Oh! when a Mother meets on high Hath she not then for pains and fears, The day of wo, the watchful night, An overpayment of delight? And the Father, from whom disease or accident has snatched the hope of his age!-If himself faithful unto death, will find that the Destroyer has but raised his child to glory, and but prepared him for that one family above-that hundred and forty-four thousand redeemed from the earth-among whom all who now rightly endure the great Parent's discipline will be numbered! C. A. B. I THINK the Scriptures do not decide for us the interesting question of the time of the resurrection. There are many passages equally strong perhaps on both sides-leading us to believe sometimes that a general resurrection is intended, and sometimes, the individual. It is hardly possible, however, to reflect long upon the subject, without forming an opinion of our own from a comparison of these passages, and from our internal convictions of what is most reasonable and desirable. There is something indescribably grand and terrific in the idea of a Day of Judgment—a day of final account-when the whole universe shall be assembled before the throne of God-when the millions upon millions of the dead shall at once awake into the awful presence !-and there to stand the trial of deeds done in the body-who can describe such a scene? Who can pourtray it even to himself! The idea is too vast for human intellect—a congregation of all who have died upon the face of the earth-with all who shall be born and die until the end of time, supposing as we must that this earth is yet in its infancy—that the six thousand years already gone are but a beginning, and that millions of centuries must yet pass away before its final dissolution. Who can imagine a multitude like this? Who but would shrink from the exposure of his secret thoughts, desires, and sins before an assembly so vast —of all nations and tongues. Yet I know not that this array of human souls can add to the real majesty of the scene, when we shall behold the Father face to face, in company with the great Teacher of our faith. Why should we shrink from assembled nations and tongues, when the eye of God himself is upon us! There are many difficulties to my mind in this scheme. Where is the soul during all this waiting for the judgment? It cannot sleep with the body, for the body has long since mingled with the dust-it has been scattered in ashes to the four winds—it has become incorporated in numberless other bodies-reduced to its original, simple elements, it has undergone transformations without end, from the vegetable to the animal, from animal again to man, so that we can hardly believe that omnipotence itself should restore its individuality. Where then does the soul rest, while these processes of nature are going on, again and again? Where is now the soul of Adam, the first who was created, and where shall it continue through these countless ages which will pass before the end of the world? These may be idle speculations; it may seem immaterial when we shall awake, if we awake unconscious that we have slept; if there appears no lapse between the hour of parting with our earthly friends, and meeting them in that great and terrible day-though generation after generation may in the meantime have been swept away and forgotten. But this seems to me unlike all the other arrangements of Providence, in its waste, if we may call it so, of time. Throughout the whole universe, so far as we can trace it, there is no waste-no cessation-all is going on, and hastening forward. There is not a moment in which some great process is not in operation. There is not an atom so minute, or so insignificant, but performs an important part in the vast whole -and must the soul, that "ever living" principle, as we have proudly called it, remain so long inactive? Must it make no progress? Must it lie buried, we know not where, or how, or for how long? Why-we are tempted to ask—might not these ages of lethargy be rather spent, in perfecting its marvellous powers-in disencumbering itself of all remaining impurity—in tasting those glorious rewards prepared for all who love the Father and keep his commandments. True, eternity is before us, and these ages of sleep may be only as a single day compared with the endless circle of years beyond. But who that has experienced human life alone, can feel it to be so. Let us Oh let us rather have the privilege of believing that the hour of mortal death is the hour of spiritual birth. repeat at the death-bed, the promise of the Saviour" To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise!" Let us realize that God who is constantly around and within us, will not desert us in that trying hour, that as he has witnessed each successive thought and action of our lives, he will at once pronounce our judgment and our doom, when he calls us from the scene of our labours. There we shall be possibly sympathising with, and watching over those whom we have left-ready certainly to welcome them, when they shall follow us. H. H. NOTICES OF BOOKS. THE WORKS OF JOSEPH STEVENS BUCKMINSTER ; WITH MEMOIRS OF HIS LIFE. Boston James Munroe & Co. 2 vols. 12mo. ONE of the first religious books we remember to have read, was the first volume of Buckminster's Sermons; and the beautifully written life and two or three of the discourses fixed themselves in the mind, as nothing is fixed there save in our early years. Buckminster seems almost to have realized our highest ideas of what a clergyman should be in a New-England city. He was not a distorted man, remarkable only for some single trait. He was not merely a good man, nor a learned man, nor an able reasoner, nor a brilliant writer, nor an efficient preacher, nor a useful pastor, but he was each and all. In the words of an old English dramatist, which we may be permitted to quote as describing him,— "Every virtue Which, parted unto others, gave them name, Notwithstanding his youth, he died at 28,-he was one of the most accomplished general scholars of the land. His attainments were especially great in the study of his choice, theology; and when in 1811 he was appointed the first Dexter Professor of Biblical Criticism, his biographer says, that the appointment was universally thought to be an honour most justly due to his pre-eminent attainments in this science. He was one of those most active in all the philanthropic objects of the day. He was remarkable for the charm of his private His sermons, as sermons, are certainly surpassed manners. by none in the language. He was not distinguished in one thing, but in all the faculties of the mind, and in all the best qualities of the character. And to all, he added the charm of a life, which seemed to have been consecrated by Providence, from the beginning, to the ministerial office. His life from infancy till death was marked by the same purity and consistency. There were no blots or breaks for the scoffer to point at; none of those youthful failings or perversities, which though ever so truly repented of, are so apt to be remembered and to diminish the power of a minister's appeals to others. His sister had no recollection, when they were children, “that he ever did anything that was wrong." Those virtues which others attain to, through a series of repentances and struggles, appeared in him so easy, so natural, so unforced, that one might almost think that the effort and self-denial would have been to abstain from what was right. The innocence of the child expanded by steady growth into the christian principles of the man. And when he stood in the pulpit it was not the eloquent tongue and beaming eye alone that spoke, but a life of innocence and purity and faith. Evil thoughts, bad passions, unworthy habits, could feign to themselves no apology by referring to the same things in his preceding life, but stood rebuked and dumb, as if in the pure presence of a messenger from God. His sermons have the same completeness as his character. Generally, the most eminent preachers have been remarkable but for some single thing. If we think of Jeremy Taylor, we are likely first of all and chiefly, to remember the sacred poetry which like sunset light shines through the masses of his thoughts. Butler and Sherlock were reasoners. Blair was the embodiment of propriety. He always remembered that he was a Lecturer on Rhetoric, and he is always as smooth and commonplace and tame and sensible and unexceptionable as every one must be, who writes by set rule and with the constant dread of criticism before his eyes. Most Sermons have been really addressed to but some single class. Butler's Sermons would have no hold on any save men of logical and |