seen warning his congregation of the approach of the great destroyer.

"Death is, in itself, a most serious and distressing event. It is nature's supreme evil, the abhorrence of God's creation, a monster from whose touch every living thing recoils; so that to shrink from its ravages upon ourselves, or upon those we love, is not an argument of weakness, but an act of obedience to the first law of being a tribute to the value of that life which is our Maker's gift.

the voluptuous may read a mortifying lesson on the absurdity of sensual pleasure. Constantine the Great, in order to reclaim a miser, took a lance, and marked out a space of ground the size of the human body, and told him: "Add heap to heap, accumulatq, riches upon riches, extend the bounds of your possessions, conquer the whole world, in a few days such a spot as this will be all you will have... Death puts an end to the most specious titles, to the most dazzling grandeur, and to the most delicious life.'

A sultan, amusing himself with walking, observed a dervise sitting with a human skull in his lap, and appearing to be in a very profound reverie; hi attitude and manner surprised the sul tan, who demanded the cause of his be ing so deeply engaged in reflection. "Sire," said the dervise, "this skull was presented to me this morning, and I have from that moment been endeavoring, in vain, to discover whether it is the skull of a powerful monarch, like your majesty, or a poor dervise, like myself." A humbling consideration, truly!

The disregard which some of old affected to whatever goes by the name of evil the insensibility of others who yield up their souls to the power of fatalism, and the artificial gaiety which has occasionally played the comedian about the dying bed of "philosophy, falsely so called," are outrages upon decency and nature. "Death destroys both action and enjoyment; mocks at wisdom, strength, and beauty; disarranges our plans, robs us of our treasure, desolates our bosoms, breaks our heart-strings, blasts our hope. Death extinguishes the glow of kindness, abolishes the most tender relations of man, severs him from all he knows and loves, subjects him to an ordeal which thousands of millions have passed. but none can explain, and which will be as new to the last who gives up the When David Garrick, the celebrated ghost as it was to murdered Abel; actor, showed Dr. Johnson, the great flings him, in fine, without avail from English moralist, his fine house, garthe experience of others, into a state dens, statues, and pictures, at Hampof untried being. No wonder that na- ton Court, the Doctor, instead of giving ture trembles before it. Reason justi-him a flattering compliment, as was fies the fear. Religion never makes light of it; and he who does, instead of ranking with heroes, can hardly deserve to rank with a brute."

"The best course of moral instruction against the passions," says Saurin, "is death." The grave is a discoverer of the absurdity of sin of every kind. There the ambitious may learn the folly of ambition; there the vain may learn the vanity of all human things; there

"Earth's highest station ends in, here he lies! And dust to dust concludes her noblest song."

expected, replied: "Ah, David, David! these are the things that make a death bed terrible." At the restoration of a monarchy in England, a Fellow of one of the colleges at Cambridge represented to a friend the great difficulties of conforming, in point of conscience, to the regulations required, concluding, however, with these words: "But we must live." To which the other most appropriately answered, with the same

number of words, "but we must [also]

die!"

66

'Considering death in itself, it is," as a young writer observes, "a sad scene; and the solemnity of the scene increases as death advances. Every step the last enemy takes alarms; every fresh symptom strikes terror into the spectators, and spreads silence and gloominess through the dwelling; the disease baffles the power of medicine. They who stand by observe its progress; the dying man watches their looks; he suspects his case to be desperate. The physician at length pronounces it so; he believes it. Now the wheel of life goes down apace. The vital flame burns faint and irregular; reason intermits; short intervals of sense divide his thoughts and passions. Now himself is the object; then his family. His friends, his relations, his children crowd around his bed, shed their unavailing tears over him, and receive his last blessing. His pulse beats a surrender to the pale conqueror; his eyes swim, his tongue falters, a cold sweat bedews his face; he groans, he expires!"

about 1498, where he lived until manhood. In 1554 series of wood-cuts, about fifty n number, from Holbein's drawings, were published in Basle, entitled "Images of Death," each print being accompanied by an admonitory stanza and a quotation from the Bible. This unique specimen of art has passed through numerous editions in various languages. The American edition has a frontispiece which shows an open grave in front, to which a long procession from the city is coming, each individual being accompanied by a figure of death. The Pope is seen at the head, the emperor next, and so on, in regular gradation, according to rank.

The first four of these expressive drawings represent our first parents in various situations, from their creation till after their expulsion from Paradise. The fifth scene shows a church yard, and the porch of a church filled with an trumpets and other loud-sounding instruments, assemblage of skeletons, who are blowing evidently rejoicing in triumph. The sixt shows the Pope in the act of crowning a emperor who kneels before him. Death, how ever, from behind the throne, lays his hand upon him, who is the highest human potentate The seventh shows an emperor enthroned, with sword in hand, with his courtiers about him; a skeleton is seen bestriding the shoulders of the monarch, with his hands upon his crown. In the eighth we see a king dining under a canopy, and served by a retinue. He had in his hand a wine-cup, but does not appear to see that Death is filling it. A cardinal appears in the ninth, selling an indulgence for money. Death appears seizing his hat, the symbol of his rank, and is about to tear it from his head

Pope Eugenius IV summoned a council to meet at the city of Basle, in Switzerland, in the year 1431, which met and continued to sit for seventeen years. At this council the Pope himself and many princes were present. During this time the city was visited In the tenth design is an empress in her with a plague which carried off many however, is by her side, directing her attention palace yard, attended by the ladies Death, of the nobility; and on the cessation to an open grave. In the next, Death, in the of the distemper the surviving members guise of a court fool, has seized the queen; of the council, with a view to perpetu- she shrieks, and endeavors to free herself from ate the memory of this event, caused his grasp, but in vain. With a grin of fierce to be painted on the walls of the cem-delight he holds up his hour-glass, to show etery a Dance of Death, representing all ranks of persons as individually seized by him. The figures are all drawn in the costume or habit of the times.

Holbein, one of the great painters of the German school, was born in Basle

her that her time is expired. In the twelfth, Death carries off a bishop from his flock. In the thirteenth is an elector, or prince of the empire, who is apparently repulsing a poor woman and child from his presence. But Death, the avenger of the oppressed poor, with an iron gripe is seizing him while stand

ing among his courtiers. The abbot and the abbess are the subjects of the two next cuts. In the former, Death has assumed the miter and crosier of his victim, and drags him off with ludicrous pomp; he drags off the abbess by the scapulary which hangs about her neck.

with the wounded and slain, in the midst of which he encounters his last enemy.

A group of gamesters are next presented. Death appears to be strangling one of the company, probably designed to show one method of suicide committed by those given to games of chance. Next, a drunken German debauch, as A gentleman and a canon figure in the six- the actors appeared four centuries ago. Death teenth and seventeenth groups-the judge, the has seized one of the poor besotted creatures, advocate, and the magistrate; the vices pe- and turns the fatal liquor down his throat. culiar to these stations only are satirically Then, in succession, follow the fool, the thief, displayed. The curate is next represented; and the blind man. The fool is accompanied behind him stands Death, who holds up the by a figure of Death playing on a bagpipe; jaw of a skeleton over his head, as being the thief, or highwayman, is seen in the act more eloquent than his own. A priest and of robbing a helpless woman. Death, howmendicant friar appear next. The twenty-ever, has his bony fingers grasping the neck fourth is a youthfal nun, kneeling before the of the thief, indicative of the fate which awaits oratory in her cell. The next in order are the him. The blind man is led by a skeleton, eld woman, the physician, and astrologer. To who appears blind also. the physician, Death, as in mockery, is bringing him a patient; to the astrologer, who is looking up to a celestial sphere, Death holds up a skull before him, inviting him to contemplate that sphere before the other. The miser comes next, from whom Death snatches his gold. The merchant and mariner follow. Death takes away the merchant from his ships and merchandise, and is snapping the mast of the mariner's vessel.

The knight or soldier is represented as in a desperate conflict with Death. The count and an old man come next. A countess, while examing a new dress, is seen, with Death by her side, adjusting a collar about her neck. Death appears before the newly-married couple beating a tabor with joy. He seizes the duchess as she is sitting on her bed or couch. The next cut represents a heavy loaded porter, whom Death is taking from under his burden. The peasant, or plowman, comes next, of whose four-horse team Death is the driver. The next is an affecting scene, approaching to the strongest sympathies of the human heart. Aside from this, it shows the impartiality of Death, who

"Invades with the same step The hovels of beggars and the palaces of kings."

The mother is seen in a poor cottage preparing, with a few small sticks, a scanty meal Death enters, seizes the hand of the youngest child, who turns and stretches the other imploringly to his mother, who is frantic with grief. A battle scene between Death and a Swiss soldier is depicted; the field is covered

The forty-seventh design in this singular work is an admirable representation of a poor, decrepid beggar, forsaken by his fellow-men. Some of his limbs are withered by disease, and his body is nearly destitute of clothing. To add to his misery, a number of persons are pointing at him the finger of scorn and derision. Death is not seen near him, as he is with the other characters represented. This circumstance has puzzled the critics and antiquarians, who asked what was the reason of the omission. It might be to show that to him to whom Death would be a relief, Death oftentimes seems to delay his coming.

Among the four last scenes that are represented, is one showing the husband and wife. Death is seen leading away the husband by part of his dress, which he has seized and thrown over his shoulder. The wife has her hand grasped by Death, who is taking her away, unmindful of her tears. The work ends, as a connected series, with a representation, partly figurative and partly literal, of what will take place at the consummation of all things. Christ, the Conqueror of Death, and final Judge of all, attended with the hosts above, appears in the clouds of heaven seated on the bow of Promise. The celestial sphere showing the ecliptic, with the signs of the zodiac, the earth in the center, etc., is seen beneath the Judge, thus showing that all worlds are under him, and that he views them all at one glance. An assemblage of human beings, apparently just raised from their graves, stand before their Judge, to be dealt with according to the deeds done in the body.

Woe unto them that put darkness for light, and light for darkness.
Isa. v: 20.- Speaking lies is hypocrisy. 1 Tim. IV: 2.-He
that speaketh lies shall perish. Prov. XIX: 9.

BEHOLD the Lying Demon thus disgrace
The robes of truth-she hides her hideous face
Behind a mask, and in her hand she bears
The broken mirror, which distorted wears
False images, most like her own deceit.
The weeping Crocodile beneath her feet;
The nisnamed globes of darkness and of light,
To which her lying lips direct the sight;

The Lying Demon is here represented | by a hideous figure dressed somewhat in the resemblance of Truth. She wears a mask to hide the deformity of her features. She holds up a mirror, it is true, but it is broken, which reflects every thing in a distorted and disjointed manner. Two hemispheres are exhibited, one light, the other dark; she

Truth's sacred records trampled under foot,
And man's vain theories, their substitute,
While o'er her flies the dusky bird of night,
Emblem of deeds that dare not meet the light
False infidelity upholds her form,
Soon to be swept before the rising storm;
All these her hideous character declare,
And each some token of deception bear.

points to the latter, and calls it light By her side is seen the crocodile, who is uttering a cry of distress, for the purpose of drawing other animals within its reach, so that it may devour them; it is, therefore, properly an emblem of lying and of fraud.

The demon is shown trampling the records of truth under her feet; she bas

various masks at hand to be worn on The evil and injustice of this crime certain occasions. By her side are va-appears, first, from its being a breach of rious infidel works, among which are the natural and universal right of all those of Paine, Voltaire; also, the book men to truth in the intercourse of speech; of Mormon. Above her flies the bat, second, for its being a violation of God's the bird of night, the emblem of dark-law; third, the faculty of speech was ness. The Lying Demon stands on the bestowed on us as an instrument of sandy foundation of Atheism and Infidel- knowledge, not of deceit; to communiity, which the rising storm and flood cate our thoughts, not to hide them; will sweep away with the besom of de-fourth, it has a tendency to dissolve all struction.

Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. All men must acknowledge lying to be one of the most scandalous sins | that can be committed between man and man—a crime of a deep dye and of an extensive nature, leading into innumerable sins-for lying is practiced to deceive, to injure, betray, rob, destroy, and the like. Lying, in this sense, is the concealment of all other crimes-the sheep's clothing upon the wolf's back, the pharisee's own prayer, the harlot's blush, the hypocrite's paint, the murderer's smile, the thief's cloak, and Judas' kiss. In a word, it is the devil's distinguished characteristic.

Lying is defined by Paley, "as a breach of promise, for whoever seriously addresses his discourse to another, tacitly promises to speak the truth, because he knows that truth is expected. There are various kinds of lies: first, the pernicious lie, uttered for the hurt or disadvantage of our neighbor; second, the officious lie, uttered for our own or our neighbor's advantage; third, the ludicrous and jocose lie, uttered by way of jest, and only for mirth's sake, in common converse; fourth, pious frauds, as they are improperly called, pretended inspirations, forged books, counterfeit miracles, are species of lies; fifth, lies of the conduct, for a lie may be told in gestures as well as in words; sixth, lies of omission, as when an author willfully omits what ought to be related; and may we not all admit, seventh, that equivocation and mental reservation come under the guilt of lying.

society; fifth, the punishment of it is great, the hatred of those whom we have deceived, and an eternal separation from God in the world to come.

Truth is always consistent with itself, and needs nothing to help it out. It is always near at hand, sits upon our lips, and is ready to drop out before we are aware; whereas a lie is troublesome, sets a man's imagination upon the rack, and before it gets over half its journey needs many more to hold it up from the ground. It is like a building upon a false foundation, which continually needs props to shore it up, and which proves at last more expensive than to have raised a substantial building at first upon a true and solid foundation. The crafty man is always in danger; and when he thinks he walks in the dark, all his pretenses are so transparent that he that runs may read them. He thinks he is making fools of others, but instead makes the greatest fool of himself.

"Almost every other vice," says an excellent writer, "may be kept in countenance by applause and association; even the robber and cut-throat have their followers, who admire their address and intrepidity, their stratagems of rapine, and their fidelity to the gang; but the liar is universally despised, abandoned, and disowned. He has no domestic consolations which he can oppose to the censure of mankind. He can retire to no fraternity where his crimes may stand in the place of virtues; but is given up to the hisses of the multitude without a friend, without an apologist." "The very devils," says