might make to Charon, and in imagining the very surly answers which it might suit the character of Charon to return to them. Upon farther consideration,' said he, 'I thought I might say to him, "Good Charon, I have been correcting my works for a new edition. Allow me a little time, that I may see how the public receives the alterations." But Charon would answer, "When you see the effect of these, you will be for making other alterations. There will be no end of such excuses; so, honest friend, please step into the boat." But I might still urge, "Have a little patience, good Charon: I have been endeavouring to open the eyes of the public. If I live a few years longer, I may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of the prevailing systems of superstition." But Charon would then lose all temper and decency: "You loitering rogue, that will not happen these many hundred years. Do you fancy I will grant you a lease for so long a term? Get you into the boat this instant, you lazy, loitering rogue." His "The hour of his departure had now arrived. decline being gradual, he was in his last moments perfectly sensible, and free from pain. He showed not the slightest indication of impatience or fretfulness, but conversed with the people around him in a tone of mildness and affection; and his whole conduct evinced a happy composure of mind. On Sunday, the 25th of August, 1776, about four o'clock in the afternoon, this great and amiable man expired." On this most remarkable exhibition we think there was room for the biographer to have made several observations; as, 1. Supposing a certainty of the final cessation of conscious existence at death, this indifference to life, if it was not affected, (which indeed we suspect it to have been in part,) was an absurd undervaluation of a possession which almost all rational creatures, that have not been extremely miserable, have held most dear, and which is in its own nature most precious. To be a conscious agent, exerting a rich combination of wonderful faculties, to feel an infinite variety of pleasurable sensations and emotions, to contemplate all nature, to extend an intellectual presence to indefinite ages of the past and future, to possess a perennial spring of ideas, to run infinite lengths of inquiry, with the delight of exercise and fleetness, even when not with the satisfaction of full attainment, and to be a lord over inanimate matter, compelling it to an action and an use altogether foreign to its nature, to be all this, is a state so stupendously different from that of being simply a piece of clay, that to be quite easy and complacent in the immediate prospect of passing from the one to the other, is a total inversion of all reasonable estimates of things; it is a renunciation, we do not say of sound philosophy, but of common sense. The certainty that the loss will not be felt after it has taken place, will but little soothe a man of unperverted mind in considering what it is that he is going to lose. 2. The jocularity of the philosopher was contrary to good taste. Supposing that the expected loss were not, according to a grand law of nature, a cause for melancholy and desperation, but that the contentment were rational; yet the approaching transformation was at all events to be regarded as a very grave and very strange event, and therefore jocularity was totally incongruous with the anticipation of such an event: a grave and solemn feeling was the only one that could be in unison with the contemplation of such a change. There was, in this instance, the same incongruity which we should impute to a writer who should mingle buffoonery in a solemn crisis of the drama, or with the most momentous event of a history. To be in harmony with his situation, in his own view of that situation, the expressions of the dying philosopher were required to be dignified; and if they were in any degree vivacious, the vivacity ought to have been rendered graceful by being accompanied with the noblest effort of the intellect of which the efforts were going to cease for ever. The low vivacity of which we have been reading, seems but like the quickening corruption of a mind whose faculty of perception is putrefying and dissolving even before the body. It is true that good men, of a high order, have been known to utter pleasantries in their last hours. But these have been pleasantries of a fine ethereal quality, the scintillations of animated hope, the high pulsations of mental health, the involuntary movements of a spirit feeling itself free even in the grasp of death, the natural springs and boundings of faculties on the point of obtaining a still much greater and a boundless liberty. These had no resemblance to the low and laboured jokes of our philosopher; jokes so laboured as to give strong cause for suspicion, after all, that they were of the same nature, and for the same purpose, as the expedient of a boy on passing through some gloomy place in the night, who whistles to lessen his fear, or to persuade his companion that he does not feel it. 3. Such a manner of meeting death was inconsistent with the scepticism to which Hume was always found to avow his adherence. For that scepticism necessarily acknowledged a possibility and a chance that the religion which he had scorned, might, notwithstanding, be found true, and might, in the moment after his death, glare upon him with all its terrors. But how dreadful to a reflecting mind would have been the smallest chance of meeting such a vision ! Yet the philosopher could be cracking his heavy jokes, and Dr. Smith could be much diverted at the sport. 4. To a man who solemnly believes the truth of revelation, and therefore the threatenings of Divine vengeance against the despisers of it, this scene will present as mournful a spectacle as perhaps the sun ever shone upon. We have beheld a man of great talents and invincible perseverance, entering on his career with the profession of an impartial inquiry after truth, met at every stage and step by the evidences and expostulations of religion and the claims of his Creator, but devoting his labours to the pursuit of fame and the promotion of impiety, at length acquiring and accomplishing, as he declared himself, all he had intended and desired, and descending toward the close of life amidst "Here I'll sit, for ever viewing Mercy's streams in streams of blood; Plead and claim my peace with God!” ONCE more night is o'er the plains of Judea; and the sweet garden of Gethsemane, at the foot of the mount of Olivet, is veiled by the deepening gloom. Let us now enter that garden, for thither has Jesus with his disciples gone; after he had for the last time put the cup of wine into their hands, and said, "Do this in remembrance of me." See, in one place there lie eight securely slumbering; and a little farther on three more also heavy with sleep. But where is the twelfth? That false friend is even now bargaining to betray his Divine Master into the hands of his enemies for thirty pieces of silver-and engaging for that worthless price to lead a band of ruffians to seize Him whom his open enemies dare not touch. And where is HE that was the glorious head of the twelve? Behold ONE about a stone-cast farther off-and behold, He is exceeding heavy in soul, and sorrowful even unto death! He casts himself on the ground, and in an agony cries out, "Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me-nevertheless not my will, but thine be done!" He arises, but still he is sad-very sad. Again he casts himself upon the ground, and prays in like manneragain, as before, he arises heavy and sorrowful. An angel of glory now appears to strengthen him-but strengthens him for greater suffering; for now the third time he casts himself on the ground, and whilst he again prays in an agony, his very blood falls in great drops to the earth. O Earth, Earth! this is the blood of Him who once denounced a curse against thee for man's sake-for man's sake he now endures the curse; and these drops may be to thee an earnest that thou too shalt be "delivered from the bondage of that ourse into the glorious liberty of the children of God!" (Rom. viii. 21.) He arises and returns to his friends, his only friends; but heedless of his sufferings, they are fast asleep. -Oh the keen anguish of the words, "Could ye not watch with me one hour?" But hark! the tumult of Judas' ruffian band is heard approaching very near-Jesus goeth to meet them-He stands forth full in the glare of their lanterns and torches they are confused; He saith, "I am He❞—and they fall to the ground; for it was He that once said, "Let there be light," and there was light-that gave the word, and an hundred and fourscore and five thousand of the Assyrian host lay at once lifeless on the ground. The courage of hell was in Judas' breast, for Satan was there; and the deadened feeling, the seared conscience, were his too, for he was a hypocrite. He therefore betrayed the Son of man with a kiss; and this signal being given, the multitude lay hold of Jesus, and drag him like a thief or a murderer, before the Jewish council. 66 There, as a lamb led to the slaughter, and as a sheep before his shearers," so is He dumb; they falsely accuse him, "yet He openeth not his mouth;" but when they adjure him by the living God to declare who he is, He declares himself the "Christ," the "Son of God," the "Judge of the world." Happy for them had they then believed in Him as " the LAMB of God,” ere they be compelled to stand before Him as the LION of the tribe of Judah !" Oh how shall they then tremble, if they repented not! You and I shall stand before Him; shall we also tremble? "He that trusteth in the Lord shall Have you put your heart's trust in never be confounded." 66 Jesus? They now condemn him for blasphemy; they spit on him, and buffet him; they blindfold and strike Him, and then in mockery say, 'Prophesy who did that?' Morning is come-and that sun is arisen which shall not set until he witness a scene, than which, time when it passes into eternity cannot tell of one more awful or sorrowful. Jesus is now dragged before the tribunal of Pilate, there to |