Fly fearless through death's iron gate,
Nor feel the terrors as she passed.

Jesus can make a dying bed

Feel soft as downy pillows are,

While on his breast I lean my head,

And breathe my life out sweetly there.

Watts.

A SIGHT OF HEAVEN IN SICKNESS.

OFT have I sat in secret sighs,

To feel my flesh decay,

Then groan'd aloud with frighted eyes,

To view the tottering clay.

But I forbid my sorrows now,
Nor dares the flesh complain;
Diseases bring their profits too;
The joy o'ercomes the pain.

My cheerful soul now all the day
Sits waiting here and sings;
Looks through the ruins of her clay,

And practises her wings.

Faith almost changes into sight,

While from afar she spies

Her fair inheritance in light,

Above created skies.

Had but the prison walls been strong,
And firm without a flaw,

In darkness she had dwelt too long,
And less of glory saw.

But now the everlasting hills

Through every chink appear, And something of the joy she feels, While she's a prisoner here.

The beams of heaven rush sweetly in

At all the gaping flaws; Visions of endless bliss are seen,

And native air she draws.

O may these walls stand tottering still,
The breaches never close,
If I must here in darkness dwell,
And all this glory lose!

Or rather let this flesh decay,
The ruins wider grow,

Till, glad to see th' enlarged way,

I stretch my pinions through.

MORTALITY.

So the multitude goes-like the flower and the weed
That wither away to let others succeed;

So the multitude comes-even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that hath often been told.

For we are the same things that our fathers have been,
We see the same sights that our fathers have seen,
We drink the same stream, and we feel the same sun,
And we run the same course that our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think, From the death we are shrinking from, they too would shrink,

To the life we are clinging to, they too would clingBut it speeds from the earth like a bird on the wing.

They loved-but their story we cannot unfold;

They scorned-but the heart of the haughty is cold, They grieved—but no wail from their slumbers may

come,

They joyed-but the voice of their gladness is dumb.

They died-ay, they died! and we things that are now, Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow, Who make in their dwellings a transient abode, Meet the changes they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea, hope and despondence, and pleasure and pain, Are mingled together like sunshine and rain;

And the smile and the tear and the song and the dirge, Still follow each other like surge upon surge.

'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud— O why should the spirit of mortal be proud!

Knox.

TIME IS SHORT.

THE time is short! the season near,
When death will us remove

To leave our friends, however dear,
And all we fondly love.

The time is short! sinners, beware,

Nor trifle time away;

The word of great salvation hear,
While it is call'd to-day.

The time is short! ye rebels, now
To Christ the Lord submit ;
To mercy's golden sceptre bow,

And fall at Jesus' feet.

The time is short! ye saints rejoice

The Lord will quickly come :

Soon shall you hear the Bridegroom's voice,
To call you to your home.

The time is short! it swiftly flies-
The hour is just at hand,

When we shall mount above the skies,
And reach the wish'd for land.

The time is short!-the moment near,

When we shall dwell above;

And be forever happy there,

With Jesus, whom we love.

Hoskins.

DEATH UNCERTAIN.

COME, O my soul, look up and see
How swift the moments run!
Swift as the wheel of time whirls round
My closing day brings on.

Some busy hand perhaps this hour
Is weaving fast my shroud ;-
Soon hoary winter will draw on,
And freeze life's vital flood.

Few clocks, for aught I know, may strike

Before my fun'ral knell,

Which by its doleful sounding tongue,

Shall my departure tell.

When the grim king of terrors calls

May I triumphant stand;