from the sleep of death "in his likeness," and "drink of the river of God, which is full of water," the argument becomes irresistible. Even did I adopt Hume's philosophy of universal scepticism, I should still say, the intellect is made for truth, and must have time for its inquiry and doubt to end in the satisfactions of knowledge.

I know this is not the commonly accepted mode of reasoning. I know it is usual to draw religious arguments from man's positive abilities; but I would draw them from his vast defects. It is usual to draw them from his great triumphs: I would draw them from his signal failures. It is usual to draw them from his vigor and joy; but I would draw them from his weakness and grief. It is usual from his wide knowledge to predict a splendid destiny; but I would predict it from his wider ignorance. It is usual to celebrate his shining virtues: I would see him lifting his moral victories out of the abysses of conscious degradation, and observe his dignities springing from the depth of his decays. Even in the horror of death and annihilation, so peculiar to man, and unshared by the animal, I would see the sign of immortality. the very sharpness of domestic grief, I would note a like indication. The brute parts from its companion without a pang, or with but a brief and indistinct sadness. But the days of man's mourning for the dear departed are never accomplished. Wherefore, but that the tie is in the undying soul? Rejoice, then, that you do sorrow. Hope because you lament. If you could commit the precious remains to the ground without emotion, you would lose one token and proof

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of your destination to an eternal being. Your very sighs breathe of immortality; your groans preach it; your funeral rites bespeak it. For truly has it been said, "Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, pompous in the grave."

The train of reflections to which our text has led accords with the whole tenor of Scripture. The gospel of Christ speaks no flattering words to our vanity; it paints in no high colors our powers and acquirements. It rather digs beneath the high-blown pride, fond fancy, and vain self-complacency, of the human soul, to lay the foundation of that structure which shall reach to heaven in its feeling of weakness, in its confession of ignorance, in its sense of unworthiness, in its pangs of grief, and prayers for Divine aid. These support its heavenward hopes, when the towering Babels of its proud speculation have all crumbled away. Its infinite expectations rise not from the transient forms of human enjoyment, and the fleeting plans of earthly adventure, but from yonder beds of sickness, from chambers of sorrow, and from the tombs. Yes, build on the tombs, - the tombs, whose marble walls hold the ashes of those you love and venerate, whose dusty vaults of old fitly protected the worship, and nursed the eternal life, of the hunted followers of Christ. The pyramids, the grandest structures man has reared on earth, and pointing nearest to heaven, were tombs; so reared, were they not? with the obscure consciousness of immortality. As the portal and entrance to an infinite progress in virtue and joy, does not the tomb bear always, even on its dull and gloomy front, a charm

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and beauty beyond the richest or loftiest edifices which the hand of art can raise and adorn? eastern lands there is a city of the dead, made up of graves carved in solid rock, enduring while the palaces and dwellings of famous towns have, under the trampling of change and revolution, sunk in ruin; standing thus as a silent witness to the duration of the soul, while the material garment is dissolved. The sepulchre of Jesus, the most glorious fabric and solemn temple ever hewn by mortal hands, is the firmest basis of the imperishable hopes of humanity. You may support thoughts of eternity well and clearly on the low resting-places where lie the bodies of those at whose names your hearts still throb. You may inspire steady anticipations of heaven from sober reflection on your own not distant grave.

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DISCOURSE XXVI.

AUTUMN:

LIFE'S CONTRAST.

1 Pet. i. 24, 25. FOR ALL FLESH IS AS GRASS, AND ALL THE GLORY OF MAN AS THE FLOWER OF GRASS. THE GRASS WITHERETH, AND THE FLOWER THEREOF FALLETH AWAY; BUT THE WORD OF THE LORD ENDURETH FOR EVER.

THE form of thought here used illustrates a common principle in the operation of the human mind, - that principle of contrast by which one thing suggests its opposite. The withering grass and fading flower, emblems of the short life and declining glory of man, are mentioned only to have set over against them the word of the Lord that endureth for ever. Life is made up of contrasts. In all things they vividly affect us, and are made to supply much both of our happiness and wholesome discipline. A sunny day after a dreary storm, or a bright flower wrought on a dark ground, excites an emotion, gives a delight, which we do not receive from uninterrupted sunshine, or from unrelieved ornament. Sickness imparts an exquisite sensation to returning health, which the uniformly robust cannot know; prosperity never shines so brilliant as on the retiring cloud of misfortune; sorrow gives birth to a joy only the afflicted

can taste; and long fear and anxious suspense end in a rapture, in the hour of hope, which makes us almost think God had been grieving only to make us happy. All the darkness, indeed, of this world is but to show off its light; all its frailty, to direct us to almighty strength; and all its short-lived scenes, to prefigure what is undying and eternal.

The secret of this influence of contrast lies in man's twofold nature, allied on the one side to the frail and perishing, on the other to the stable and enduring; one hand grasping dust and ashes, the other seizing upon the very throne of God; the outward eye seeing only what fades and passes away, the inward eye beholding glories which nothing can destroy or dim. There is no season at which we are more under the influence of the principle I have suggested, more in the mood of feeling indicated by the text, than the fall of the year. The autumnal change brings to mind at first only melancholy thoughts of blight and decay. More persons are said to be discouraged and dejected, to mourn over their calamities, and come to loathe life itself, in the dark November, than at any other time. The frost smiting every green thing; the dull, heavy, weltering storms fast succeeding one another; the sun lowering his mid-day track, altering his points of rising and setting, and looking cold and askance upon the gray earth; all the life and beauty of nature laid low, or with a death-like hue in the leaf not yet crumbled into dust; the ocean sending only a groaning sound to the ear, as its waves are more frequently lifted by the strong wind; the air pinching and inclement;