Reli rapture of praise. Is it any wonder that this should give happiness? What was paradise? The perfection of religion. What will be heaven? The eternal enjoyment of a perfect religion. What is it that, in thousands of instances, has made Christians happy in the hovel of poverty, in the languor of disease, in the hour of misfortune, in the agonies of dissolution? gion. What is it that has irradiated with brightness and glory, the Christian prisoner's cell, lightened the captive's fetters, and made the martyr sing at the stake? Religion. O what a power to bless must it contain, when it can conquer all these opposing circumstances, and distil joy and peace into minds, which must be seemingly so full of wormwood as to leave no room for any thing but wo, and to which any thing else would appear to be out of season and out of place. If you want pleasure, then, here you may find it: and to exhort you to attend to religion is but another form of entreating you to be happy. "Here, in piety, is a pleasure, high, rational, angelical; embased with no attendant sting, no consequent loathing, no remorse or bitter farewells. A pleasure made for the soul, and the soul for it, suited to its spirituality, and equal to its capacity. It is the foretaste of heaven, and the earnest of eternity. In a word, it is such an one as being begun in grace, passes into glory, blessedness, and immortality, and those pleasures that neither eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor ever entered into the heart of man to conceive of." I have alluded in the foregoing description of the happiness of religion, to its power to support the mind in prospect of death; but this is too important a view of it, and too affectingly illustrated by the dying experience of Clementine, to be so summarily dismissed; and I must therefore refer to it at greater length. It is an awful thing to die. Death is that monster, from the sight, and especially the touch of which, the whole animal creation, and man above all, turns with instinctive dread and horror. able us to overcome this revulsion and recoil, but also go forward to meet the last enemy in peace and hope? Religion, and nothing else;—and it is the glory of Christianity that it erects its brightest trophies on the tomb, and illumines the dark valley of the shadow of death with the brightness of a hope full of immortality. Look into the dying chamber of Clementine Cuvier; see that lovely young creature, when every thing tended to make death terrible, and life desirable; when the fame of her distinguished father, the affection of her mother, and, above all, the plighted love of him who was still dearer to her heart than What is it that can not only en either father or mother, all invited her back to the world-see her with such friends around her dying couch, and such scenes before her imagination, bowing in deep and peaceful submission to the will of God, even when he called her to put on the shroud, instead of the bridal attire, and to descend into the grave, instead of occupying the house furnished for her reception. Again, look at that touching scene which is thus described :-" She manifested for her father and her sister the most tender affection; and on one occasion, when, after a violent attack she had expressed a desire to depart, the tears of her sister and her parents so overcame her, that she reproved herself for such a wish, and exclaimed, "O how selfish I am! I will take any medicine, and try every remedy, because I wish to recover for your sakes." She gave to her intended husband a copy of the “Imitation of Jesus Christ," in which her trem bling hand had marked some passages, and written some lines of Christian affection; and having requested him to place his head before her she laid on it her hand, and said, 'Lord, bless us both! Lord, restore me, that I may love thee more; but if thou hast otherwise decided, thy holy will be done.'" O Christianity! these are thy triumphs! For such a person to die in such a manner ! What a mixture of gloom and glory is here! Reader, could you in similar circumstances die thus? Have you the piety that could enable you to turn with calmness and hope from such visions of earthly bliss as presented themselves to her eye, and see in lieu thereof the-grave? Have you thus learned to die? Shall not this scene teach you the reality, the power, the transcendent excellence of religion? Take a last look on that seraphic young Christian, see her with A mortal paleness on her cheek, |