"This, then, is death," thought I, placing my hand upon her smooth cold forehead, colder than the whitest marble.— "The sunshine is streaming upon the fields and woods, and she, a thing of beauty, looks more ready to leap up and sport amid the bright valleys, among sweet flowers, than be borne to the darksome grave. No more will her merry laughter be heard at even-tide ringing through the village street,— that sweet voice will never again chaunt the simple songs which made the hearts of those who listened to them thrill again beneath her utterance!"

The village undertaker at length arrived, and all, saving the weeping mother, arose to look upon the face of the dead for the last time. The blessed light of heaven would never more fall upon that fair face,-no human eye would behold its loveliness again! Oh! she was beautiful even in death: the choicest summer-flowers adorned her shroud, and you might fancy, while gazing upon her, that she had lain down to rest awhile upon a bed of flowers, and would awake anon: she seemed too lovely to belong to death; you could not imagine that a countenance on which so sweet a smile was chiselled was aught akin to the tomb. Her bright brown hair was divided in the centre of her clear smooth brow, and fell in glossy clusters down the unsullied snow of her neck, here and there mingling their ringlets amid the flowers. Just then the door was suddenly opened, and the light breeze stole over the pale features of the dead, and a straggling lock was uplifted for a moment, and then fell again upon the still blossoms. A white rose had been placed in her wan hand, but had fallen upon her wrist, as if it had lain

down to die beside one so lovely. A few flowers had fallen around her face, and were impearled with the tears of the mourners. You could have fancied that they wept, and that their bright heads were bowed down by sorrow.

Just before the lid of the coffin was replaced a sunbeam streamed in through an aperture of the door, and fell full upon the face of the departed, giving to it for a moment the appearance of a halo of glory, a beauty that belonged only to heaven. At length the greedy screws clenched their iron teeth upon the dead, with a strange crunching sound that sank into the heart, causing a momentary shiver to run through every frame. The coffin was borne down the little garden, over the threshold where she had so often stepped in childhood, beyond the flowers which her own hands had planted: no one turned to look upon the woodbine which she had trained to run up to her chamber window; they bore her past the summer-house where she had so often sat with Henry, and where her young tongue was wont, in the cool evenings, to make music of the holy poetry of the Bible, and send a soft hush of sacred thoughts to the heart of her mother.

The coffin was borne along by six village maidens; they were robed in spotless white, and each on her bosom wore a white rose. The procession moved slowly along through a green lane.

Soon we reached the new village church; and as I lifted up my head to admire its fair proportions, resting against the clear sky, the deep bell rung out a long measured sound, that echoed far and wide over the neighbouring

valleys.

That sound had driven the colour from many a lovely cheek; still it boomed on through the quiet air,

like the voice of death calling upon us to approach. We entered the church; the coffin was placed in the aislethat aisle up which her light feet had so often trod. The pew-door stood open; the cushion on which she used to sit had fallen upon the floor.

We stood by her grave. It was of a deep black mould— a cold, dark bridal bed for one so lovely! A handful of flowers was thrown in before the coffin was lowered; I saw them lie in the grim depth.

At last the coffin was let down slowly into the grave; the burial service was then read, and the earth scattered upon the lid. How that hollow sound went to the heart, striking through the blood with a rapid chilliness, that searched through every vein as it sank deeper.

Such is the touching description given by MILLER in his "Rural Sketches," and though it is a pretty, it is yet a gloomy picture. We wish he could; and if he could he ought to have told us, that the closing hours of her brief existence were cheered by the light and love of HIM who is the resurrection and the life. How sad and cheerless are such sketches of death and the grave! All about the poor body, now faded as a flower, cold as marble, and turning to corruption; but nothing about the soul, and its faith in the Redeemer, and its hope of immortality through Him. These are the things we want to know of the young when God calls them away in early life. Then we may indulge the hope that, however fair and lovely they were when here, they will rise again with fairer and more lovely forms at the morning of the resurrection. Then

"That cheek shall wear a fairer hue,

When risen from its yielding sod;
Those eyes shall speak in softer blue,
Love in the paradise of God."

FRAILTY OF YOUTH.-THE VISIT OF THE ANGEL OF DEATH.

FRAILTY OF YOUTH.

THE morning flowers display their sweets,
And gay their silken leaves unfold,
As careless of the noon-tide heats,
As fearless of the evening cold.
Nipt by the wind's untimely blast,
Parch'd by the sun's directer ray,
The momentary glories waste,

The short-liv'd beauties die away.
Yet these, new-rising from the tomb,
With lustre brighter far shall shine;
Revive with ever-during bloom,

Safe from diseases and decline.
Let sickness blast, let death devour,
If Heaven must recompense our pains;
Perish the grass, and fade the flower,
If firm the Word of God remains.

THE VISIT OF THE ANGEL OF DEATH.

THE Angel of Death had come,

His wings were dark to behold;

But when seen in Eternity's brightening light,
They were sprinkled with living gold.

He passed with a noiseless step,

And a sweet yet solemn mien,

Till he came where a babe in its mother's arms,

With a troubled look was seen.

Then he gazed with a mournful eye,

At its strange deep loveliness;

For it seemed as an angel who hither had strayed,

And lain down in weariness.

There lay in its meek blue eye,

A thought of the angels' home;

And a restless yearning for that brighter land,

Where no sorrow or anguish come.