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the understanding labour less. The archangel, with the trump of God, riding sublime in the midst of heaven, and sending through the widest dominions of death and the grave, that sharp summons which divideth the solid earth, and rings through the caverns of the hollow deep, piercing the dull cold ear of death and the grave, with the knell of their departed reign; the death of Death, the revival of the grave, the everlasting reign of life, and second birth of living things, the reunion of body and soul-the one from unconscious sleep, the other from apprehensive or unquiet abodes, and the congregation of all generations over whom the stream of time hath swept -This outstretches my understanding no less than the material imagery confuses my imagination. And when I bring the picture to my heart, its feelings are shaken and overwhelmed: When I fancy this quick and conscious frame one instant reawakened, the next reinvested, the next summoned before the face of Almighty God-now rebegotten, now sifted through every secret corner-this poor soul, possessed with the memory of its misdeeds, submitted to the scorching eye of my Maker-my fate depending upon his lips, my everlasting, changeless fate,-I shrink and shiver with deadly apprehension.

And when I fancy the myriads of men all standing thus searched and known, I seem to hear their shiverings like the aspen leaves in the still evening of Autumn. Pale fear possesseth every countenance, and blank conviction every quaking

heart. They stand like men upon the perilous edge of battle, withholden from speech and pinched for breath through excess of struggling emotions-shame, remorse, mortal apprehension, and trembling hope. Then the recording angel openeth the book of God's remembrance, and inquisition proceedeth apace. Anon they move quicker than thought to the right and left, two most innumerous companies. From his awful seat, his countenance clothed with the smile which makes all heaven gay, the Judge pronounceth blessing for ever and ever upon the heads of his disciples, and dispenseth to them a kingdom prepared by God from the first of time. These, seized with the tidings of unexpected deliverance, feel it like a dream, and wonder with ecstasy at the unbounded love of their Redeemer. They wonder, and declare their unworthiness, but are reassured by the voice of him that changeth not. Then joy seizeth their whole soul, and assurance of immortal bliss. Their trials are ended, their course is finished, the prize is won, and the crown of eternal life is laid up for them in store; and they hasten to inherit the fulness of joy and pleasures which are at the right hand of God for evermore. Again the Judge lifteth up his voice, his countenance clothed in that frown which kindled hell, and he pronounceth eternal perdition with the devil and his angels, upon the wretched people who despised and rejected him on earth. They remonstrate, but remonstrance is vain. It is finished with hope, it is finished with

grace, it is finished with mercy; justice hath begun her terrible reign, to endure for ever. Then arise from myriads of myriads the groans and shrieks and thrênes of despair; they invoke every mother element of nature to consume their being back into her dark womb; they call upon the rocks to crush them, and the hills to cover them from the terrible presence of the Lord and from his consuming wrath. And there will be episodes of melting tenderness at this final parting of men! and eternal farewells! but, ah! the word farewell hath forgotten its meaning, and wishes of welfare now are vain. A new order of things hath com→ menced; the age of necessity hath begun its reign; and all change is for ever sealed.

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This mighty crisis in the history of the human race, this catastrophe of evil and consummation of good, fortunately it is not our province to clothe with living imagery, else our faculties would misgive and fail. But if our divine Poet hath, by his mighty genius, rendered to conception the fallen angels beneath the sulphureous canopy of hell, their shapes, their array, their welfare and their high debates, so as to charm and captivate our souls by the grandeur of their sentiments and the splendour of their chivalry, and cheat us into sympathy and pity, and even admiration; how might such another spirit (if it shall please the Lord to yield another such,) draw forth the theme of judgment from its ambiguous light, give it form and circumstance, feeling and expression, so that it should strike home upon

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the heart with the presentiment of those very feelings which shall then be awakened in our breasts. This task awaits some lofty and pious soul hereafter to arise, and, when performed, will enrich the world with a "Paradise Regained? worthy to be a sequel to the "Paradise Lost," with an "Inferno" that needeth no physical torments to make it infernal; and with a Judgment antecedent to both, which should embrace and embody the complete justification of God's ways

to man.

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Instead of which mighty fruits of genius, this age (oh, shocking!) hath produced out of this theme two most nauseous and unformed abortions, vile, unprincipled, and unmeaning the one a brazenfaced piece of political cant, the other an abandoned parody of solemn judgment. Of which visionaries, I know not whether the self-confident tone of the one, or the ill-placed merriment of the other, displeaseth one the more. How ignoble and impious to rob the sublimest of subjects of its grandeur and effect, in order to pander to wretched interests and vulgar passions! How wicked to lower down that which all men have reverenced, and all wise men revere still, in order to make of it an ephemeral tribute of court adulation, or the burden of a satirical song! and yet these are the giants of the age. Out upon such wretched stuff; and out upon the age which endureth it. The men are limited in their faculties, for they want the greatest of all faculties-to know the living God, and stand in awe of his mighty power: with the one, his awe

ful judgment is the stalking-horse of loyalty; with the other, it is the food and spice of jest-making. Barren souls!-and is the land of Shakspeare and Spenser and Milton come to this! that it can procreate nothing but such profane spawn, and is content to exalt such blots and blemishes of manhood into ornaments of the age. Puny age! when religion and virtue and manly freedom have ceased from the character of those it accounteth noble. I thank God, that he hath given us a refuge from such ignoble men in the great spirits of a former age, who will yet wrest the sceptre from these mongrel Englishmen. And that upon this subject we can betake ourselves to the "Advent to Judgment" of Taylor; "The Four Last Things" of Bates; the "Blessedness of the Righteous" of Howe; and the "Saint's Rest" of Baxter; books which breathe of the reverend spirit of the olden time. God send to the others repentance, or else blast the powers they have abused so terribly; for if they repent not, they shall harp another strain at that scene they have sought to vulgarize. The men have seated themselves in His throne of judgment, to vent from thence doggrel spleen and insipid flattery; but the impious men have no more right to the holy seat, than the obscene owl to nestle and bring forth in the Ark of the Covenant, which the wings of the cherubim of glory did overshadow.

But, to return, our office is not to create forms for the presentation of the last judgment to the fancy, but to measure it by reason, and examine how it squares with the noble sentiments of jus

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