Nature presents in all her laws such a beautiful and wonderful harmony, that it is as impossible for death to produce discord among them, as for night to destroy, by the intervention of its shadow, the splendour of the coming day. Were men taught from infancy to regard death as a natural consequence, a fixed law of their being, instead as an awful pumshment for sin--as the friend and benefactor of mankind, not the remorseless tyrant and persecutor--to die would no longer be considered an evil. Let this hideous skeleton be banished into darkness, and replaced by a benignant angel, wiping away all tears, healing all pain, burying in oblivion all sorrow and care, calming every turbulent passion, and restoring man, reconciled to his Maker, to a state of purity and peace; young and old would then go forth to meet him with lighted torches, and hail his approach with songs of thanksgiving and welcome. And this is really the case with all but the desperately wicked, who show that they despise the magnificent boon of life by the bad use they make of it, by their blasphemous defiance of God and good, and their unwillingness to be renewed in his image. The death angel is generally met with more calmness by the dying than by surviving friends. By the former, the dreaded enemy is hailed as a messenger of peace, and they sink tranquilly into his arms, with a smile upon their lips. The death of the Christian is a beautiful triumph over the fears of life. In Him who conquered death, and led captivity captive, he finds the fruition of his being, the eternal blessedness promised to him in the Gospel, which places him beyond the wants and woes of time. The death of such a man should be celebrated as a sacred festival, not lamented as a dreary execution,--as the era of a new birth, not the extinction of being. It is true that death is a profound sleep, from which no one can awaken to tell his dreams. But why on that account should we doubt that it is less blessed than its twin brother, whose resemblance it bears, and whose presence we all sedulously court? Invest sleep, however, with the same dismal garb; let your bed be a coffin, your canopy a pall, your night-dress a shroud; let the sobs of mourners, and the tolling of bells lull you to repose,--and few persons would willingly, or tranquilly, close their eyes to sleep.