reconcile his mind to the prospect of his approaching dissolution! "For me," said the apostle, "to live is Christ, and to die is gain." He had, therefore, "a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better" than even the most highly privileged state of believers on earth. The moral and spiritual improvements that await every true christian in the realms above-of knowledge-of holiness of nearness to God-of happiness in the enjoyment of his love-of capacity to serve and glorify him-and of intercourse with all the righteous in every age of the world-vastly transcend all our present powers of conception and utterance. The hope and prospect of these felicities, however, which are opened before us in the gospel, are clear, substantial, and delightful,

as subjects of present meditation; and when the christian is in any good measure enabled to embrace them with a lively confidence, he feels them powerfully attractive. From Pisgah's elevation he looks down on all worldly honors and possessions, as trifling and inconsiderable-grovelling in their nature, and inadequate to his capacious desires. And with respect to those endearing social ties which have twined about his heart, these also begin gradually to yield, under the influence of more powerful attractions from above; and, without loving them less sincerely, his affections towards them become more subordinate to the love of God. As he looks within the veil, he feels the purifying effect of celestial intercourse, and, in sweet submission to his heavenly Father's

and waits the hour of his departure. Nor is he appalled when he contemplates, in the light of the gospel, the near approach of his dissolution. "The sting"-the only des tructive power" of death is sin;" and of that the monster was disarmed by his victorious Lord, when he triumphed over it on his cross. His glorious resurrection and ascension, also, have insured the full redemption of his people from all the dishonors of mortality, and the immediate reception of their departing spirits into a state of blissful communion with himself. Humbly confiding in these principles and grounds of assurance, therefore, the dying christian may say with David, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with

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me; thy rod and thy staff comfort me: or, with Jacob, of old, "I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord!" and peaceably resign his spirit into the hands of his gracious Redeemer.-BENNET on the Gospel Constitution.

THE true end of remembering the past, is "that ye present and future improvement: might fear the Lord your God for ever;" that your religion be steadily progressive; not a patch, but a garment; not a convulsive effort, but a life; as a pervading principle; an attribute as inseparable, as are beauty, health, and strength, from the perfection of the animal life. If we are to learn to be wise from the errors of others,

how much more so from our own? Dangerous, indeed, would it be, so to exercise the power of looking back, as to fix on some of the brightest and best parts of past life, and to dwell on these, while growth in christian virtue was actually at a stand; or to place any stress on what might once have been deemed conversion, if our later steps have taken an opposite direction. When the apostle said to the Galatians, " Ye did run well," his reference to the past implied the severest censure on the present, the most painful apprehension for what was to come.

With our advantages of christian light, all our remembrance of the past, should be connected with Christ. We must set up our pillars of memorial round the cross. We can neither look back without terror,