shall Soon be Hying. ANONYMOUS. АH! I shall soon be dying, He once, a spotless victim, And bruise him in my stead; Hence all my hope arises, Unworthy as I am; My soul most surely prizes Soon, with the saints in glory, The grateful song I'll raise, 25 And chant my blissful story The Loss of Memory. ANONYMOUS. How impaired the memory becomes as we advance in years! We are constantly forgetting the little occurrences of everyday life, and our past history sometimes appears to us like an indistinct and troubled dream. The friends and associates of our youth fade from our recollection, and we are frequently unable to recall even the names which they bore. It is true that an aged person will sometimes manifest as clear and as tenacious a memory as is possessed by any one around him, but his case is a peculiar one, and does not warrant others to expect that they will be similarly favoured. For loss of memory is a common and natural infirmity of old age; and we must not be surprised, and we ought not to be impatient, at this indication, among many others, of our mortality. The present world is not our rest, although we are too prone to live as if it were so; and our failing strength and weakened faculties are kind and neces sary remembrancers of our actual position here. And not only do they remind us that we have reached the evening of life, and should prepare for the dawn of immortality, but they tend to assist us in making that preparation, by withdrawing us from the arduous and engrossing occupations of the world, and by gradually weaning us from our natural attachment to this present state of existence. Our feeble powers, both of body and mind, unfit us for the busy engagements into which we once entered so heartily, and in our retirement from the active duties of life we have opportunity for meditation and reflection; while the privations and trials to which we are subjected incline us to say with the afflicted patriarch, "I would not live alway;" and thus make us willing to depart. The failure of memory is, however, very trying and inconvenient; and it is a loss which cannot be repaired. My memory fails day by day," writes a Christian lady in her seventieth year to her sister. "I cannot remember where I put anything, no, not for an hour; and though the inconvenience might be prevented by having a place for everything, and being careful to put everything in its proper placea rule good in every time of life-it is frustrated by my forgetting that I forget. No person can conceive the trial this is but they who have experienced it. It is equally distressing with regard to circumstances and dates. I must make a memorandum of everything; and then I lose the memorandum, or mislay the book in which I note down things of importance. However, I have mercies great and numerous to balance, and infinitely more than balance this; my life is hid with Christ in God; my Jesus is my surety that all will be well: he forgets not. All my concerns are in his hands; he will manage all, perfect all, finish all." Oh, amidst the changes and the imperfections which are incidental to the present life, how full of comfort is the thought that Jesus forgets not! He ever remembers his people, and retains the liveliest interest in their minutest concerns. "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget; yet will I not forget thee."* No lapse of time can enfeeble or destroy his perfect and perpetual cognizance of our affairs. And although our memories are rapidly failing, although they are unable now to fulfil the trust which we once reposed in them, they can still gratefully recall the Saviour's precious name, and ardently cherish the recollection of his unspeakable love. * Isa xlix. 15. |