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beneath the same roof, or in the vicinity of their parents. One member after another goes from the paternal abode, and settles at a distance, till counties and perhaps kingdoms separate them from each other.Rarely does it happen, where the children are numerous and grown to maturity, that they can all meet together. Occasionally this does happen, perhaps on a parent's birth-day, or at the festive season of the year, and then home puts forth all its charms, and pours out in copious streams its pure and precious joys: such a circle is the resort of peace and love, where friends and dear relations mingle into bliss. The parents look with ineffable delight upon their children, and their children's children, and see their smiles of love reflected from the faces of the happy group. Piety gives the finishing touch to the picture, when, ere they part, they assemble round the domestic altar, and after reading in that Book which speaks of the many mansions in our Father's house above, where the families of the righteons meet to part no more; and after blending their voices in a sacred song of praise to Him who hath united them, both by ties of nature and of grace; they receive the benedictions, and join in the prayers of their saintly and patriarchal father, who over the scene that surrounds him feels a divided heart, one moment thinking he has lived long enough in that he has been permitted to witness it, but the next breathing an aspiration to heaven for permission to witness it a few years longer.

This scene, and it is not an uncommon one, is one of the purest to be found on earth. It is, as nearly as it can be, paradise restored; or if it be, as it certainly is, still without the gates of Eden, it is near enough to the sacred enclosure to receive some of the fruits which drop over the wall. What is wanting here? I answer, Continuance. It is bliss only for a season. It is a day that will be followed with a night. And the heart was often checked in the full tide of enjoyment, in the very meridian of its delights, by looking at the clock, and counting how rapidly the hours of felicity were rolling away, and how soon the signal of parting would be struck. But the meeting in heaven shall be eternal. The family shall go no more out for ever from the mansion of their Father above. Their interview shall not be measured nor limited by time. They shall meet for one day, but then that day will be everlasting, for "there is no night there." They shall spend eternal ages together. Neither the fear nor the thought of parting shall ever pass like a cloud over the orb of their felicity, nor let fall a passing shadow to disturb the sunshine of their breast. We are met," shall they say one to another, "and we shall part no more. Around us is glory, within us is rapture, before us is eternity."

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Then add to this, the happy circumstances under which they meet, and in which they will dwell together for

ever.

will possess the virtue which is loved, and the complacency by which it is beloved. Every one, conscious of unmingled purity within, approves and loves himself for that divine image, which, in complete perfection, and with untarnished resemblance, is stamped upon his character. Each, in every view which he casts around him, beholds the same glory shining and brightening in the circle of his parents, his brothers, and his sisters. Out of this character grows a series ever varying, ever improving, of all the possible communications of beneficence, fitted in every instance only to interchange and increase the happiness of all. In the sunshine of infinite complacency, the light of the New Jerusalem, the original source of all their own beauty, life, and joy, this happy family will walk for ever."

The joy of that meeting will arise from seeing each other in the possession of all that happiness which God hath prepared for them that love him. In a family where genuine affection prevails, the happiness of one branch is the happiness of the rest; and each has his felicity multiplied by as many times as there are happy members in the circle. In heaven, where love is perfect, how exquisite will be the bliss of each, arising from being the constant witness to the bliss of all: where the parents will see the children basking in the sunshine of divine love; receiving the warmest expressions of the favor of Christ; shining in the beauties of unsullied holiness; and bounding in the fields of uncreated light; and where the children shall see the parents, and each other, in the same happy circumstances; where each shall see all the rest in the full possession of the inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away; the exceeding great and eternal weight of glory.

How amidst all this unrevealed and inconceivable splendor will the joy be increased by a recollection and enumeration of the benefits conferred by one party, and the obligations incurred by the other. What must be the delight of parents in thus seeing the fruit of their prayers, instructions, and anxieties constantly before their eyes, in the honor and felicity of their glorified children. How happy and grateful will they feel that their solicitude on earth was chiefly exercised in reference to the spiritual and eternal welfare of their offspring, and not wasted upon trifles which had no connection with piety or immortality.

With what thrilling emotions of delight will they hear these children ascribing all their salvation, so far as instruments are concerned, to them; and giving a high place in their anthems of praise to the names of their father and mother. While on the other hand, it will raise the felicity of the children to the highest pitch, to see those parents near them, to whom they owe, under God, their possession of heaven. With what mutual interest will both parties retrace the winding ways of Providence which led to such a terThey will meet as spirits of just men made perfect.mination of the journey of life. How will they pause The best regulated families on earth will sometimes and wonder at those mysterious links, now invisible, experience little interruptions of their domestic enjoy-but then plainly seen, which connected the events of ment. We all have some imperfection or other, some infirmity of temper, or some impropriety of manner, from which, through want of caution on one part, or want of forbearance on the other, occasional discords will be heard to disturb the harmony of the whole. We see that others are not altogether perfect, and we feel that we are not so. We lament the failings of the rest, and still more lament our own. This prevents perfect domestic bliss; but in heaven we shall all be perfect. We shall see nothing in others to censure; feel nothing in ourselves to lament. We shall have all that veneration and love for each other which shall arise from the

their history, and united them into one perfect whole. Especially, with what intense excitement will they mark each effort of parental anxiety for the salvation of the children, and see the individual and collective results of all. The revolutions of empires, the fate of armies, will then have less to engage and charm the attention, than the influence of any one piece of advice which was delivered on earth, and which had the smallest influence in impressing the heart, awakening the conscience, converting the soul, or forming the character.

What felicity will arise from the sublime converse mutual perception of unsinning holiness. We shall and employment of such a state. Conceive of a famutually see reflected the image of God from our cha-mily even on earth, whereof all the numerous branches There will be every thing lovely to attract esteem, and the most perfect love to show it. Every one i

racter.

* See Dwight's Sermon on Brotherly Love.

temporal. It is only on this ground that we can account for the folly, the madness, of neglecting the great salvation, and seeking any thing in preference to eternal glory. Dreadful madness! which, though it indulges in the miscalculations of insanity, has none of its excuses. What but this moral insanity could lead men for any object upon earth, to neglect the pur

of which it is composed, each one for dignity was a prince, for science a philosopher, for affection a brother, for purity a saint, for meekness a child, all meeting in sublime and affectionate discourse; all employed in exploring together the secrets of nature, and tracing the streams of knowledge; blending, as they proceeded, the ardor of love with the light of truth. But this, what is it, to the heavenly state, where, with minds in-suit, and resign the hope of eternal life? conceivably more capacious than that of Newton's, when he weighed the gravity and measured the dis- affection which can be equalled only by that solicitude My children! my children! whom I love with an tance of the stars; with hearts perfect in holiness, and for your welfare to which it has given rise, and which ages endless as eternity, we shall converse on all the highest themes which the universe can supply. Think make eternal happiness the end of your existence. never sleeps nor rests, receive my admonition, and of studying together the laws of creation, the history of Look at that heaven, which, though but partially reall God's providential dealings with mankind, the won-vealed, is revealed with such pure brightness on the derful scheme of human redemption, the character of the great Jehovah, the person of Jesus Christ, with all page of eternal truth," on the description of which, so that stands connected with the whole range of univer-whole force and splendor of inspiration;" look at it, to speak, the Holy Ghost employs and exhausts the sal being, and the manifestation of the First Cause. that state of inconceivable, infinite eternal honor and What a view does it give us of the felicity of heaven, bliss, and is there aught on earth, aught of pleasure or to think of parents and children engaged with mil- of gain, for which you will deliberately resign that lions all around them, in sounding the depth of that crown of unfading glory? ocean of eternal truth, which is as clear as it is deep; and eternally employed in acts of worship, exercises of benevolence, and other pleasurable pursuits, now unknown, because unrevealed; and perhaps unrevealed, because not comprehensible by our present

limited faculties.

But, after all, my dear children, I seem as if I were guilty of presumption, in thus attempting to describe that which is quite inconceivable. It doth not yet appear what we shall be. We now see through a glass darkly. The Scriptures tell us much of the heavenly state; but they leave much untold. They give us enough to employ our faith, raise our most lively hopes, and produce a joy unspeakable, and full of glory; but they offer nothing to satisfy our curiosity. They bring before us a dim transparency, on the other side of which the images of an obscure magnificence dazzle indistinctly upon the eye; and tell us, that in the economy of redemption, and the provisions of immortality, there is a grandeur commensurate to all that is known of the other works and purposes of the Eternal. They offer us no details; and man, who ought not to attempt a wisdom above that which is written, should be cautious how he puts forth his hand to the drapery of the impenetrable curtain, which God, in his mysterious wisdom, has spread over that region, of which it is but a very small portion that can be known to us.

In this state, amidst all this glory, honor, and felicity, it is my sincere desire, my ardent prayer, my constant endeavor, my supreme pursuit, that your journey, my dear children, and my own, should terminate. Every thing else appears, in comparison of this, as nothing. In the view of this, thrones lose their elevation, crowns their splendor, riches their value, and fame its glory; before the effulgence and magnitude of celestial objects, their grandeur dwindles to an invisible point, and their brightness is but as the shadow of death. Did we not know the depravity of our nature, and that the natural man knoweth not these things, because they are spiritually discerned, we must indeed wonder, and inquire what bewildering influence it is, that is exerted upon the human mind, by which its attention is so fatally diverted from things unseen and eternal, to the shadowy and evanescent form of things seen and

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I am anxious, as I have already informed you, that you may live in comfort and respectability on earth. I would have your mind cultivated by learning and science; your manners polished by complaisance; your industry crowned with success: in short, I should be thankful to see you living in comfort, respected and respectable: but above every thing else, I pray, I desire, I long that you may partake of that "faith, without which it is impossible to please God;" and that holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." I have fixed my aim for you high as heaven; and covet for you everlasting life. I love your society on earth, and wish to enjoy it through eternity in the presence of God. I hope I am travelling to that goodly land, of which God hath said, he will give it to us for an inheritance, and I want you to accompany me thither. Reduce me not to the mere consolation of David, who said, Although my house be not so with God, yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant, which is ordered in all things and sure. let me have to say with Joshua, "As for me, and my house, we will serve the Lord."

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May it be granted me to see you choosing the way of wisdom and piety, and remembering your Creator in the days of your youth: giving to all your virtues that stability and beauty which can be derived only from religion; first receiving by faith, and then adorning by holiness, the doctrine of God your Saviour.— Then will my highest ambition, as a parent, be gratified, my most painful solicitude relieved. I shall watch your progress amidst the vicissitudes of life, with a calm and tranquil mind, assured that your piety will be your protector amidst the dangers of prosperity; or your comforter amidst the ills of adversity. If called to follow your bier, and weep upon your sepulchre, I shal! only consider you as sent forward on the road to await my arrival at your Father's house; or if called, according to the order of nature, to go down first into the dark valley of the shadow of death, I shall find the agonies of separation assuaged, and the gloom of the dying chamber irradiated by those bright visions of glory, which connect themselves with the prospect of the meeting of a pious family in the heavenly world.

END.

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SIMEON.

(AN EXTRACT FROM EVANS'

It is difficult for the most lively imagination, however well supplied with the food of facts, and however excited by their singular grandeur, to depicture adequately the situation of the whole civilized world, about the time of our Saviour's birth. The Jew saw lying in ruins the third monarchy prophesied by Daniel. He counted the seventy prophetic weeks, and they were fast running out. His countrymen, scattered in large bodies throughout the cities of Asia and Africa, communicated to the heathen their curiosity and agitation, so that the whole eastern world was standing up in breathless and throbbing expectation, and looking out for him who was to come. The notions of the heathen were of course but vague and carnal. But among the Jews they were of very different degrees of spirituality. The gross and blind vulgar looked to but a carnal deliverer from their carnal subjection to the infidel. The priesthood would naturally contain two extreme parties, both the most carnally minded, and the most spiritually minded of these expectants. Being the appointed mediators between God and the Jew, the interests of the priests were especially concerned. If the Messiah was to be in any way a temporal deliverer, then would they be his nobles and satraps. If he was to be a purely spiritual Saviour, it followed by no obscure deduction that their occupation would be at an end. When we consider the dreadful degeneracy of the Jews at this time, we may readily conclude, and the whole tenor of the Gospels confirms the conclusion, that the latter was a very small party indeed, and kept under, and held down with a curb of silence by the violence of the other. The precise nature of the opinions of this minority it is difficult to determine. But the exceeding soreness which the other party always manifested upon any expression which bore upon the continuance of their temple, seems to show that this had been disputed and denied: and the prophecies which led to the spiritual view would carry on their readers to that unpopular opinion. The song of Simeon gives us the only trace of these spiritual notions among the Jews. Nor need we wonder. They could not be openly propounded among men who looked for the Messiah to set his seal upon their corrupt tradition and practice: who deemed that the Prince of Peace should give them peace by putting to peace every mouth that should dare to open against their corruptions, and give peace to earth by turning the land of the Gentiles into a desert: who were thus prepared, even before he came, for crucifying the Lord of glory. So little, and so affrighted was the flock to which Simeon belonged. It was the only flock of God upon earth. It alone was alive in the spirit. All the rest of the nation was dead in the letter. They did not ruminate over the political slavery of their country, and call for a deliverer. They felt the oppression of the yoke, and the festering of the rankling chains of sin. They did not gaze at the huge foundations of the temple, and admire it as built for the palace of an everlasting Prince. They did not number its offerings and count its treasures. They did not cast an ambitious eye at the vast bodies of their countrymen planted already like armies throughout the fairest regions of the heathen, and prepared to raise the banner at the moment of the Redeemer's appearance. But they thought of spiritual temples, of spiritual treasures, of spiritual compa

* Matth. xxvi. 61. Acts. vi. 14.

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nies of preachers. Daily they resorted to the temple where Malachi had promised the appearance of him whom they looked for. There they put up their prayers for the coming of the consolation of Israel, and as the fated term came nearer they redoubled their watching and prayer. The more deeply they meditated, and the nearer the time came, the more they felt the want and the desire. Their prayers were a delightful expression of confidence in God's promises, to which on their wings they soared, and apprehended them. Daily they thus laid hold of them, and daily thus prepared their minds for his coming, that he may find them a people ready equipped for his service.

In such expectation and preparation the faithful Simeon had now passed a long life. He was not impatient for the day of the Lord, yet he earnestly desired to see it. His term of life seemed now likely to coincide with the accomplishment of the prophecy, and he naturally felt an intense wish to see the hope of a long life realized before he died. There was nothing carnal in this. The best men like to behold with their own eyes those who have been long the object of their thoughts. They long to see their benefactor personally. They delight to pour out their whole heart in blessing and thanksgiving in his presence, to kindle their love afresh at the light of his countenance, to hang upon the mouth which speaks such comfort and gladness, to look into the eyes which beam with such love and kindness, and to kiss the hand which hath wrought for them such wondrous salvation. However assured by faith, which is the hope of things not seen, yet it is most comfortable to see the seal of ratifications set to that hope. No one ever hoped for a thing which he did not wish to be present. Who does not at this day earnestly wish that the coming of the kingdom of the Lord for which he daily prays, may be in his own lifetime? and the greater reason which he has for thinking it near at hand the more ardently does he desire it, and long to see it before he die; the more does he grudge the loss of that short interval which may elapse between his own departure and the Lord's coming. It will indeed be all one and the same when the grave shall have closed over him; then at any rate he will see his Lord and Master face to face, and enjoy that palpable communion which was denied him on earth. Yet neither can he nor should he forego that natural feeling. Heartiness is a fundamental quality in the gospel. While we are in the flesh we must obey its natural impulses, only regulating them by the gospel. Cold philosophical abstraction is widely different from Christian spirituality.

While he was one day thus looking forward with anxious hepe, the Holy Ghost announced to him that he should not see death before he saw the Lord's Christ. How great must have been the joy of this faithful servant at so gracious an annunciation. It was a seal set of approval upon his long and unwearied expectation. He had kept his loins girt and his lights burning, and was to receive his Master at last. Perhaps the Holy Spirit, in imparting to him this prophetic grace, revealed to him, as to the most favored prophets of old, a more spiritual view of the nature of the kingdom of Christ. How unsubstantial then would all things ap pear around him. All the rites at which he assisted were but as the voice of a person unseen indeed, but approaching. Still more eager did they make him for his arrival, and more closely than ever would he keep

his watch in the temple for his coming. It is impossi- | Could we count the number of those who have died, ble to conceive a more happy or nonorable station who are living, and who shall be born to live without than that which the Holy Spirit had now assigned to the knowledge of the gospel, we, who have heard its Simeon. He was the last link of a chain of prophetic blessed tidings, would appear in the comparison but as saints which stretched from Adam. They all saw ata a little knot of persons, like Simeon and Anna amid distance, but he was to touch. Their song spake of the unbelieving throngs of Jerusalem. May we be the Christ to come, but his should hail Christ already then like Simeon and Anna in their esteem of the come, and offer him the first-fruits of the homage of blessedness to which we have been called. Who are the saints to the end of the world. we, that we should have been so highly favored, and that to our eyes and ears should have been revealed things which Abraham, and David, and the prophets, were not allowed to witness, vehemently though they desired it? Who are we, that to us should be manifested in all the fulness of accomplished redemption, in his sacrifice on the cross, in his resurrection from the dead, in his ascension to heaven, in the assurance of his intercession there by the descent of the Holy Ghost, that Saviour whom Simeon beheld but as a helpless infant, and was thankful that he had seen so much? Great indeed is our blessedness, great indeed our responsibility. Let us, like the author of this hymu, humbly and cheerfully in our respective stations await the coming of the Lord, in whatever shape it may appear, whether by the intervention of sorrow or of joy, at whatever time, whether at even, or at midnight, or at cock-crowing, or in the morning,* that we be not found sleeping, but ready, so that with our last breath we may be enabled to cry out, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."

The promised day came at last; the Holy Ghost again visited Simeon, and advertised him that the Lord, for whom he was looking, had come to his temple: he immediately arose, and full of the Spirit entered the temple. There Mary was waiting with her child to offer up the customary sacrifice, and to present him to the Lord. In that child he immediately recognized the Saviour of the world, and taking him up into his arms, burst forth into a hymn of praise and thanksgiving. He blessed God for having allowed him to see his Saviour, and professed his willingness to die now that he had seen him. With a heavenly comprehension of view, with which the Spirit afterwards especially interfered to endow the apostles, he acknowledged the Christ to be not only the glory of Israel, but also a light for the enlightening the Gentiles. He saw in him the Redeemer of the whole world, and foretold to Mary his rejection by many in Israel, his being made a public mark for reproach and mockery, and obscurely hinted his sufferings and death, in assuring her that "a sword should pierce through her own soul, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed."

With this hymn this faithful servant and unwearied waiter upon his Lord quits the stage of history. A tradition says that with this he quitted life too. In his last strain this prophet has bequeathed to the Church a song, which has often been repeated from the mouths of dying martyrs, and by saintly men who deeply felt the inestimable privilege of having lived under the gospel. Of this privilege our Church reminds us, by putting this very hymn into our mouths after we have heard the reading of the word of eternal life in Jesus Christ. O that we could ever bear it in mind, and take it uninterruptedly to heart; that we could steadily discern the distinctness of our calling, and strive to make it sure by being chosen. For are we not called, who are so few out of the whole mass of mankind?

Simeon sang the first hymn with which mortal lips saluted the Redeemer's arrival. It followed the song of the angels. It will gain force and signification with every fresh unfolding of the veil which yet remains upon the fortunes of the Church, and will only lose its application at that awful day, when the quick shall see the coming of the Son of Man in power and great glory to raise the dead, and judge mankind, and the song of angels shall once again be heard upon earth, singing Hallelujah, never again to be succeeded by song of mortal man. For there shall be no more departure from life, and all eyes shall see their Saviour face to face, never to lose the sight of him again, but to gaze upon him, and enjoy the brightness of his glory for ever.

* Mark xiii. 35.

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