became daily more impaired, the colors became more faint, and were remitted inward, with a certain crackling sound, but at present every species of illumination being, as it were, extinguished, there is diffused around me nothing but darkness, or darkness mingled and streaked with an ashy brown. Yet the darkness in which I am perpetually immersed, seems always, both by night and day, to approach nearer to white than black; and when the eye is rolling in its socket, it admits a little parcel of light as through a chink. And though your physician may kindle a small ray of hope, yet I make up my mind to the malady as quite incurable; and I often reflect, that, as the wise man admonishes, days of darkness are destined to each of us. The darkness which I experience, less: oppressive than that of the tomb, is owing to the goodness of the Deity, passed amid the pursuits of literature, and the cheering salutations of friendship. As if, as is written, "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God," why may not any one acquiesce in the privation of his sight, when God has so amply furnished his mind and conscience with eyes? While he so tenderly provides for me, while he so graciously leads me by the hand, and conducts me on the way, I will, since it is his pleasure, rather rejoice than repine at being blind. And my dear Philaria, whatever may be the event, I wish you adieu with no less courage and composure than if I had the eyes of a lynx." While this great man was thus enclosed in impenetrable darkness, speaking of his eyes, he says, "So little do they betray an external appearance of injury, that they are as unclouded and bright as the eyes of those who most distinctly see. In. this instance alone I a am dissembler against my will." THE VISION OF GOD IN GLORY. You see, indeed, no form or shape; and yet your whole soul perceives, with intuitive clearness and certainty, the immedi-ate awe-inspiring presence of Jehovah. You see no countenance; and yet you feel as if a countenance of awful majesty, in which all the perfections of divinity shone forth, were beaming upon you wherever you turn. You see no eye; and yet a piercing, heart-searching eye, an eye of Omnipotent purity, every glance of which goes through your souls like a flash of lightning, seems to look upon you from every point of surround ing space. You feel as if enveloped in an atmosphere, or plunged in an ocean of existence, intelligence, perfection and glory; an ocean of which your laboring minds can, take in only a drop; an ocean, the depth of which you cannot fathom, and the breadth of which you can never explore. But while you feel utterly unable to comprehend this infinite Being, your views of Him, as far as they extend, are perfectly clear and distinct. You have the most vivid perceptions, the most deeply engraven impressions of an infinite, eternal, spotless mind, in which the images of all things, past, present and to come, are most harmoniously seen arranged in the most perfect order, and defined with the nicest accuracy; of a mind which will with infinite ease, but whose volitions are attended by a power omnipotent and irresistible, and which sows worlds, suns and systems through the fields of space with far more facility than the husbandman scatters his seed upon the earth—of a mind, whence have flowed all the streams which ever wartered any part of the universe with life, intelligence, holiness and happiness, and which is still full, overflowing and inexhaustible. You perceive also, with equal clearness and certainty, that his infinite, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, all-wise, allcreating mind is perfectly and essentially holy, a pure flame of holiness, and that as such, he regards sin with unutterable, irreconcilable detestation and abhorrence. With a voice which reverberates through the wide expanse of his dominions, you hear him saying, as the Sovereign and Legislator of the universe, be ye holy; for I the Lord your God am holy. And you see this throne surrounded, you see heaven filled by those only who perfectly obey this command. You see thousands of thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand of angels and archangels, pure, exalted intelligences, who reflect his perfect image, burn like flames of fire with zeal for his glory, and seem to be so many concentrations of wisdom, knowledge, holiness and love; a fit retinue for the thrice holy Lord of Hosts, whose holiness and all-filling glory they unceasingly proclaim-Pay son's Sermons. EPIGRAM: WRITTEN AFTER BURNING SOME OF THE WORKS OF VOLTAIRE. Heaped on my hearth the motley ashes lie Of VOLTAIRE's blasphemy; Part white as the noary scoundrel's head, and part Black as his heart: |