year, and it becomes us to enter upon the work of self-examination.
Communion with ourselves at the present season cannot but be profitable. It well becomes us to inquire, what, if any, progress has been made during the past year in the regeneration? The present season, with its cheerless imagery of decay, by bringing home to us the sense of our mortality, identifies us more closely with those who have gone before, for the veil of separation becomes, as it were, more transparent. We are impressed with a more perfect conviction that "we shall go to them," but "they will net return to us."
The life of the Christian, pursued under the guidance of truth, in the practice of religion and virtue, cannot fail to secure peace and contentment, whatever the sphere in which he moves may be; the closing scene of his mortal existence opens to his spirit the bright glories of the eternal world; and if we follow the Lord, and delight in his way, our crown of eternal blessedness will be sure, and our end peace.
December Thirtieth.
DEATH.
"What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? Shalt he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?"—Psalm lxxxix. 48.
DEATH is the theme of universal interest. The lightest heart, the most thoughtless mind, has no disbelief of death. The distance of the dark cloud in which he comes sailing through the bosom of
