CHRISTIAN ESSAYS. TRUE AND FALSE REPOSE IN DEATH. Ir the conduct of men be a just criterion of their feelings, it would appear to be the first desire of human nature that death might never arrive; the second, we might therefore conclude, would be, that seeing death is inevitable, we may become duly prepared for its reception. This, however, though a very natural desire, is by no means always followed by a corresponding system of conduct; so that while men in general wish, with Balaam, to "die the death of the righteous," few live that life which they imagine ought to be attended with so auspicious a result. There is but one modification of human existence which we have any good reason to believe will be accompanied with either safety or repose at our departure into another world. What is the nature of that peculiar modification cannot assuredly be doubtful; for if Christianity be a divine revelation fitted to the wants of man, and the only system which teaches him how he may obtain acceptance with God, then nothing short of the full effects of the Gospel upon a human soul can fit that soul for its eternal change. We may be moralists or philosophers; we may be esteemed wise and amiable; we may live without reproach, and meet death without a pang; yet amidst all, if we know not practically the necessity and the value of a Redeemer, and have not obtained a scriptural hope of an interest in his salvation, we are venturing defenceless and exposed upon a wide ocean of storms and uncertainties, and are braving all the terrors of eternity without a single well-founded expectation beyond the grave. The importance of procuring accurate ideas respecting religion and the mode of salvation, as connected with the safety and repose of a death-bed, is by no means universally considered in its full extent. There is a vague unmeaning sort of piety, or at least of what unjustly bears that sacred name, which persons in general are too often willing to consider as all that is required for sustaining with patience the approach of affliction or death. Thus a constitutional sweetness of disposition, or the negative blessing of not having been permitted to fall into any gross vices, is frequently viewed both by the sufferer and the spectators, as sufficient to render the hour of dissolution easy and the prospect of futurity welcome. If tranquillity be but obtained, it is of little consequence in the estimation of the world at large in what manner it was procured, or whether it be true or false; and thus that spiritual insensibility which, both in itself and its results, is the greatest of evils, is boasted forth as the natural and proper effect of a well-spent life. The propriety of such a conclusion is more than questionable; for who that is conversant with the effects of sickness has not observed how often there supervenes (independently of religious considerations), a languid indifference to life or death, to the world and to eternity, which is evidently nothing more than the natural effect of affliction long-sustained, and of a mind weakened and worn out by the near approach of dissolution? The faculties almost subdued by the pressure of natural causes oftentimes leave scarcely a sufficient degree of capacity for reflection to make it appear to the sufferer a subject of any importance what is the fate of either body or soul. Thus the mind is said to have been tranquillized, when, in fact, it was only benumbed, and rendered incapable of summoning its natural energies even to a contemplation so important and pressing as that of an eternal world. Whether this gradual insensibility, so often attendant upon sickness, is to be viewed as a merciful provision of the Almighty in order to divest the physical circumstance of dying of a part of its terrors;—or whether it was intended as a warning to early and deep repentance before the approach of so precarious a season, it is not at present necessary to inquire. The only inference intended to be deduced is this, that if all the terrors of futurity, all the moral pains of dissolution, all the hopes and fears of an unknown world, are so often found incapable of arousing a dying man from the natural lassitude and indifference attendant upon the slowly-approaching hour of mortality, the mere circumstance of dying in calmness is by no means a sufficient evidence of a well-grounded hope of the felicities of Heaven. The inference is still more forcible, if surrounding friends, as too often happens, have anxiously guarded every avenue, to prevent the intrusion of that religious instruction and advice which were necessary to open the eyes of the unconscious sufferer. Moral causes may likewise combine with physical as a sedative in death. Ignorance, or unbelief, or " hardness of heart, and contempt of God's word and commandment," may spread a deceitful calm which will but end in a sad reverse of eternal bitterness and disappointment. Allowing, however, for every limitation and exception, it may still be laid down as a universal proposition, that where there visibly exists a firm belief in a future state of retribution, with a due sense of human sinfulness and guilt, nothing but the means of salvation revealed in the Gospel can give peace and |