of the bystanders as chose to participate in its reception. Our poor friend had been too regular and exemplary a member of the Church in which he had been brought up, for us not to cherish the consolatory hope that in his case, as in that of many thousand others, sincerity, even in error, may be accepted by an all merciful God in the stead of a more perfect knowledge of the only true religion. The indulgence, indeed, of such an aspiration, can alone enable us to gaze upon the closing moments of those in whom, while entertaining the warmest personal interest, we at the same time feel, from the recollection of their former religious prejudices, that to attempt at that supreme hour to allay them would be an act of utter hopelessness and temerity.

With the departure of the minister of religion, following too upon that of the medical attendants, the curtain seems indeed about to drop. But the domestic tragedy is not yet over. Its most painful part has still to be enacted, and long hours to be passed by a bedside of mortal extremity, uncheered by the slightest hope of giving alleviation, and yet during the lapse of which, the wife would not forgive herself were she for one moment to forsake the post assigned to her alike by love and duty, where she is for ever at hand to smooth the pillow, and return the feeble grasp, and peradventure catch the last gleam of fond intelligence that may break from the closing eyes of her expiring husband. And the lazy hours drag their slow length along; evening again comes on, and the energies of nature, driven within her last intrenchments, still wage desperate conflict with the powers of death. What a contrast between that second and the night which had preceded it! Then, although anxiety enough had prevailed in the sick chamber, it had still been tempered by hope. An air of comfort had still reigned there, the brightly burning lamp, the blazing fire, the patient resting on his well-propped pillows, the periodical administration of medicines from which benefit might accrue, were so many distractions that kept the thoughts at bay; now all contributes to concentrate them on one fatal object, the rapidly approaching end of a beloved fellow-being.

The lights burn dimly in the darkened chamber, the neglected fire sends forth a dull lurid glare; no sounds are heard, save the hard and deep-drawn breathings of the dying man, and the stifled sobs of her who kneels beside him: the door is wide open, that the night breeze may fan the sweat of death, and in a kind of spell-bound silence the servants of the household stand motionless about the room, gazing upon their master in his agony.

There too may be seen the hired nurse, inured by the apprenticeship of a score of years to such scenes of misery, endeavouring to assume an air of maudlin sorrow and sympathy, while she is inwardly calculating the perquisites that are likely to accrue to her from the "job" in which she is embarked,—with much of the same spirit that actuates the hangman on whom some time dishonoured right of prescription confers a property in the garments of the victim whom the law has employed him to immolate, the crone is meditating how she shall successfully lay claim to the bed-clothes and apparel in which that still living being shall breathe his last.

But morning has again dawned-a day which for the tenant of that melancholy room, and for how many others, alas! in the wide world besides, will have no sunset! In the very breath of the dying man, as its convulsive heavings seem to struggle with the death rattle, an exhalation is observable, not to be mistaken, that tells of mortality and the grave! His hour is come,-respiration is arrested, as at the sudden beck of some mighty magician. Though propped high in bed, the body sinks, as if all that supported it were at once giving way; the head falls back, the jaws collapse, a livid pallor overspreads every feature; an immortal spirit hath passed to judgment, and the fleshly covering it had so well loved to tenant, is a cold and inanimate corpse !

Revisit an hour hence the chamber of death, how changed its aspect! Total calm has succeeded to the turmoil of the parting scene, the disorder which during such a moment had prevailed, has given place to a kind of chilly, cheerless tidiness; the room has been "swept and garnished," and upon that smoothed couch, so recently rumpled by the contortions of a dying man, his remains now lie stretched out in that attitude of perfect repose, and with that expression of solemn beauty, which appertain to the dead alone. We gaze with respect and awe, but without any horrific feeling upon that lifeless form, so placid the expression, so exquisite the moulding of those wan features: lineaments of which the play of human passion had disturbed the economy, may now in the utter stillness of death be contemplated under an aspect which reveals in all its perfection the chiselling of nature's great statuary.

Strange, that the trappings of upholstery, with which the usages of civilized life environ the relics of human mortality, should be more fearful to gaze upon than death itself.-Yet so it would seem to be. The aspect of the pale corse alone had excited no other feelings

than those of sorrow and sympathy, not unmingled with a degree of awe-stricken admiration. Laid in its bier, the half-opened lid revealing the upper part alone of the body, and the livid white of the pillow that supports, and trimmings that bedeck the head and chest of the dead man, contrasting with the blackness of the coffin, and the velvet pall that falls in ample folds of lugubrious drapery over its lower extremety, the spectacle impresses the beholder with a kind of creeping and shuddering sensation that clings thereafter to memory like a dread and dismal dream.

It is, perhaps, when in attendance upon a death-bed, that we who have the happiness of knowing, best learn how to feel the truth of our religion. Throughout life's varied paths, Catholic and Protestant greet and jostle each other, discuss or forget their respective differences, and virtually attach less importance to the prospects of a future, because all so profoundly absorbed in the pursuits of the present life but bring men face to face with the great destroyer, and we shall then find whose armour is best tempered for the inevitable encounter. Is there any one of all who have the interests of a future state at heart, who, however regular and decorous may have been his general habits of life, would not at the close of his days feel more ready to regard himself, and be regarded as a grievous sinner, than as a child of election? In the one character, he humbly sues and hopes for mercy, in the other, how imminent the peril of selfpresumption! Yet the instructions set apart in Protestant formularies for the visitation of the sick, contain no urgent calls to repentance, no expression of grievous sorrow for past offences, no ardent aspirations for forgiveness; they are couched rather in the most soothing tones of highly-wrought religious tenderness, and seem based on the too often gratuitous assumption, that the patient to whom they are addressed, has never strayed from the practice or been wanting in the fervour of piety. No confession of sin is required of him, he is admitted, as a matter of course, to participation of a Sacrament which he has, perhaps, not approached for many years, and peradventure dies on better terms with himself, and worse with GOD, than if, roused by more stirring exhortations to repentance, he had taken a more strict and less complacent self-retrospect. Is there not again something awful in the dread yet inevitable alternative, which the creed of Protestants necessarily involves with respect to the fate of those dying in their communion. For, rejecting the holy and consoling doctrine of a middle state, their hopes or fears must

necessarily consign the departing soul at once to heaven or hell! Now of whom amongst us, can we with inward confidence believe that he has been found worthy straightways to pass from the contaminating turmoil of the world, to the blissful enjoyment of GOD? while, on the other hand, we cannot without feeling abhorrent to our very nature, adopt the contrary supposition, that he has been sentenced to everlasting perdition. Yet every Protestant finds himself placed on the horns of this distracting dilemma, that considers the future fate of his dying relative or friend. When once the spirit has quitted the body, all tie between it and the kindred it had left is severed for ever! The survivor may not believe that his prayers might still aid the soul which has fled! his stern and frigid creed bids him reject all further thought of pious love for the departed one, and so forfeit the greatest, the only real consolations, of which bereavement is susceptible.

O let us turn from such a picture, to the death-bed of one who prepares to leave the world in the bosom of that faith, which alone holds "Communion of Saints" with the blessed denizens of heaven! The visit of the priest has been employed in suggesting to the mind of his dying penitent every conceivable motive of horror for and contrition for past sin, in aiding him to make a full confession of his offences, and in pronouncing over him those healing words of absolution, of which, if his disposition be that of sincere repentance, Christ himself has promised the ratification in heaven. Annealed, and freed from the burthen of his iniquity, the dying man may now with some hope and confidence receive into the tabernacle of his body the adorable sacrament of the body and blood of our Redeemer, and as his end draws near, the "Prayer of Faith," and the “ Anointing with oil in the name of the Lord," in strict conformity with apostolic precept, still further steel his soul for an encounter with the powers of death. He breathes his last, but the ministry of his faithful friends is not at an end, their " occupation is not gone:" In ardent prayers for the repose of his soul, they find at once a vent and solace for their grief; the very mortuary chaunts of the Dies Ira" and "De Profundis" bring hope and comfort to their minds. The connection between them and the departed is not broken, it has only become a more tender and holy tie, associated with, and hallowed by moments of retirement and prayer.

66

C.

CONTRASTS.

It was an able and ingenious thought in one of our distinguished living architects, which prompted him to illustrate the relative spirit of Catholic and Protestant times, in a work which graphically displayed the contrasts between the religious edifices of the past, and those of the present day. It were impossible for the most prejudiced eye to "look here upon this picture, and on that," as faithfully delineated by the pencil of the eminent antiquarian and draftsman above referred to, without reluctantly acknowledging a striking difference in the characteristic styles of the two epochs, whether we take such points of comparison as the gorgeous cathedral of York, and the vast but Pagan-like temple of Sir Christopher Wren, or an antique market cross, rich in Gothic tracery and pious imageries, and a stone lamp-post erected to the memory of a deceased alderman. The same subject may with advantage be pursued with regard to many other points of utter discrepancy existing between the former and the present state of things in this our once happy country. The enquiry might lead to a more accurate than favourable estimate of the boasted advantages alleged to have accrued to the community by what men are pleased to call "the Reformation," but which in the blunt sincerity of our hearts we think may more accurately be designated as the great moral leprosy with which for purposes inscrutable to mortal foresight, the Almighty chose to afflict and desolate the fairest portion of His Church towards the latter part of the sixteenth century. A few of such salient matters of contrast as occur to our minds, we will take leave to signalise.

In the days of Catholic England, no diversities of faith and doctrine distracted and disunited the minds of the people: all believed in the great, and saving, and self-same truths of salvation, transmitted pure and unchanged from apostolic times, and were knit together by the firm bond of spiritual allegiance to the venerable and uncontested authority of St. Peter's chair. Now the Church of England, with no other guarantee for stability than the capricious authority of parliament, dares not even for those who profess to be enrolled within her pale, claim any unanimity or certainty of opinion: witness the old standing divisions of high and low Church,