and full of glory, 1 Pet. i. 8, to sing, with all the redeemed, the song of Moses and the Lamb, for ever and ever, in the paradise of God! CONTEMPLATION XIV. ON THE EVENING OF THE DAY. THE bright monarch of day having but a little ago disappeared in the west, darkness beginneth again to resume her ancient reign, and claimeth a primeval right; while the village bell calls the laborious husbandman from his toil, and invites the weary traveller to rest. The herds forsake their dewy pastures, and with their udders richly fraught for the dairy, move lowing on, to be discharged of their most nutritious burdens, one of the chief blessings of Canaan; and the woolly tribes are shut up in their folds. The verdure of the fields darkeneth on the sight, while night spreadeth her sable veil over the face of nature. Where is now the pleasant landscape I so lately beheld? It is lost to my view; and the warbling people, with their wing-covered heads, sit silent on the spray only the bird of eve ushers in the gloom with her irksome solitary dirge, while labour reclines her head on the bosom of rest, and balmy sleep, endeared by toil, refreshes animal life. And is this delightful day come to an end? O my soul, so shall soon the day of this life, and all its bustle, be silenced in the tomb. How much then doth it concern me, and all men living, to be putting by our work in our twelve hours! O that while it is called to-day we might labour for the meat which perisheth not, but endureth to everlasting life, John, vi. 20, seeing the night of death approacheth, wherein no man can work; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave. Eccl. ix. 10. + This dewy evening, calm and serene, mindeth me of the close of a Christian's life in old age. Happy alone then is he, who, while his head is flourishing like an almond tree, can calmly reflect on a well spent life:* such shall come to his grave "like as a shock of corn cometh in his season." Job, v. 26. As the Lord once said unto Jacob, "Fear "not to go down into Egypt: I will go down "with thee into Egypt, and I will also surely 66 bring thee up again," Gen. xlvi. 3; so he will say, as it were, to such a one, "Fear 66 'not to go down to the dust of death: I will go down with thee, and I will also surely "bring thee up again." But O how reverse is it with the hoaryheaded sinner, who hath spent his days in the pursuits of sin and vanity! Conscience, that was rocked asleep in the narrow, short, bed of carnal delights, in the close of life awakeneth from her slumbers like a mighty giant, and screameth ten thousand times more terribly in the ears of the guilty soul than that owl from the ruinous tower does in * This did the great Addison when on his death-bed: grasping the hand of a young friend, he said, "See with what peace " a Christian can die !" mine; while remorse and sorrow, more fierce than the vultures of the desert, prey upon the mind, ushering in the worm which never dieth. From this learn a lesson, O my soul, to be husbanding the time well, and answering the end of thy creation, that the evening of my life be calm and serene, and I may say with the apostle, "I have fought a good fight, "I have finished my course, I have kept the "faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a 66 66 may crown of righteousness, which the Lord, "the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them "also that love his appearing." 2 Tim. iv. 7,8. How tasteless now are all the beauties of nature. The flowery meads, and delightfully chequered lawns, which but a little ago appeared in all the gaiéty of dress, charming the eye of the beholder, now shrouded in sable, please no more. Just so shall it be with all the pomp of this world in a dying hour. O that mortals would be wise in time, and chiefly seek after that which would then yield |