to the soul, according as the soul shall have arrived at the grave from a state of joy or of woe. Arrests will be made, there will be forcible detentions, overpowering strength, disregard of entreaties, remorseless rendings asunder of families, unclasping of embraces, and an indiscriminate mixture of all classes among the wicked, indicated by the command, "Bind ye the tares together, in bundles, to be burned." Nor will this be worse for holy angels to witness, than it was to see those sinners turn their backs on the Lord's supper, year after year. They could treat their Saviour's dying agonies, and his blood, with perfect neglect and contempt, through their love of the world and sin; now they eat the fruit of their own way, and are filled with their own devices. Our treatment of the Saviour will return upon our own heads. What a change will be made in the ideas which many sentimentalists had of holy angels, when they see them executing the terrible orders of their King! and what an illustration it will give of the severity of justice,--the rigors of its execution being compatible with the pure benevolence of holy angels, because of God. We are constantly admonished that the punishment of the wicked will be a great part of the proceedings on that day. It is called "the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." "Behold, the Lord cometh, with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment." * * * * * All this serves to invest the death of a dear Christian friend, in our thoughts, with inexpressible peace and comfort. He, with his Redeemer, can say, "My flesh, also, shall rest in hope." If we are confident that a friend is gone to be with Christ, death is, even now, swallowed up of life; and now the thought of what the soul is to inherit, both before and after the resurrection, and its contrast with the experience of the lost, should make us joyful in tribulation. True, we cannot, by any artifice or illusion, make death itself cease to be a curse. Full of beauty and consolation as it may be,--nay, we will call it triumphant,--yet nothing saddens the mind, for the time, more than the sight of true beauty. In heaven things beautiful will not make us sad; nor will the remembrance of a past joy, which so inevitably has that effect upon us here. We are beholding a sunset. Day is flinging up all its treasures, as though it were breaking to pieces its pavilion forever and scattering the fragments; and now, when all seemed past, one more flood of glory streams over the scene, but only for a moment; then comes a last touch of pathos, here and there, like a more distant farewell, a whispered good night. Have tears never come unbidden, do we never feel sad, at such a time? Is not the whole of life, past, present, and to come, then tinged with sombre hues? and all because the dying day expires with such beauty and peace. Not so when a storm suddenly brings in night upon us.