discern nothing, not even my own body. So aerial were my feelings, that I was actually appre hensive of being carried up into the atmosphere unless I made an effort to retain my situation upon the earth. All this time my own figure, as to whose identity I could not be mistaken, retained its immoveable posture on the mound before me, and I felt myself gently, and yet irresistibly attracted towards it. I say irre sistibly, for as I had no wish to exchange this ecstatic mode of existence by suffering my spirit to re-enter the body, I struggled against the impulse given to it with all the energies I could muster, but in vain: drawn gradually nearer and nearer, I was at last again absorbed, as it were, into myself with a sudden and painful tension of every limb and muscle, and I then found myself sitting on the grassy knoll, with all my former sad thoughts and feelings, and in a pitiable state of languor and exhaustion. I had, however, enjoyed an antepast of the celestial beatitudes, of the elysium of the disembodied; and though it made me long more earnestly than ever for death, it effectu 376 REUBEN APSLEY. UB579400 15027 of anole nordi ym pattim ally deterred me from committing any crime which might forfeit my claim to a perpetuity of such ineffable bliss, liode 1 barlai Jarbiy bas estornos vodt” The charotle waves little chapel and the graves of Fanny and Agnes have now both, FIELD WAY TH become my place of resi within ། མ། dence, the spot where I shall henceforth sit down and wait patiently for death: thank Heaven it cannot be long delayed! my body wears and wastes away apace, and I feel me the progress of some disorder which my heart tells me is mortal; but my mind becomes calmer, clearer, more collected as its tegument decays. The shattered mansion lets in the light upon its tenant. God help me! I fear f have at times been hardly in my proper mind. Doubtless a horrible phantasmic pandæmonium may be conjured up, and life be converted into a perpetual waking night-mare, when the intellectual elements are violently broken up and mixed together in wild disorder.—But this is madness, and I have never been mad. I have ctually seen and felt all that I describe, and I have H of ultimately com mitting my impressions to paper coherently and correctly, though there have been periods when my faculties refused to obey megi dua to "Thou tenantless and verdant island, I shall soon cease to gaze upon thy calm and in and beautiful features: a few days more, and thou shalt no longer hear a human voice. Still weaker and fainter, still more languid and exhausted, and still does my mind seem to gather all the strength that my body loses; the expiring light of reason flares brightly in its socket. How sweet it is to pass away thus! to grasp with delight the outstretched hand of death, and press it to your heart as that of a friend and deliverer. I have but a single pang-if I could only have one more sight, one more embrace of my darling boy. But it cannot be ! My child, my child! my own affectionate and beloved boy! Were it my last breath it should be uttered in invoking blessings upon thy head. Farewell! farewell for ever! "How glorious, how beautiful is the sun! and yet I shall never see it more: something has whispered to my heart that my captivity 15 is i nearly over, that I shall be set free ere I can again look out upon the lovely face of Nature, or see the flaming orb of day rise from the ocean. He will shine to-morrow upon these lustreless eyes, for there will have been no one to close them, and the lifeless lids will not come down to shade them from his ray. I shall no longer of contemplate and enjoy this glorious pageant Nature. It will go on, and I shall be no more missed from its surface than is a pebble idly cast down into the deep darkness of a well. But if I quit what is dear to me, I shall go to that which is dearer to my wife and children; why should I regret earth when I hope to ex change it for heaven? and "What stately vision floats before mine eyes, and steeps my failing senses in delight? Look, look! behold! Two angel arms come forth from the firmament, playing upon the sunbeams as if they were the strings of the harp of heaven, and oh! what melting melody floats through the air, wrapping my soul in an Elysium of sound. And lo! the blue curtain of the sky is rolled up, revealing to me the celestial glories, upon whose foremost splendours I see the forms of Fanny and Agnes, and Henry is with them, and they embrace one another, and hold out a scroll to me, on which is inscribed the words "Tonight!" Far, far behind them are companies of angels, with dulcimers and harps, and in the innermost depths are dazzling figures of cherubims, on which I cannot look for their intolerable splendour; and the whole assem blage strike their instruments together, as their dulcet voices unite in singing the Hallelujah; and the sun and moon, the constellations and the stars, join the seraphic chorus, until all creation echoes with one universal harmony! "Glorious vision! thou may'st fade from mine eyes and disappear, and the ravishing strains of music may be no longer heard, but enough has been revealed. Now am I indeed certain that "To-night" I shall depart. I close my manuscript, for I have done with earthly records. If |