evil, expressive only of the wrath of God and the misery of man! Now, I quite hold that death is punitive. I believe it to be the consequence and the proof of the apostasy. I take it to be the mode of departure from earth which was introduced by sin,—— painful, appalling, dark,-instead of that bright and glorious translation which would probably have awaited successful virtue. You will please to observe, that, as no world of limited extent could have continued the fixed dwelling-place of immortals, whose numbers were perpetually receiving augmentation, and as the primary law of all intelligence would seem to be that of progress and advancement, the probability is, that man was never meant for this world only; departure from it would be the law of his creation; but, on the alternative of his retaining his loyalty to God, that departure would have occurred after the full development of his nature here had fitted him for a rise in the scale of being, and it would have come in the form of reward and honour, perhaps with visible and public splendour, the joyous congratulations of those left on earth mingling with the welcome, the symphonies and the songs of those superior spirits, to whose higher sphere the individual ascended. Sin, however, reversed all this. Instead of it, Humanity had to depart hence" by returning to the dust; to go down into the dark valley, and to pass thus towards the awful future, the vast unknown!

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Death, then, simply considered, having become the law by which man's residence here was to terminate;

The

and Humanity having become what entirely changed its character and circumstances,-giving a new importance to the relationships of life, and impressing uncertainty, to say the least, on the future beyond it ; this being the case, to render life itself tolerable to man, it was necessary that the fixed general law should be softened and modified by two others. That is to say, it was necessary that death should so occur, as not to be of the nature of a distinct, positive, and public revelation of the precise future into which each individual passed; and, that men should live utterly uncertain as to when they were to die. The punitive character of the original law being admitted, anything that would modify it in these two respects, would be of the nature of benevolent relief. This relief is accorded to us. first is provided for by death happening alike to all;— and the second by its occurring at all ages. Whatever the character of individuals may be, however possible it is for any to acquire a fitness for a higher sphere, (and that, as we believe, is pre-eminently possible now through Christ)-still, all die, and, as a general rule, under the like circumstances of pain and suffering, and very generally, too, with similar feelings to themselves and to survivors. There is not such a difference between the death-beds of the religious and the worldly, except in particular cases, as some may suppose; and there is always that ignorance in relation to the dead, which makes it possible to the living to hope. So far, therefore, as all the circumstantials of death are concerned, the precursors and attendants and immediate

results, disease, pain, dissolution, corruption,-which in all ages have constituted topics of pathetic discourse, or subjects for odes and songs of lamentation,—so far as these are concerned, they are the benevolent products of a modifying law, with which God in His goodness has softened the rigour of the original inflic tion.

All

The same principle applies to premature death. of you can see, that a general law, terminating life in all cases on a precise day, would be painful and intolerable; it would poison life from first to last, and it might provoke and exasperate licence and lust. It is important, both for happiness and virtue, that no one should know when he is to die. This object, however, can only be secured by death happening at every moment throughout the entire period allotted to man —extreme cases, even, such as death before leaving the spring-head and fountain of life, and death being delayed beyond all known or ordinary instances,these are alike the working out of the same law. To secure, then, the proposed object,-to place humanity under the most gracious and benevolent constitution of things at all possible now,-in order that men might so live as to enjoy life, because happily ignorant respecting. its termination,-on this account it is, that infants and children die; that youths and maidens die; that the young man splendidly endowed, the young womar beautiful and accomplished, die; the bride in her day of tremulous delight, the mother in the hour of her new joy, the strong man in the glory of his strength,

-on this account they die. They die,-that all who live may live on under the blessed consciousness that they know not when they are to die. The whole race reaps the benefit of premature mortality. The glow and brightness of all life is connected with the graves and sepulchres of the young. Those who die early, or in the midst of their days, enjoy the advantage while they live. But the law would be infringed, and would be contradictory and unnatural, if parents were to be sure that no child could possibly die till it was a day old, or a month, or a year, or two years, or ten ;-to be thoroughly kind, the law must be carried out to its farthest extent, and come into play from the very first moment of possible vitality. Hence it is that infants die; they die through the working of a most benevolent secondary law, brought in to break the rigour of the first. And they die for the benefit of the race. Their lives are taken, for the sake of securing the happiness of the world. I had almost said,—and I may say it as speaking in a figure,-that a babe in its coffin may be supposed to look, to its weeping parents, like a little "dead Christ!" It has died vicariously -to secure a temporal advantage for the world, even as Christ died vicariously to secure for it a spiritual redemption. The one dies, that we may not know when we shall die; the other died that we might know "that our Redeemer liveth." By the one fact we are enabled to endure life; by the other we are taught to die in hope, and to look forward to the resurrection of the dead. Let a halo of glory, then, seem to encircle

that fair brow,-the brow of that little babe, lying cold and dead there, on the lap of its mother! Poor mother! thy sorrow is great! Weep away;-let the hot tears gush out ;—it is not the time to speak to thee now. But very soon thou wilt come to understand how, all thy life, thou hast been reaping advantages that came to thee by the death of the infants of others; and thou wilt learn to acquiesce in what is really the result of one of the most benevolent of God's arrangements. The death of thy child, as a human being, is from sin; but his death as a child is, because he is one of the chosen of the race, whose lot and mission are not to live to do and to enjoy but simply to die,-but to die for the benefit of the whole species, the world over!"*

"IS IT WELL WITH THE CHILD?"

REV. C. H. SPURGEON, LONDON.

"Is it well with the child? And she answered, It is well."Now, let every mother and father here present know assuredly that it is well with the child, if God hath taken it away from you in its infant days. You never heard its declaration of faith-it was not capable of such a thing-it was not baptized into the Lord Jesus Christ, not buried with him in baptism; it was not capable of giving that "answer of a good conscience toward God;" nevertheless, you may rest assured that

* Is it Possible to make the Best of Both Worlds? By T. Binney. London: James Nisbet & Co.