tears of infants and those of the aged, the reader cannot be altogether a stranger; occasions for observations on both perpetually occur. Certainly you were unconscious of your own pains and tears in infancy, and can be no personal witness of the anxious care and tenderness of your parents when they clasped you to their bosoms, and assuaged your grief. But it is more than probable you have had children of your own, and by their infirmities, pains, and tears, they gave you many a sleepless night, which taught you to know something of your own state of helpless infancy, and at the same time cherished your gratitude to the venerated memory of your indulgent parents. But now you are not insensible that in your infirm age, you are realizing the whole in your own person, for old age is little else than a return of the weeping babe! A sense of this cannot fail to produce a long train of pious reflections, and elevate your gratitude to God, and with David you will acknowledge, By thee have I been holden up from the womb: thou art he that took me out of my mother's bowels: my praise shall be continually of thee; cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth, Psalm 1xxi. 6, 9. Thus by devout meditation you may mingle the tears of your infancy with those of your age, and thereby produce a sort of anodyne to compose your discomposed spirit into the will of the Lord. It is well known by almost every aged person, that in the strength and activity of life, there are many refreshments and earthly comforts we could readily have dispensed with, but under the feebleness of age, they are more highly desirable. Should the aged reader enjoy a full cup of such comforts, it certainly demands his most devout gratitude to God for his distinguishing goodness. However, you need not go far from your home to find many aged and infirm persons that once saw days of prosperity, but by a series of misfortunes have been led into the gloomy shades of adversity. Some of these may have been humble and devout followers of the Lamb of God, and in their prosperity were kind benefactors to the poor; nor is it uncommon to find an aged weather-beaten minister of the Gospel laid upon the bed of poverty. To an aged Christian who enjoys more than a competency, what a luxury must it be to his heart, to remember such necessitous poor, send them relief, and thus wipe away their tears! No motives can be stronger to such benevolent actions, than the feeling of his own infirmities, and a sense of the loving-kindness of the Lord to his soul; and if such be the temporal and spiritual comforts of the reader, may he, in the name of the compassionate Saviour, go and do likewise. Should this essay happen to meet the eye of a youth, it is hoped that from this comparison between the tears of infants and those of the aged, he may find an additional argument to teach him his obligation to love and revere his parents for nourishing him with so much care, and appeasing the tears of his grief in his state of helpless infancy. My young friend, if your parents are now in a state of infirmity, the recollection of the subject of this paper will give an additional excitement to your affections, and prompt you to soothe their last conflicts to the grave by every means you can possibly possess. Young persons are too apt to be inattentive to the wants and tears of the aged; but from this hour I hope you may possess those tender feelings, that you may know how to "pity the sorrows "of a poor old man." And stronger still will this subject enforce upon your mind the important injunction of Solomon, to Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. Ecclesiastes xii. 1. DOZING BEFORE SLEEP EXEMPLIFIES The lingering Death of Man. A deeper shade will soon impend, The deeper shade shall fade away, The deeper sleep shall leave my eyes; Thy love the rapture of the skies! Hawkesworth. DID man possess an anxious solicitude to learn the appendages to his own mortality, there are a thousand things attached to himself, which are calculated to afford him information. Sleep, we all acknowledge, is the Scripture emblem of death; and in those to whom a lingering death is assigned, there are certain changes which gradually appear, bearing strong marks of approaching dissolution, analogus to a man's dozing before he falls into sleep. These are visible in the last stages of fatal sickness, and equally, if not more so, in an aged person, when nature is dissolving and yielding to the sleep of death; and as this comparison is so strong and seriously instructive, we will devote a few pages to its consideration. A person returning from a journey, or a labourer from the fatigues of the day, will seat himself in the chair of ease, for the purpose of rest. If you observe such a person, you will perceive a gradual process conducting him to sleep. He first feels a lassitude, and complains of weariness in his animal frame. His attention to surrounding objects gently withdraws, and his thoughts become so confused, that the conversation of others is uninteresting, or partially unintelligible. The passions too insensibly grow calm, and become indifferent to every person and thing around him. You will next perceive nature gradually yielding to slumber, the countenance changes, the eyes wink, open and shut involutarily, and he finds it impossible to keep them open. The head, incapable of supporting itself, nods and totters; and the nearer sleep approaches, it falls yet lower, and secks a resting place. But all this is not sleep, it is only the prelude to an actual state of sleep, when body and mind become unconscious. This description is so obvious, that none can possibly call it in question, neither are there any but what have observed and felt these sensations numberless times, when nature dictated the necessity of sleep. What a strong resemblance is this to a person in the last stages of mortal sickness, and how much |