Is that thine eye so sunk and dim? Here brought so low, each panting breath As death approached, the preparation of my young friend for eternity appeared to become complete. It was a great pleasure and a great profit to converse with him. A young Christian lady to whom the case became known visited, and was so interested, that she obtained permission from her parents to have the sufferer removed from his suffocating abode to their own dwelling, and waited on him, and read and prayed with him frequently, with the assiduity of a sister. I visited him for the last time on a beautiful summer's evening. The sun was going down in glory, and his sun, also, was going down whilst it was yet day, (Jer. xv. 9.) An early sunset, but in glory too! Yet the glory was shrouded. A dark halo of suffering hung round it, through which it was, however, about to burst. He was lying on his back, dying- dying terribly hard. His eye was glassy and meaningless. He had not spoken, I believe, during the day, and appeared insensible to outward things. I addressed him, and he made what appeared to be an intense effort to reply, but a faint cry was all that issued, and speech refused to act. The relatives little expected he would ever speak again; in this, however, they were mistaken. Just before his decease, and whilst in this apparently insensible condition, they were startled by his audibly repeating one word—and what a comment did the utterance of that one word afford, to a text on which the spiritually-minded love to linger. He said, "Jesus!" A realization this, indeed, of the promise, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me," Psalm xxiii. 4. He who strives to live to God need have no fear about dying. All those heavings of the breast-all those death-throes through which it may be our portion to pass-for some die not so, but softly as the close of music, and serenely as the breath of the morning-all those agonies if endured will be supported, yes, blessed be God! adequately supported by Him who has said, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee," Heb. xiii. 5. The spirit of the holy Lazarus was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom,* (Luke xvi. 19.) But the mission of angels is not alone posthumous, "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" Heb. i. 14. An angel was sent to support * TOV KOλTOV Tоν Aßρaaμ-Abraham's bosom. A phrase used among the Jews, to signify the paradise of God. Josephus on Maccabees, chap. xiii. of Doddridge and others observe:-"It alludes to the way representing the entertainments of heaven, by sharing a magnificent banquet with Abraham." At such entertainments among the Jews, the guest who sat next to the entertainer was said, in the highly figurative language of the orient, to lay, etc., in his bosom. See John xiii. 23-25. We have some such phraseology when we speak of a bosom friend. in the mortality of Jesus-our blessed Lord's divinity could need no support and whilst he was agony that angel strengthened him, (Luke xxii.) Indeed, when the angels wait upon the sons of God, in life or in death, they recognise the spiritual influence of their Master, who has a throne in such hearts: 66 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” 1 Cor. iii. 16. Let us then pray for the breath of the Holy Spirit that our souls may bloom with the fruits of holiness, and that Christ may be well pleased with us-as it is written, "Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits," Cant. iv. 16. And now that the wintry elements of nature are dissipated, and we know something of the summer and music of godliness, we are enabled to look forward with joy when we have fulfilled the holy will of God on earth, even to departing, and shall hear with gladness the voice of Christ, at whose bidding we had before departed from the shades of sin, (Cant. ii. 10-13,) say once more unto us, "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away," where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary be at rest, (Job iii. 17,) " enter thou into the joy of thy Lord," Matt. xxv. 21. And whilst we live, when the syren voices of earth would tempt, let us then hear that sweeter voice saying, "Come away." My young reader, a ર "Nothing," says Doddridge, can better describe the honour and happiness of Lazarus, who had lain in so wretched a condition before the glutton's gate, than telling us he was placed next to Abraham, and so lay in his bosom." This note may not be unacceptable to some junior reader. word for thy young heart. The world can give thee no such pleasures as companionship of soul with Jesus affords. Evil in its most alluring forms is not half so sweet as good. Give thine heart now to God-" come away." "The carrier bird from Eastern skies, Ne'er stoops to earth her wings, nor flies But high she shoots through air and light, Where nothing earthly bounds her flight, "So grant us, Lord, from faithless fear CONCLUSION. HUMAN life has been well described as but the threshold of existence. It has also been aptly denominated a parenthesis between two eternities, the eternity of the past and the eternity of the future. In that narrow parenthesis we stand. It is an amazing thought, that we can look back to a time when we were not-the hand that now writes, once did not exist-the heart that now prays these sentences may be blessed, was once not in being. It is, perhaps, a more amazing thought, that there will never be a period in the future, when we shall cease to possess identity and conscious existence. An eternal duration of blessing or of woe is ours, and the veriest spendthrift on earth can neither alienate nor abrogate, one iota of this his inheritance. Blessed Jesus, our Redeemer, in view of these wonders our souls are bowed. We pray for the |