell'd I sink!

And gloomy darkness wraps me round!

D

26

DEATH-THE OFFSPRING OF SIN.

Yes!-death is ever at my hand,
Fast by my bed he takes his stand,
And constant at my board is found!

that guides,

But then, this spark that warms,
That lives, that thinks—what fate betides?
Can this be dust?-a kneaded clod!
This yield to death! the soul, the mind,
That measures heaven, and mounts the wind,
That knows at once itself and God!

Great cause of all, above, below,-
Who knows Thee, must for ever know
Thou art immortal and divine!
Thine image on my soul imprest,
Of endless being is the test,
And bids eternity be mine!

Transporting thought! but am I sure
That endless life will joy secure?—
Joys only to the just decreed!-
The guilty wretch, expiring goes
Where vengeance endless life bestows,
That endless misery may succeed!"

CHAPTER II.

Death-divinely commissioned.

Chain'd to his throne a volume lies,
With all the fates of men,
With ev'ry angel's form and size
Drawn by th' eternal pen.
His providence unfolds the book,
And makes his counsels shine:
Each opening leaf, and ev'ry stroke,
Fulfils some deep design.

Not Gabriel asks the reason why,
Nor God the reason gives;
Nor dares the fav'rite angel pry
Between the folded leaves.

WATTS.

THE dominion of Jehovah is universal and absolute, extending to all creatures and all events; and while it is uncontrolled and sovereign, it is exercised on principles of wisdom, equity, and benevolence. Every thing which occurs in the