him like extreme unction at the last moment of life. But no, religion is an internal principle, or rather it includes all right principles. It is, therefore, the regulator of all man's judgment, passions and will, bringing them into harmony with truth and reason.

And is this a thing which can be postponed? Can peace, patience and mercy be deferred? Are a spirit of love and a principle of duty, virtues which it is as well to have years hence as now? Nay, can life go on at all as it ought without these primary conditions of well-being? It cannot be. No -not for an hour. If I delay one hour, then that is an hour lost. If I defer it till to-morrow, then I am deferring so long my happiness. Then I am doomed to pass one more day of misery. Its sorrows I must bear alone. If I have tears to shed, I shall find no comforter. And can I afford to lose even one day of existence? Are my days so many that I can afford to drag on one after another in weariness and pain.

Thus we attach a value to every passing hour. I acknowledge no pre-eminence of the day of one's death over an ordinary day of life. I cannot understand that religion should be more important at one period than at another at the hour of dissolution than at this moment. If man's happiness depend on the proper government of his mind, that government is as necessary now as at any future period of existence. I admit that there are certain crisis of life-moments of agony, in which ages of suffering are concentrated into an hour; and when the absence of this great consolation may be felt most bitterly. So it may be when the memories and reproaches of a life mis-spent, rush upon the dying soul.

The moment of death too is unspeakably solemn as the limit of opportunity-the last light of day.

But beyond that I see not that religion is more important at the hour of death than at this hour. Now, and always, and everywhere, it is the great necessity of man.

We see then that the chief argument for religion is, not coming death, but actual life. We need no spectre of a King of Terrors to warn us against taking guilt upon our souls while these breasts palpitate with a life which guilt may render more terrible than death.

Nay, more. We need not send forward our imagination into a dark eternity to derive additional horrors from that tremendous gloom. Why repeat so often the lamentations of hell, as if here on earth we did not hear weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth? Is there not misery here as well as there ?

We will not cross the boundary of this world in search of terrors. Before our eyes is suffering enough to affright us from evil. There is no end to the misery of man. All round the earth comes the wail of millions-lamenting, cursing, and despairing. Yea, in our own breasts has been felt that mortal agony which makes the place of future punishment so fearful. We have already tasted the bitterness of death. Whoever has felt remorse-he knows what hell is. REMORSE that word of which a dying statesman said, men knew not the meaning-who has not felt its sting? When in a moment of passion we have given way to a burst of fury, venting our rage in a torrent of bitter words, or doing some cruel, but irrevocable act, then comes a reaction. Then arise shame and self-reproach. Then drop the bitter, burning tears. suppose that every man of sensibility has at times suffered a mental anguish, which, were it perpetual, would lead him to say, It is better for me to die then to live.

I

All that auguish, religion would have prevented. And if we have it now, it will avert such agonies a thousand times hereafter. It is not, therefore, merely to save your souls in a distant futurity; but to save them now, to deliver them from innumerable woes, that we fly to this great source of strength and of peace.

Why should I defer this great necessity of my being? No -not to-morrow, but to-day. I am not willing to suffer one hour of wretchedness which religion would prevent.

Nor would I lose the present happiness it confers. For it is not in heaven alone that it blesses the soul. It has promise of the life that now is as well as of that which is to come. It makes happy beings here as well as there. Religion deepens joy, causing every current of gladness to rush through the heart in a fuller stream. It takes away the feverishness of ordinary pleasure, and breathes over the spirit a holy calm. There is a peculiar countenance which I have never seen but in religious men. It is full of sensibility and benevolence. But its chief expression is Peace. No one can look into such a face, and not be fascinated by it. There is a clearness and depth in the eye, as of a lake with no dark and troubled currents beneath. And what meaning in its smile! That gentle radiation of the features passes over the placid countenance like a breath of air, rippling still and tranquil waters. is the very spirit of the skies, and it bears light and joy wherever it is wafted over the earth.

This

If this train of thought be just, then the manner in which Death is often presented as an argument for religion, has no

force in it. A prominence is given to that event, as if it were not merely a change of existence, but life's final and overwhelming catastrophe. And indeed it is to be feared, that, though not avowed, such an apprehension creeps into the thoughts, and that good men reason for religion with infidel arguments.

:

But what is death? Is it a pause of life-a rest of the soul until the resurrection-until the ages of human history shall be complete? Then it is not to be feared. For it suffers nothing. It is still and voiceless. It utters no sound. It feels no pain. How much more fearful is this trembling, throbbing life which now has hold of us that quivers like a reed shaken by the wind. Not a breath blows upon it but makes it tremble with joy or grief. The chambers of death are silent; all is tranquility and peace. But the halls of life ring with shouts of conflict--with bursts of passion and of tears. The dead weep no more. The only tears that water the grave are shed by the living, as they stand over the silent dust. Indeed, if death were but a long sleep we might welcome him as an aged friend, who comes to take us to rest in his arms.

In that slumber and repose there is nothing to be afraid of. The mere departing from the world has in it no terror, except as whatever is enveloped with mystery excites a vague dread. In such cases we fear though we know not what we fear. But mere dissolution has neither joy nor pain. It furnishes no argument for religion. Indeed it proves nothing one way or the other.

But some think to make us start back by describing death as attended with circumstances of physical horror. Certain minds delight to awaken terror, and they labor to collect around death every gloomy image. They love to harrow the feelings of those who hear them by speaking in sepulchral tones of the corpse, and the winding-sheet, and the clod falling on the coffin.

There is a connection in which these images of man's mortality may teach a useful lesson. For example, when we speak of the insignificance of human glory-of the nothingness of earthly grandeur-it is most instructive to point the proud spirit to the hour when all its greatness will be brought down to darkness and the worm. Then do we find a solemn monitor in graves and tombs. Let not man dream of immortality he, whose end is destruction-who will soon be given back to the earth--" ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

But when the object is to excite a shudder by presenting

to the mind loathsome images of decay-by telling us our bodies shall be food for worms-it is a vulgar artifice, which can affect only the nervous and the timid. In death, thus viewed, there is nothing truly terrible.

We

Here is a confusion of ideas, which need to be separated. Men speak of the "cold grave." But what is cold or heat, where there is no sensation? What means the "dark and narrow tomb," if no eye is opened to discern the absence of light? Truly, it is no more dark than if the dead were laid as they are among some tribes of Indians in the tops of trees. By thus analyzing our emotions, we find that insensibly we have associated the idea of consciousness with the body turning to corruption. The loneliness of the sepulchre is dreadful because we fancy that the mind is wakeful. picture to ourselves the dead man rising up in his graveclothes, and casting his cold eye around his dark and solitary cell. Therefore, we shudder to be buried, because we can not divest ourselves of a vague fear of being buried alive! Take away this and there is nothing more to dread. If life be departed, or dormant, then there is nothing more painful in the prospect that the body of a man should be left in the ground than the root of a tree. Indeed, one of our poets, in his Thanatopsis, has made pleasing the idea of thus "mingl ing with the elements."

Nay, if death be not merely a sleep for ages, but a sleep FOREVER, that is not the most dreadful thought which can weigh down the mind. Those who argue for the immortality of man from his desire of life, perhaps exaggerate his dread of annihilation. A celebrated preacher exclaims in a burst of powerful language: "O death! dark hour to hopeless unbelief! hour to which, in that creed of despair, no hour shall succeed! being's last hour! to which even the shadows of avenging retribution were brightness and relief !"

Such may be the natural instinct. But this love of exist ence is sadly changed by misery and by guilt. When life can but perpetuate bitter memories, the wretched rush from

it,

"Mad from life's history,

Glad to death's mystery,
Swift to be hurled,
Anywhere, anywhere,
Out of the world."*

And not alone the desolate and broken-hearted. But those

who have tried every pleasure of life, and exhausted them all, turn to death as a new excitement, and fondly dream of wandering as shades on "the black, Plutonian shore," inhaling "the freshness of the eternal night."

Even though their spirits pass through darkness into naught, they feel little horror of the change. Many a skeptic, and Epicurean looks forward to a final and utter cessation of existence with no trembling. Nay, it would seem as if he counted upon it as a last triumph to die without pain. He anticipates coolly the sensation of dying, and imagines himself falling into a soft slumber, as after a weary day-the senses gradually closing, and a feeling of repose stealing over him, delicious as the opium-eater's dream-and thus slowly sinking down into total unconsciousness-a rest which the hopes and fears of existence shall vex nevermore!

Strange that this "utter end," desired alike by misery and by wearied pleasure, should sometimes be demanded even by ambition..

A daring spirit, that has climbed to the summt of glory, feels a wild excitement in the prospect of bursting into the vacant heavens, leaving men to gaze after it in wonder. Danton-sentenced to the scaffold in the full vigor of life, exulted in this tragical end of his career :-"I shall soon be with annihilation; but my name will live in the Pantheon of history."

When Mirabeau was dying, the energies of his Herculean frame long struggled with the mortal disease. He had extorted a promise from his physician, that, when the agonies of death became excruciating, he would give him opium. Still the mighty heart beat on. He said that he felt a hundred years of life throbbing in him. At length he ceased to speak. Then his eye sought the physician, and seemed to implore the fatal draught. He took a pencil and traced one word, dormir. To sleep--sleep-sleep-was the last prayer of the dying tribune. He wished to sleep for an eternity!

It is not then the silence and forgetfulness of death that men fear most. To the " aching head" it is a welcome kope,

To slumber in that dreamless bed
From all its toll."

But they fear that they shall not slumber. "To sleep-perchance to dream." It is the waking moments that they dread-when the tide of life flows back into the soul-when the dreaminess of departing is over, and they find themselves