him and with his native city, and which has already contributed so much to ennoble and refine our literature, and to work out the liberties and the civilization of Europethe sight of these things, my Lord, would gladden hundreds of thousands whose praise is neither fluctuating nor ephemeral! Nor is this all. It would redound more to your real honour, and to the satisfaction of your own best feelings than the noblest exploits that you have yet achieved. You will find in such pursuits a solace which earthly science and earthly greatness can never minister. You will discover in them a magnitude, a grandeur, a glory denied to every thing else accessible to man.

Come then, my Lord, and place yourself at the head of the lay champions of Christian missions. In so doing, you will have no cause to blush; those who have been your companions in other pursuits will be your associates in this. You will still be in the society of Locke, of Newton, and of Boyle. For a long period you have occupied a large space in the eye of mankind. With respect to this material world and its affairs, you know nearly all that can be classed under the useful or the pleasing; and with respect to the active duties of public life, you may say with Johnson, "I think I have done my share." You are well entitled to some repose. To a mind stored and disciplined like yours, the duties which devolve upon you as a British peer, are not onerous. Their full performance will leave leisure sufficient for fresh studies. Your Lordship will act wisely, then, in pursuing the footsteps of those illustrious men who claimed the chief portion of their latter years to acquaint themselves with God." This is wisdom; the reverse is more than folly; it is crime. You will find every thing in God; and we are all advancing towards a region where God is every thing. That which will be our sole concern on the verge of Eternity ought surely to command our special attention now. How

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infatuated are the bulk of mankind! Well might Edmund Burke exclaim, "What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!" Yet shadows we remain, and shadows we continue to pursue. All see the folly of their friends, but few their own. The death-bed of most great characters is a melancholy yet instructive spectacle. Their end is, however, but such as might be expected from their way. In the days of their de ceitful glory and guilty ambition they despise and forget God, and in the dreary night which cometh after and concludes the scene, they fearfully exemplify the words of Scripture :-" Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh. When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish come upon you; then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord: They would none of my counsel; they despised all my reproof: therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil."*

Where biography has done its duty, which is seldom fully done, the record of the closing scenes of public men generally supplies a sufficient antidote to the dazzling, seductive tendency of their previous career. These men of the world, which have their portion in this life," rightly understood, even in the bright meridian of their brief day, can excite but little of either love

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*Prov. i. 24-33.

† Psa. xvii. 14.

or envy; but, when the twilight draws on, and the night of death succeeds, the Christian can see nothing in them but objects of commiseration. The chamber of their dissolution is a dismal spot. There they lie, helpless, hopeless, sometimes friendless-wretched termination of earthly greatness! Their seeming indif

ference and affected courage do not escape the keen eye of the Christian observer, who justly regards them as forming one of the worst features of the case; for, where there is most apparent composure there is often least real ground for it. It is nothing that the wicked have frequently stepped out of time into eternity with little noise, and with no observable reluctance or alarm. The wrath and the trouble are to come! Ignorance, occasionally, inspires as much confidence as knowledge. Security is not safety! A merely animal life is naturally followed by a merely animal death. The departing spirit, steeped in sensuality to stupefaction, has neither hope nor fear; shrouded in ignorance, it expires in sullen apathy, and only after death learns the true end of life-learns when the lesson is of no avail ! There are no bands in their death."-" Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction !" The descent is easy, but it is into perdition! “How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors." How doleful was the deathMore dismal still was that of Sheri

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bed of Curran !

dan! Poor Charles Fox and Erskine-poor amid all their oratorical renown! And Grattan-poor, too, with all his patriotism! The mortal scenes of even Burke and Johnson, notwithstanding their calmness and decorous solemnity, were dark and doubtful-the gloom made sensible, but left uncheered by a single scintillation of that light which leads to heaven! Men like you,

*Psa. lxxiii. 4. 18, 19.

my Lord, are less conversant with the sorrowful and the dying than are ministers of Christ, and, therefore, less able to compare and contrast the operations of faith and unbelief, of the knowledge of God, and ignorance of his truth, in the hearts of expiring men. Oh! my Lord, what examples we could show you of the power of the Gospel of Christ, in supporting the soulin agony, and inspiring hope in the article of death! The language even of the Scriptures affords but an inadequate expression of the peaceful and hopeful emotions which, where physical causes prevent not, animate the bosom of the sincere and devoted believer :"Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. "Thou wilt show me the path of life; in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." Millions, my Lord, millions have died with hearts full of such thoughts, and their lips giving joyful utterance to such words as these! Thus, in all parts of England, daily die the peasant and the peasant's child; while the terrors of death, and the horrors of despair, are crushing and consuming the spirits of their ungodly superiors!

Of more recent deaths, amid the circles which you, my Lord, frequent, I would mention two, those of Sir Walter Scott and Sir James Mackintosh. To the eye

of a Christian spectator, the decease of Sir Walter was melancholy in the extreme. While the gloom and sadness of the sepulchre pervaded the once joyous halls of Abbotsford, there was the entire absence of that peace of God that passeth all understanding, and of that hope which is full of immortality. The departure of Sir

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James Mackintosh was attended with circumstances of the most touching character. That solemn event stands by itself. Taking it in all points, there is nothing in the annals of literature resembling it. Our illustrious countryman was never so truly great as during the few weeks of his last illness. Such sweetness! such humility! such docility!-- He would speak of God with more reverence and awe than I have almost ever met with," said his judicious and Christian daughter. His voice fell,-his whole person seemed to bow down, as if conscious of a superior presence,--while in a subdued, solemn, deeply thoughtful manner, he slowly expressed himself. He allowed me to read to him passages out of different authors, listening so meekly and so attentively to what I read, as at times almost to overpower me. He did not, in many things, agree with them; and he gave his reasons so calmly and so clearly that I often could not answer him, though I did not always feel convinced by, I was going to say, his arguments; but this would be too strong a term for the gentle, humble, inquiring character of these conversations, in which he seemed thinking aloud, and expressing the difficulties of an honest and deeply-serious mind. I one day read to him the twenty-ninth chapter of Job, which affected him to tears. Our Lord JESUS CHRIST was very frequently the subject of his thoughts: he seemed often perplexed, and unable to comprehend much of his history. He once said to me, ‘It is a great mystery to me-I cannot understand it.' At another time he told me that, during the many sleepless nights he passed, the contemplation of the character of JESUS CHRIST, and thoughts concerning the Gospel, with prayer to God, were his chief occupation. He spoke of the delight he had in dwelling upon his noble character. I have heard his voice falter as he repeated,' He went about doing good; but he added, There is much connected with him I cannot understand,' I cannot attempt to give