FUNERAL OF A LOST SOUL.

A FEW days since I attended the funeral of one of my neighbours, who had suddenly died of a disease of the heart. He was sitting at a table loaded with luxuries, and rejoicing with his family and guests, when, involuntarily throwing himself back, he gasped and expired. Great consternation and distress ensued. He was a man of no small consequence in the sphere in which he moved. Riches had been lavished upon him, so that he had a great establishment and numerous dependents. But he had forgotten God. The Sabbath had been to him and his household a day of recreation and pleasure. In the morning, if the weather was fair, they usually appeared in the house of God, with much pomp and pride; but the rest of the day was spent in feasting and mirth. His own haud had gotten him his wealth, and he thanked God that he had much goods laid up for many years. in an unexpected moment he passed to the judgment seat. The preparation for his funeral was truly magnificent. And when the procession moved from his mansion, I could not but think of the remark made respecting the Earl of Chesterfield, that nothing could have been more gratifying to the pride of his heart, than to have looked out of his coffin and seen the respect which was paid to his memory. It was indeed "the icy pomp with which grandeur mourned magnificently over departed pride." I returned to my home with many solemn, and I trust profitable, reflections on human life. On entering my room, I cast my eye on an old English Bible in the black letter which VOL. VI.

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lay open on my table. I was struck with the account of the rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day, particularly with the mention of his burial; it being somewhat different from our common translation, THE RICH MAN ALSO DIED, AND IN HELL HE WAS BURIED. Buried in hell! what a funeral, thought I, must that have been. How different from the one which I have attended this day. The burial, not of the body, but of the soul! And its burial in hell! I was hence led to a series of reflections on the SOUL'S FUNERAL, or the burial of the lost soul in hell. I first contrasted the preparation which had been made in that now forsaken mansion in my neighbourhood, with the preparation made for the funeral of the lost soul. Several days were there wholly devoted to it, and almost every trade and handicraft were brought into requisition. The merchant, the tailor, the milliner, the coffin maker, the undertaker, were all in full employ. But for the funeral of the soul there was no preparation. No time was allowed for any. Like one who had died of an infectious disease, it was hurried away, the moment its tenement was broken up; and all was over before the body was laid out or the solemn funeral show had been planned by survivors. Yet there were some things done, as in the burial of the body.

There were carriers employed. These were different from those who carried the soul of Lazarus to Abraham's bosom. Those were angels; these were devils. No angels sued for this soul that they might carry it to heaven. Some did indeed cast an eye

upon it, but they saw no image of God thereno spirit of holiness, nor devotion to Christ; nothing but sin, pollution, malice, and blasphemy; and they left it for devils, who eagerly grasped it, and bore it to hell.

There were pall-bearers. And these resembled those whom I had seen at the funeral of my neighbour, the companions of his youth, the partakers of his sin and guilt, the men who had ate and drank with him on the Sabbath, and mocked God and ridiculed the Holy Ghost. It was indeed proposed that some venerable pious men of the place should walk by his coffin; but his widow said they had never been his associates in life, and they should not be honoured in his death; friends in life should be first regarded And so it was; as I saw that lost soul borne away into eternity, some foul spirits of darkness gathered around it, from whom it revolted with peculiar emotions. They were the companions of its youth; its associates in crime; who had been hurried before it into eternity, and were now sent to accompany it to the regions of wailing.

And there were mourners. In them I was deeply interested. They seemed to be of a different spirit from all other attendants. They were neither the wife nor children that had survived. They had been apparently great mourners at the funeral of the body, but had cared not for the soul. The chief mourner here was an aged mother, who had early dedicated his soul to God, and had instructed, warned, rebuked, and entreated it with tears, that it might be saved, but who had been foiled in effort by the world's

power, and had now seen it cut off without God and hope. She followed it into eternity with tears and groans, exclaiming, O my son! my son! And mingling his tears with hers, was a minister of the cross who had watched for that soul" as one that must give account," who had wrestled hard for it with the Angel of the Covenant; who had seen it under his preaching, now tremble like Felix, and now like Agrippa, almost persuaded, yet at last, through the wiles of infidelity, turning away in Grecian scorn, treading under foot the Son of God, and doing despite to the Spirit of Grace; and who now beheld it, not as a seal of his ministry and a crown of rejoicing, but as one to whom the gospel he had preached had been a savour of death unto death. He wept, exclaiming, "If thou, even thou, hadst known in this thy day the things that belong to thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes." Such were the mourners. Few but sorrowful.

I was hurried with all the rapidity of thought to the place of burial. It was

"A dungeon horrible on all sides round

As one great furnace flamed: yet from these flames
No light, but rather darkness visible,
Served but to discover sights of wo;

Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell; hope never comes,
That comes to all; but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed

With ever burning sulphur unconsum'd:
Such place Eternal Justice had prepared.

There this poor soul was buried,

"Far from the utmost verge of day."

I had read in my childhood of a man who, supposed to be dead, was buried in his tomb, but soon revived; and there, in his coffin, unable to escape, had, when discovered, long lain meditating on his past life, on his awful condition, wishing for death, and not finding it; and I had ever since a peculiar dread of being buried alive. As I saw this soul buried in hell, I could not but say, how awful there to be buried alive! But with this soul it was even so; and I perceived that it was conscious of it, for it looked round with peculiar agony in search of death.

"There sinners taste the second death,

And would but can't expire."

I dreaded to think what must be the feelings of this soul, now buried in hell. And I resolved to turn away from the scene, and engage in something that would divert my attention, as do men of the world, from the funeral solemnities of some neighbour or friend; but my mind would wander down into that dark abode, and there see that once bright and beautiful spirit, which might, but for unbelief, have been an angel of light and glory, now wrapt in eternal night; deeply realizing that through its own madness and folly it was lost for ever; deeply feeling that all its pious friends were now in heaven and happy in God, while it was itself cast out, abhorred of God, of Christ, and all holy beings; the eternal companion of the devil and his angels, and the prey of its own ungovernable appetites and passions; loathing its own sins in which on earth it had pleasure: remembering only, with anguish insupportable,