the vales,

The powerful of the earth, the wise, the good-
Fair forms and hoary seers of ages past
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun-
Stretching in pensive quietness between-
The venerable woods- rivers that move
In majesty and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste-

Are but the solemn declarations all

Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death

Through the still lapse of ages all that tread

The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom - take the wings
Of morning, and the Barean desert pierce,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hear no sounds
Save its own dashings; yet the dead are there.

And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began have laid them down
In their last sleep- the dead reign there alone;
So shalt thou rest- and what if thou shalt fall
Unheeded by the living, and no friend

Take note of thy departure? All that breathe

Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yes, all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men—

The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man
Shall one by one be gathered by thy side

By those who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves

To that mysterious realm; where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not, like the quarry slave of night,
Scourged to his dungeon; but sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

PONTIUS PILATE.

BY THE REV. W. H. FURNESS.

THE impression derived from the Gospels of the moral character of the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate, is wonderfully vivid and consistent; especially when we consider how brief is his appearance in the Divine Drama. He had degenerated greatly from the old Roman nobleness. Want of moral strength was his chief trait. This defect continually produces results as disastrous as those that flow from a determined malignity of purpose.

Men of good feelings, but destitute of the guidance of a good principle, bring calamities upon themselves and others, as heavy as if they were actuated by the basest motives, and had deliberately said unto evil," Be thou our good!' "Be thou our good!" Of the truth of this remark, Pilate affords an ever memorable instance. That such was his character, is most evident from the Christian records. Almost every word attributed to him is in keeping with it. He

appears to have been persuaded of the innocence of Jesus, but he had not courage to resist the mob headed by the priests.

And the miserable expedients to which he had recourse to throw off his inevitable responsibility, all betray the same imbecility.

He first tried to get rid of the case altogetherto make the Jews settle it themselves. Failing in this, he caught at the mention of Galilee, and as soon as he was told that Jesus was a Galilean, he sent him to Herod, who was then at Jerusalem, and within whose jurisdiction Galilee was. But Herod returned the prisoner upon his hands.

As the next resort, he attempted to persuade the populace to bestow their mercy upon Jesus, rather than Barabbas. I am aware that it was customary among the Romans to scourge those condemned to be crucified, just before execution. But from the different accounts we are led to infer, that Pilate caused this part of the punishment to be inflicted on Jesus, under the idea that it would appease the Jews. He brought the prisoner forth, bleeding under the recent tortures of the scourge, and called the attention of the mob to him, as if he hoped thereby to induce them to relent. Is not this precisely the course a weak man under such circum

stances would adopt, as if by yielding, he would not inflame and encourage the cruel passions of the people instead of subduing them?

When Jesus, seeing that words were of no avail, and that the magistrate had no strength to withstand the priests, preserved a dignified silence, Pilate attempts to make him speak by reminding him of his power. "Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to release thee, and have power to crucify thee?"

How palpable here is his cowardice in the idle vaunt of a power existing, as he must have known in his own soul, only in name!

He was awed too, as indeed a much stronger man might, and so weak a man must have been, by the look and bearing of the prisoner, connected with the rumor of his extraordinary career, which could not have failed to reach his ears; with the dream of his wife, whose imagination, no doubt, had been excited by reports of the words and works of the remarkable person arraigned before her husband, and with the declaration of the priests that Jesus had called himself the Son of God. And then again, the symbolical act of washing his hands before all the people, to which the numbers and uproar of the mob compelled Pilate to have recourse, to