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to glory of one who has well spent a long life on earth, and is now to be escorted in triumph to the skies. The patriarch was sitting up in bed when I entered. His white locks were long, and hung on his shoulders. His eye was losing its lustre, and a pallor was over his countenance that told me at a glance the impress of death was on him.

"You see I am dying," he said, as I entered the room.

"And it is good for the saints of God to die," I answered.

"I am the least of all saints," he said, "and not worthy to be called a disciple; but I do feel that Christ is mine."

"And you are his," I added.

"So I hope, and so I will hope."

The children were pressing near to him to catch his words, and he turned from me to them, as if he would finish something he was say ing when I came in.

"And the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob bless you, and keep you, and be your God for ever."

"The

As he spoke, he reached out his hands towards the head of his eldest son, himself a man of grey hairs, who kneeled at the bed-side, and the hand of the old man rested on the head of the son. Lord bless you for your kindness to your old father." "Speak not of it," said his son, in the midst of his tears and sobs. "Oh, that you would stay with us till we could all die together!"

I was struck with the thought, "All die together!" it would be sweet to live together so as to make it the wish of all to die together.

And then the rest came, one by one, and knelt down at the side of the bed, and received his benediction in the name of the Lord. All wept but the patriarch. He was calm in the midst of universal sorrow. The dignity of his character was never more perceptible than now, as he sat bolstered up in bed, and all in tears while he was serene and hopeful.

"It is not hard to die," he said to me. "I could die a thousand times, if this is all."

"It is not such a death as the Master died," I observed.

"Oh, no! that was the cross, and this is the crown. I was never so happy in my life as now, and I am dying."

"And does the Saviour appear lovely and precious in this hour?" "The chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely," he said, with such distinctness and strength of tone that it sounded doubly sweet to my ears.

"And what views of heaven have you now?" I enquired.

"I have thought much of the glory of God, and it seems to me to fill heaven; so that I think of little else but of Him who fills it with his presence and love."

Such words as these, and many more that I cannot recall,

were

spoken with great deliberation, and they served to calm the tumult of feeling in the group of mourning children. They listened with wonder, and silent tearful pleasure, to the words as they fell from his lips, and earnestly desired that he might live to speak to them often and long of the hopes that were before him. I was obliged to leave them, and reluctantly gave the aged man a parting hand.

"I will come again in the morning," I said to him as he pressed my hand, unwilling that I should leave him.

"To-morrow, I trust, I shall be in my Father's house."

"And you will be at home there, I doubt not."

"Perfectly at home; good-bye."

I went over early in the morning, for the state of my own family would not allow me to spend the night from home, and, as I entered the house, it was evident that the old man had fallen asleep in death. The chill of death was on it.

His was a noble frame, and never did it look more noble than when stretched on the bed, with a thin white sheet spread over it. He lay in the arms of death, as still and peaceful as an infant. Death had done its work, and his spirit had returned to Him who gave it.

"FATHER, YOU NEVER TOLD ME THAT
BEFORE!"

One night in the autumn of 184-, there was great agitation among the inmates of a mansion in It was whispered from servant to servant, that their master could not live. In one of the apartments, surrounded by those comforts which wealth affords, and watched by the sleepless eye of a tender and loving wife, lay the sick man. He was not far advanced in life, and but two or three years had elapsed since he left the halls of one of the most venerable institutions of learning in the land. In circumstances that placed him above want, he engaged not in the active duties of the legal profession, but passed his days in social intercourse with the friends of his youth. They looked upon him as a happy man, and dreamed not that he could be a mark at which the archer death was about to shoot. In the providence of God this youth had been stricken with a fever. For days he had been failing in strength, and near relatives began to gather in anxiety around his couch. Among others stood the father. He had been a kind parent in the worldly sense. He had furnished this his first-born son with all the money he had desired, and encouraged him in all the fashionable dissipation of the day, but neither cared himself, nor taught his son to care, for the God who made them, and gave them everything they possessed. As he listened to the remorseless cries of his death-stricken son, his heart was ready to burst with grief. With the hope of soothing his departure from this

world, he bent over the body of his boy, and said, "My son, put your trust in God!" The advice was good, but it came too late. The sufferer, in despair, exclaimed, “Father, you never told me that before!" And soon the pulse of life ceased to beat.

Have

It may be that the reader is a father, blessed with sons who are his pride and joy. You have done all in your power to educate them to be respected citizens. You have placed them under instruction, that they may be apt business men, or have given them the advantages of a professional education, so that they may compete with the best of the youth of the land; and so far you have done well. But this is not giving your sons an education. The design of education is to make the most of a man, and is a threefold process. The body, mind, and heart, are all to be trained, to complete an education in the highest sense of the word. And we therefore ask, Have you educated the heart of your son? Have you obeyed the command, " Bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?" Have you warned them to avoid the wine-cup and the billiard-room? you dissuaded them from the horse-race and the theatre? Have you ever taken them aside and told them that there was a God to be trusted and loved? Have you ever thought of training your children for the pure and refined society of another world; for the companionship of angels and the blessed Redeemer? If you have not, surely you have wronged your children. They have looked to you as a guide, example, and moral instructor. They have supposed that you have instructed them in the best way; but they are mistaken. What if, when they come to die, and you begin to teach them that which you should have taught them in their earliest infancy, you should hear them utter the reproachful cry,-" Father, you never told me that before!"

"WILL YOU MEET ME IN HEAVEN?”

It was a bright and beautiful day in the month of August, 18—. The summer sun poured down his genial rays upon the earth, and the perfume of flowers filled the air with fragrant sweetness. The fragile form of a little girl was stretched upon the bed of sickness-soon to become the bed of death. For many long months had she suffered, yet without murmuring. Friends had hoped she would recover; but on that day the quivering lip and starting tear told that hope had fled. Her parents were about moving to the great west. She had anticipated much pleasure in the voyage, and desired very much to see the broad prairies of America, and to gather the pretty flowers that grew upon them. But now she must give up all these bright hopes. She was told that she must die. She called her only brother to her bedside. He was a wayward boy of twelve years. She took his hand, and in a faint whisper said, 66 'Brother, I shall soon die, but I do not

fear death, because my Saviour has died. I have put my trust in him, and though my body shall lie in the cold ground, my spirit will be with him. In his bosom I shall be happy; I shall be free from suffering there. There I shall sing praises. Brother, will you meet me in heaven?" Gently as the summer's breeze she passed away, and now a plain white stone in the churchyard of S―, with the inscription "S- M ~, aged ten years," tells where she lies.

Years rolled by; but wherever that brother went, whether wandering over the wild prairies of Illinois, the deep groves of North Carolina, or the rugged hills of Vermont, those words, "Will you meet me in heaven?" have sounded in his ears until he has been brought, like her, to trust in the Saviour, and to hope that through his intercession he may at last meet her in that happy place. And at midnight, when the noise of the rolling wheels is hushed, and the little songsters have gone to rest, and the stars look out from their hiding-places, he can almost imagine that he hears little Sarah's voice lisping in gentle accents, "Will you meet me in heaven?"

Reader, you have probably lost a relation or a friend,-one whose character and conduct while in this world were such that you are sure he is happy now. Did you not hear him on his death-bed,-do you not hear him now, saying,-Father, Mother, Brother, Sister, Wife, Friend, will you meet me in heaven? And will you?

Varieties.

THE INFIDEL'S CONFESSION.-Walking one day in the village where I was labouring, I met a man who I knew openly avowed himself an infidel. After the usual salutations, I said to him, "Well, Mr. H., what is the condition of your soul this morning?" His answer was, "Oh, I am an infidel." "I know that, Mr. B., but as a man of reflection, who understands what infidelity is, you will not pretend to me that you know the Bible is not the word of God." After a few moments' reflection, he replied, "I acknowledge that I do not know that it is not, but I do not believe it is." "Well, Mr. B., if the Bible should not be the word of God, can you be sure that there will not be just such a state of retribution beyond the grave as the Bible describes ?" "No, I am sure of nothing beyond the grave, but I do not believe there will be any retribution." "Then, Mr. B., your reason compels you to admit, that you cannot know but living and dying as you are you will go to hell, and be as miserable there to all eternity, as the Saviour represented the rich man to be." "It is true, I can be certain of nothing beyond the grave, whether I shall exist at all there, or if I do, what will be my condition is a mere matter of conjecture." "Keep this in mind, Mr. B., when you lie down and when you rise up, that you do not know but you shall go

Infidels

to hell when you die, and if you can rest with the possibility of such a dreadful end, your mind is differently constituted from mine." We parted, and he went about his business; but, as I afterwards learned, never enjoyed any peace until he indulged a hope in Christ. do not reflect how baseless their scheme is. It keeps them from the consolations of a hope of a blessed immortality, and gives them nothing in return. Surely their rock is not like our Rock, our enemies themselves being judges.

TO PRAYERLESS PARENTS.-Prayerless parents! your irreligion may prove your children's damnation. The time when God visited your family with a heavy stroke, they were thoughtful for a season, but there was no church in your house to give a heavenly direction to that thoughtfulness, and it soon died away. That evening, when they came home from the Sabbath-school, so serious, if you had been a pious father or mother, you would have taken your boy aside, and spoken tenderly to him, and asked what his teacher had been telling him, and you would have prayed with him, and tried to deepen the impression. But your children came in from the church or school, and found no church in their father's house. Their hearts were softened, but your worldliness soon hardened them. The seed of the kingdom was just springing in their souls; but in the atmosphere of your ungodly house, the tender blade withered instantly. Your idle talk, your frivolity, your Sunday visitors, your prayerless evenings ruined all. Your children were coming to Christ, and you suffered them not. And you will not need to hinder them long. The carnal mind is enmity against God; but no enmity so deep as theirs who were almost reconciled and then drew back. You drove your children back. You hardened them. They may never more be moved. They may grow up as prayerless and as ungodly as yourself. If God should change you, they may soon be too hardened for your tears and entreaties. If you die as you are, their evil works will follow you to the world of woe, and pour new ingredients into your own cup of wrath. Oh, think of these things! A prayerless house is not only a cheerless one, but it is a guilty one; for where God is not, there Satan is.-James Hamilton.

WRITING ON DIAMONDS.-What if God should place in your hand a diamond, and tell you to inscribe on it a sentence, which should be read at the last day, and shewn there as an index of your own thoughts and feelings! What a care, what a caution, would you exercise in the selection! But this is what God has done. He has placed before you immortal minds, more imperishable than the diamond, on which you are inscribing, every day and every hour, by your instructions, by your spirit, or by your example, something which will remain, and be exhibited for or against you at the judgment day. What are you writing, reader, on the minds with which you come in contact?

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