"It is a most momentous event in the history of a human being, when he passes from one world to another; when he steps out of time into eternity; but how perilously awful to make the passage when unprepared to go. I recollect going to see one of my hearers who was dangerously ill; but on recognizing my well-known foot-tread as I entered his chamber, he concealed himself under the bed-clothes, and we spoke not for several minutes; no sounds were heard, but his heavy sighs and piercing groans. He put out his hand, which I took, and gently pressed; we still remained silent, both being too highly surcharged with mental emotion to give utterance to what we felt. At length he threw off the bed-clothes, looked on me with intense earnestness, and exclaimed, 'O Sir, I am lost; I shall be in hell before the morning.'" "What a terrific vision! were you able to speak any words of peace to his soul?" "I did speak words of peace, but they gave him neither peace nor comfort." "Did he die, Sir?" "Yes, he died the very next day; and his last words were, 'I AM LOST; LOST FOR EVER!'" "How very awful!" "In such a case the tremendous catastrophe is expected; but now, let us think for a moment of a person passing out of one world to another (as many alas! do) under a delusive expectation of going to heaven; but on stepping out of time into eternity, he finds himself in hell. What must be his surprise; his terror-struck anguish; his fearful, his terrific exclamations of agonized woe; his condition, bearing some analogy, though infinitely more tremendous and appalling, to that of a culprit tried and cast for death, when in a trance, knowing nothing of the process or the issue, till he feels the minister of death adjusting the rope on the fatal platform; awakening up to a state of consciousness just before the drop falls. While in a trance, he might be moving amidst the congratulations of his family and his friends, to take possession of a newly bequeathed inheritance; with what terrific consternation would he, on recovering the use of his reason, find himself under the gallows of infamy, tied to its cross beam, the executioner by his side, stepping back to draw the bolt which is to give him to death struggles and to death." "Your illustration is terrific; but it is not equal to the tremendous reality--a soul lost, when, under a fatal delusion, expecting to be saved." We now came in sight of Fairmount, and that turned the current of our conversation to a more interesting theme. I remarked, "that I thought the country more favourable to devotional feeling than the city. The gaiety and the bustle of the one distract the mind; whereas the quietude of the other composes it."