Surely a broader light is breaking on mankind, and a more comprehensive knowledge is destined to sweeten all the bitterness of life, expanding the spirit of selfishness and jealousy into the breadth and warmth of brotherly affection. A searching and sanctified science is revealing the unity which exists in nature's diversity, the oneness of beauty which arises from the multiplicity of forms, and the moral unity of all human souls. Human freedom and the capacities of mind are great and undeniable facts, and as the great moral interests of man are more and more seen to be similar and common, the flame of fraternal sympathy will burn more brightly, — the gloom which obscure and selfish theologies have thrown round human life will vanish away, the grand harmonies of God's beneficence will appear to the eyes of the human understanding, and will sound along through the experience of the soul. We are all discovering that the indispensable condition of present and all progress, of present and all true and pure enjoyment, is the divine and essential element of human love.

DISCOURSE II.

A RELIGION TO LIVE BY, THE BEST RELIGION TO DIE BY.

BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEM. Matt. vii. 20.

DELIVER THEM WHO THROUGH FEAR OF DEATH WERE ALL THEIR LIFETIME SUBJECT TO BONDAGE. Hebrews ii. 15.

THERE is a singular attraction round a death-bed at the last hour of a human being's mortal existence. The departing spirit may be one on whom success has ever smiled, one whose life has been like a long summer day, only now and then interrupted by passing clouds, leaving ever a brighter sky behind. Or it may be one whose life may seem to have been one great misfortune, one whose attendants appear always to have been disappointment and deprivation, toil and tears. But whether one or the other, it is with intense interest, with thrilling anxiety, that we linger round the struggling spirit, when about te leave the feeble, fainting body. We bend to catch the last whisper, and to mark the last smile of recognition before the eye grows dim, and the lips become motionless; and never, never do we blot from memory the pressure of the cold hand, as for the

last time it falls powerless from our own. These are scenes of every hour's, every moment's occurrence. It is computed, and the computation is quite within the truth, that every second, with every vibration of the pendulum, a spirit leaves its earthly body. Every hour is the dying hour to many, every moment is to some the final moment here.

With deep interest we are prone to dwell on the details of incidents which mark the dying hour of those whom we revere, whom we esteem or love. Indeed, a minute description of the last earthly moments of any human being seems to possess a strangely fascinating power. Again and again do we peruse such narratives, till we have fully realized their truth, and then we wonder where where the spirit is. What would we then give could we but for an instant draw aside the veil that hangs before the invisible world, and catch a glimpse, the faintest glimpse, of that now unseen existence! How impatient we become at times to know what we all soon, very soon, shall fully understand!

It is not surprising that we are so prone to associate the last moments of earthly existence with the supposed present condition of the departed spirit. The transition from this to that condition, at its final stage, is to all appearance so easy, so instantaneous, so complete, that it seems scarcely possible to draw even an imaginary line between them. This tendency of the emotions to lead us into a region of pure conjecture has been indulged so generally as to have become a serious abuse, which sober reason rarely pauses to correct. The frequent

delineation of death-bed scenes, in sermons and religious writings of every kind, has led and still leads to serious misapprehension. It appears to be an almost universal feeling, if not belief, that Religion is something designed only for the dying, — a sort of medicine prepared in heaven by Infinite Goodness, to soothe the sufferings of men in the hour of their departure. It is, not unfrequently, deemed conclusive of the value of a form of religious faith, to say that "it is a good religion by which to live, but a poor religion by which to die." The scenes of the last hour of some distinguished professing Christian are very frequently described, and urged as evidence of the correctness of his religious views, and almost as frequently urged as indisputable evidence of the divinity of the Christian religion.

It is among the most remarkable of things, that Christian writers and Christian ministers fail to perceive the utter futility of all arguments of this nature. For such arguments, if proof at all, prove more, far more, than those who employ them may at a superficial view imagine. Indeed, if they prove anything, they will prove everything, as to religious opinions. No testimony is less to be relied on, as to a man's real character and life, than the testimony of a dying hour.

There have been Christians, and those who never pretended to be Christians, those who never knew of Christianity, whose whole life may be likened to a calm and brilliant day;-its dawn clear and mild, growing brighter and brighter to its zenith, then growing milder and more varied in its beauty, till its last golden light has stolen away,

and left survivors wondering at the silent grandeur of its passage. But it is mournfully true, that such lives, like such days, are very few and far be

tween.

If, however, the serenity of a dying hour demonstrates the correctness of a man's religious views, then the doctrines of every religion and of every sect have been proved true, beyond any question. Every religion and every sect has had its martyrs. Here in our own land, have we not beheld hundreds of the followers of the sincere but visionary prophet Miller, leave their business and their homes and friends, to await the second advent of Jesus, and when death summoned them before they could behold the expected earthly glory, have they not gone joyfully, to all appearance wrapt in ecstatic spiritual visions of the future? Have we not seen the believers in the Book of Mormon dissolve the most endearing relations, sacrifice their property, forsake the homes of their childhood and the graves of their friends, brave the ocean's storms and a thousand perils, only to lay their bodies among their saints on the shores of the Mississippi?

What experienced minister of any sect, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, or any other, has not heard the last accents of his dying parishioner expressing unshaken confidence in the faith of his fathers? And when the voice has become too feeble to utter words, the dying man has smiled in satisfaction, and passed, apparently with unutterable rapture, into the world of celestial joys.

Have not hundreds of Calvinists died rejoicing in the faith that God would alike vindicate his glory