will reverberate from heaven to earth and awake the sleeping dead to meet their judge.
But this doctrine is much better suited to poetry than to prose, and I gladly avail myself of the following passage found in Dr. Young's Night Thoughts. It is true the passage has been quoted hundreds of times, but the distinguished reputation of the author, the great poetic beauty of the lines, and the unquestionable orthodoxy of the sentiments will constitute a sufficient apology for transcribing them once more.
"At the destin’d hour,
By the loud trumpet summon'd to the charge,
See, all the formidable sons of fire,
Eruptions, earthquakes, comets, lightnings, play
Their various engines; all at once disgorge
Their blazing magazines; and take, by storm,
This poor terrestrial citadel of man.
Amazing period! when each mountain-height
Out-burns Vesuvius; rocks eternal pour
Their melted mass, as rivers once they pour’d;
Stars rush; and final ruin fiercely drives
Her plough-share o'er creation!—While aloft,
More than astonishment! if more can be!
Far other firmament than e'er was seen,
Than e'er was thought by man: Far other stars!
Stars animate, that govern these of fire;
Far other sun!—A sun, O how unlike
The babe at Bethle’m! How unlike the man
That groan’d on Calvary? Yet he it is;
That man of sorrow! O how chang'd! What pomp!
In grandeur terrible, all heav'n descends!
And gods, ambitious, triumph in his train.
A swift archangel with his golden wing,
As blots and clouds, that darken and disgrace
The scene divine, sweeps stars and suns aside.
And now, all dross remov’d, heav'n's own pure day,
Full on the confines of our ether, flames,
While (dreadful contrast!) far, how far beneath!
