in this state of darkness, but when spring returns it bursts its bonds, and comes out with a new life in beautiful attire."

We may yet carry the analogy further.

We may behold in the worm a type of man on earth; a creature full of sense, grovelling under the weight of passion and desire, and, in a life of mere sensual pleasure, appearing unconscious of the nobleness and dignity of his nature, and of the immortal being belonging to him. In the aurelia, we have an emblem of the body in the state of death; in the perfect winged creature, a type of the emancipated soul; of the resurrection, in which the mortal body has changed into a spiritual and glorious body; and in the chrysalis a type of the earthly, carnal, mortal part, doomed to undergo corruption and decay.

4. In the very uncertainty of the moment of death, we have a great moral lesson, inculcated by our philosopher. Death is not only uncertain, but capricious. No one can confidently rely on another hour of life. However strong we may think we are that is no security. The young and healthy we see mowed down alike with the old and diseased. The sturdy oak often falls before the delicate sappling. The most promising and beautiful flower of nature is not less insecure from the blight or withering frost, than the reed and wild-flower we heedlessly tread under our feet. O Egyptian mothers, how happy! how secure in your happiness did you feel on that morning before the angel of death destroyed all your first-born children! There were found not even the seeds of disease to awaken your apprehensions. The bloom of health was on the cheeks of those fair lovely things, but what security was that against remorseless death! None.

Even so now,

when we look for no avenging Deity to destroy mankind by a miraculous power, we are not more secure. At the moment when the fond parent gazes with the moistening eye of delight on her offspring, rejoicing in its health and beauty, the messenger of death may be lurking about the cradle, waiting for his final command.

Who has not seen the hovering kite intent on the slaughter of some tender brood? Who has not heard the scream of terror raised, at the sight of this deadly enemy, by the parent bird? Who has not witnessed the bird of prey destroy its victim in the moment of enjoyment and innocent pleasure? In these we have types of events in the life of man.

Death, again, assumes other forms, and attacks us in other ways. If we are uncertain of the moment he may come, we know as little how he will attack us. As the worm is found in the seed, or in the heart of fruit, slowly gnawing and corrupting, unknown and unseen, so sometimes the seed of death is discovered inwardly destroying when the outward form is perfect and beautiful. But if he is at one time slow in effecting his purpose, it is not for any want of power; for in many cases we find one single moment suffice. He who is pleased to afflict man with a lingering death, can as easily destroy by a flash of lightning, or by the terrible earthquake.

5. When for a moment we contemplate the structure of our bodies, we are surprised how we escape death for so many years. It is not the strong and vigorous parts we should expect to fail, but those extremely delicate ones, on whose perfection the life of man depends. It is not the paralysis of a muscle that can kill, but the derangement, or decay, of a nerve infinitely fine in its conformation.

The life of man (when we examine his body) appears to be a perpetual miracle: I mean, that the providential care of God is such, so constant, so vigilant, so perpetually exercised, that it amounts to miraculous, or supernatural agency. It can only excite our veneration and gratitude when we consider, that the stoppage, or disarrangement, of one single wheel in this admirable and supremely delicate machine may cause its destruction. That its welfare, and every moment of life, depend upon an infinite variety of concurring operations-upon a perfect adaptation of one part to another; and in the uniform harmony of all.

6. No one can deny that it is the truest wisdom to keep our things ready packed up, in preparation for a journey over which we have no control. We must go hence, but we know not when the ship shall arrive to carry

us away.

This vigilant readiness is rather an enemy to than a promoter of fear. He who is prepared feels few, if any, of those pangs of remorse and terror endured by the careless and the wicked. He knows, that, after all, the dread of death is most in apprehension; that the pain is no more to him than to the meanest insect.

"The sense of death is most in apprehension,

And the poor beetle that we tread upon,

In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great

As when a giant dies."

7. That must be a poor spirit, indeed, who can prefer the fleeting pleasures of this life to the beatitude of immortality. He who clings to life is hardly worthy of death. If premeditation on death be liberty, as says the sage Montaigne, then he who loves and clings to life, as a child to its bauble, is a veritable slave. Indifference to

F

life, and contempt of death, is true philosophy; and the sure ensigns of a great, magnanimous spirit. What, indeed, is there in life that makes it so desirable?

"Is life a hundred years, or e'er so few,

'Tis repetition all, and nothing new;

A fair, where thousands meet, but none can stay;

An inn, where trav'llers bait, then post away;

A sea, where man perpetually is tost;

Now plunged in business, now in trifles lost."

*Brown's Immortality of the Soul.

米

ON THE VALUE OF TIME.

Symbol VIII.-In meridie ne dormito.

Sleep not at noon.

1. THE harmony and aptitude of the laws of nature, with the habits and instincts of animals, must forcibly strike every reflecting mind. The revolution of the earth on its axis gives night and day, while it is, at the same time, fulfilling other designs of the Creator; the recurrence of night and day mark the periods of repose and activity in the animal world; the instincts implanted in us direct to the night as the proper and natural time for sleep, and the day for work and activity. By this wise ordination no time is lost. In the darkness, when no man can work, the body sinks into sleep, on the morning to awake invigorated and refreshed for labour.

2. It is a pleasing employment to watch the advancing night on the animal world. As the sun is descending, we behold nature, in a summer's evening, teeming with life; the air filled with the hum of activity, innumerable insects dancing in the departing rays, the winged tribes warbling their evening hymns: soon after, all is hushed in repose, as if the angel of death had passed over the world; universal silence reigns, for all nature is subject to the great