"Sometimes," I observed, "it pleases God to leave his most eminent servants without any strong consolation in their last hours; and sometimes he elevates them to a participation of the felicity of heaven, before he permits them to enter. Hence there is no undeviating uniformity in his procedure; but yet he keeps our practical good in view by all the dispensations of his will. When I see a holy man overwhelmed with sorrow on the eve of his departure, I am convinced there is no absolute, no meritorious connection between an exemplary life and a triumphant death. This conviction, coming through such a medium, destroys all self-complacency, and impels me to place all my dependence for salvation on Jesus Christ. But when I see a sinner of like passions and infirmities with myself--one who has wept over defects and transgressions similar to my own--rising above fear, eagerly and yet submissively anticipating his own dissolution, giving utterance to thoughts and feelings more nearly allied to the glory and purity of the heavenly state than to the dark obscurity of the present, I feel a degree of gratitude to the Saviour for making manifest life and immortality, which, for its full expression, I must wait till I see him as he is, and am made like unto him." "The death of our friends," said Mr. Stevens, "is always an afflictive event, but it is sometimes a salutary one. It reminds us of our mortality, and brings before our imagination the unseen realities of an eternal world. It teaches us what shadows we are, and what shadows we are pursuing:-- 'Our dying friends come o'er us like a cloud, To damp our brainless ardours; and abate That glare of life, which often blinds the wise. Our dying friends are pioneers, to smooth Our rugged pass to death; to break those bars Of terror and abhorrence nature throws 'Cross our obstructed way; and thus to make _Welcome_, as _safe_, our port from ev'ry storm.'" "To repine," I observed, "under any of the dispensations of Providence, would be to display a temper which no Christian should cherish; but to repine at the grave of a pious friend, discovers not only a spirit of hostility to the Divine will, but an unsubdued selfishness, which would deprive another of happiness, merely to augment our own." "Resignation is our duty, and this brings with it its own reward; yet it is a disposition which does not spring up spontaneously in the heart. It is one of those good gifts which cometh from above; but, like every other disposition which claims the same origin, it must be exercised before it can become _perfect_; and when perfected, or when approaching near perfection, it can rejoice in tribulations also." INTEMPERATE ZEAL.