may fancy that they are Christians, and may assume the Christian name, but it is the atoning blood of Christ alone that can make the Christian's yoke easy, and his burthen light. "With what gratitude," exclaims that excellent man, Bishop Middleton, when surrounded with the horrors of Hindoo superstition, "does the Christian reflect that a 'full, perfect, and sufficient satisfaction hath been once made for the sins of the whole world!' and how ardently does he wish, that to all the world this saving truth were known! then would pilgrimages and penances, and selfinflicted tortures, and all the modes of individual expiation fall into disuse, and men would adopt a reasonable service; they would 'repent and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins,' and they would worship their Maker, in spirit and in truth.""*

Bereft of the doctrine of the atonement, the Bible becomes a dead letter. No latitude can here be allowed. Other points there are, less explicitly revealed, upon which there may be diversity of opinion, consistently with our faith as Christians. "Of this kind," Bishop Middleton thinks, "are the manner in which the prescience of God may be reconciled with human free-will; the state of departed spirits between death and the resurrection; the kind of happiness reserved for the blessed; and whether the good shall be known to each other in a future existence. On all such questions every one is at liberty to use his own judgment, provided he make not his own deductions the means of public discord." †

God forbid that any deductions of mine should be the

National Providence. A Sermon. Calcutta, Ap. 1815.

+ Visitation Sermon. June, 1809.

means of public discord! On one of the above subjects, that of an intermediate state, I have expressed myself strongly, but, I hope, not irreverently. I think it consonant with Scripture to believe that our individual consciousness will be suspended between death and the Day of Judgment; and that when we die our spirits will return to God who gave them, to be restored to us at the resurrection at the last day, when we shall be the same individuals, but changed from perishable into imperishable beings, and, as such, capable of everlasting happiness or of everlasting misery.

The absence of individual consciousness is not annihilation, as some, from the dread they express of it, seem to suppose. Do we not read, in almost every obituary, of persons taken from hence to their last account? And, in reality, the contemplation of an intermediate state of existence is little calculated to afford consolation. The pious Christian hopes, through the mercies of redeeming love, to be among the blessed at the last day; he hopes to rejoin his departed friends in heaven, and to participate with them in that everlasting state of happiness and peace which passeth understanding. We talk of the nothingness of time in comparison with eternity, but we seem to find a difficulty in realising the fact, although it is consistent with every one's experience that, under particular conditions of the body, there is no recognition of time whatever. The spirit is at home in the body until death; but, in particular states of the body, time is a mere zero, as was never more clearly shown than in the following well authenticated case of Dr. Kitto, as related in his Autobiography :

"I became deaf," he says, "on my father's birth-day, early in the year 1817, when I had lately completed the 17th year of my age. On that day I fell from the top of a ladder, a height of about thirty-five feet, into a paved court. Of what followed I know nothing, except that, for one moment, I awoke from the death-like state to which I was brought, and found that my father, attended by a crowd of people, was bearing me homewards in his arms; but I had then no recollection of what had happened, and at once relapsed into a state of unconsciousness. In this state I remained for a fortnight, as I afterwards learned. These days were a blank in my life; I could never bring any recollections to bear upon them; and when I awoke one morning to consciousness, it was as from a night of sleep. I saw that it was at least two hours later than my usual time of rising, and marvelled that I had been suffered to sleep so late. I attempted to spring up in bed, and was astonished to find that I could not even move. I was very slow in learning that my hearing was entirely gone. I saw my friends talking to one another, and thought that, out of regard to my feeble condition, they spoke in whispers, because I heard them not. The truth was revealed to me in consequence of my solicitude about a book which had been lent me prior to my accident, and which had been reclaimed by the owner.

"I asked for this book with much earnestness.

Why

do you not speak?' I cried. At length some one wrote on a slate, that the book had been returned. 'But' I said in great astonishment, 'why do you write to me? Why not speak? Speak, speak.' With concern it was soon further

written on the slate-'You are deaf.""* No one, I think, can read this statement, and doubt that the intelligent principle is capable of remaining dormant; and that, whilst in that state, it has no perception of the lapse of time. "What the kind of happiness may be which is in reserve for the blessed, or what mutual recognitions there may be among the saints in heaven, may," as Bishop Middleton has observed, "be fair matter of discussion among Christians upon earth;" and none know better than medical men, how well such topics serve to dissipate the gloom of the sick chamber, and to change it often into a scene of serenity and even of cheerfulness. How welcome they are to the religious mind, in old age, has been affectionately recorded by the Rev. G. Townsend, the friend and companion of that excellent and venerable prelate, Bishop Barington, who, for so long a period, presided over the See of Durham. "The pleasantest hours which I passed with my lamented friend were those which elapsed between the removal of supper and bed. He was ninety years of age, and he had long been accustomed to live in the constant anticipation of death. Every night he composed himself to rest, not expecting to live till the morning. The conversations, therefore, which we were accustomed to hold at this hour were always grave and serious, though uniformly cheerful. He regarded death as a man of sound judgment and Christian principles will ever do; without fear, and without rapture; with well-founded hope, though with undefinable awe; as a punishment decreed by the

*See "Early Years," vol. ii. p. 19, &c.

Almighty, yet as the introduction to a higher state of happiness than he could possibly experience in this state of being.

“The more frequent topics of our conversation were derived from the possible or probable approach of the period when the body should be committed to the ground, and the spirit return to its Maker. He delighted to dwell on these subjects. The questions which appeared to interest him most were 'whether the soul slept in the grave, with the suspension of its faculties, till it awoke on the morning of the resurrection; or whether (as he stedfastly believed) it passed, in some mysterious manner, into the more manifested presence of God, immediately upon the dissolution of the body; the nature of future happiness and misery; the continuance of the mental habits which are formed in this state, and which constitute, in some measure, our future condition; the extent of redemption; and the opposite opinions of Christians respecting the invisible state.' These and similar considerations were alternately discussed in those calm and silent hours; and he concluded by observing, 'I know not, and I care not, what may be the solution of these questions; I am in the hands of a merciful God, and I resign myself to His will with hope and patience."

Believing therefore as I do, that the sleep of to-day is a fair representation of the death of to-morrow, I shall conclude this chapter by invoking the best efforts of my humble Muse to chaunt its praise.

"Alma quies, optata veni !"