tion, who lives on from day to day in the possession of all temporal blessings, without religion, as he who pines upon a bed of suffering, without it. But if the necessity of religion be the same, its consolations are far more powerfully felt, when deprived by sickness of every other stay; and often do the darkened chamber, and the weary couch, display such evidence of the power and the condescension of Divine love, that even the stranger acknowledges it is better to go to the house of mourning, than of feasting.
It is when the feeble step has trod for the last time upon nature's verdant carpet, when the dim eye has looked its last upon the green earth and sunny sky, when the weary body has almost ached and pined its last, when human skill can do no more, and kindness has offered its last relief—it is then, that we see the perfect adaptation of the promises of the gospel to feeble nature's utmost need; and while we contemplate the depths of the Redeemer's love, and hear in anticipation the welcome of angels to the pardoned sinner, and see upon his faded lips the smile of everlasting peace, we look from that solemn scene once more into the world, and wonder at the madness and the folly of its infatuated slaves.
All these are privileges, if only to feel them as a mere spectator; and never ought such scenes to be avoided on account of the painful sympathy which the sight of human suffering naturally occasions. Young people are apt to think it is not their business to wait upon the sick, that their seniors are better fitted for such service, that they shall make some serious mistake, or create some inconvenience by their want of knowledge; or at all events, they hold themselves excused. Yet is there many a sweet young girl, who, in consequence of family affliction, becomes initiated in these deep mysteries of Christian charity, before her willing step has lost the playful elasticity of
