to all capacities of intellect, and to all conditions of fortune. All shall die; all leave whatever ministered to pride or vanity behind them. ‘A little earth that saves the world a nuisance,’ once scattered on the silent remains, the inheritance is seized, and he who, but a week before, lived in every tongue, descends into the narrow house where all things are forgotten. No more trace exists to mark his brilliant career on earth than lingers on the bosom of yonder ocean, whose waves dance gladly in the sunbeams, as if laughing at the engulphment of that majestic sail which lately skimmed upon its surface. In this _one_ general fact there is unspeakable reality of wretchedness--irrefragable assurance of human nothingness--and in this solitary certainty there is argument enough to make all mankind, from the emperor to the beggar, ponder on the _possibility_, if not the probability of an hereafter. All men hate to die. They are told that they shall _not_ die, that the body _only_ shall return to its dust, and ‘the spirit to God who gave it.’ Here is a _motive_ the most powerful, to seek, in order to believe, and if to believe, to act as shall accord with the directions afforded for securing a blessed immortality. Driven by that motive I go to my Bible, and not only discover the _only_ lamp which lights up a dark and dreary valley through which I _must_ pass, however horrible to my imagination; but I find also, that even the most imperfect efforts to assimilate my actions to that conduct which the Scripture enjoins, the feeblest endeavours to cultivate those tempers and affections which the Sacred Volume enforces, are rewarded by an inward peace which nothing beside has power to impart; and that in proportion as I attempt to prepare for _another_ world, I am happy in _this_, which is but its vestibule.