in the meridian hour, or the sudden extinguishment of hope when it flamed brightest in the zenith, might be regarded as a dire calamity-a sad eclipse, and we might even deem it cruel for God thus to cause the sun to go down at noon, and to darken the earth in the clear day. But as life here is but the dawn of an eternal being; as the earth is but the probationary school of a higher existence; as God's glory, and not self-interest, is man's chief end and aim, so are we debarred, by this exalted Christian philosophy, from unduly repining, or casting blame on God, when he obscures to us the greater lights which rule in the day of our moral, or social, or political firmament. He never eclipses them until they have done all their appointed work. If the sun goes down at noon, it is because that was its ordained boundary. And not only may we have this assurance, but we may add to it another, namely, that God never removes his servants from earth until the hour has arrived when he requires their service nearer to his person in heaven.

"Learn," says an old writer, "to pray moderately for the lives of Christ's people. Who can tell but what Christ and we are praying counter to one another? He may be saying in heaven, Father, I will have such an one to be with me where I am;' and we saying on earth, Lord we would have him to be with us where we are.' We saying we cannot spare him as yet;' and Christ saying I will be no longer without him.' It is the force of this prayer of Christ,

I will have them to be with me where I am,' that is the cause of the death of the godly. It is the force of this prayer that carries away so many of the saints in our day."

These are the enlarged views which it becomes us to take of what, in their earthly aspect, may be called noontide eclipses; especially when it respects our Christian relatives and friends. Every other view is narrow, unsatisfactory, and unscriptural. The coming in of death between us and the dear objects of our love and veneration, at a time when they appear to ride the highest and shine the brightest in their career of usefulness and honour, does not for ever obscure their light, or obliterate their beams, any more than the intervening moon blots out the sun, which it yet for a time hides from sight. For though these loved ones are eclipsed to us, they are not obscured to the eye of God. We cannot see them again in the flesh, for they have passed within the veil; but they are still seen, still loved by their Heavenly Father, their Ascended Savicur, their Divine Comforter. They shine with even a brighter light than before their obscuration; for they are fuller of light in themselves, and their beams are not dimmed by the clouds and vapours which so obscured their earthly lustre. There is no eclipse in heaven; the soul that once begins its lustrous glory there, will ever emit the same holy rays, with a perpetually increasing intensity of spiritual light.

STEVENS.

SCRIPTURAL SELECTIONS.

THEY meet with darkness in the day-time, and grope in the nonday as in the night.—Job, v. 14.

One dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.— Job, xxi. 23.

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better.—Philippians, i. 21, 23.

Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:

(For we walk by faith, and not by sight):

We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.-2 Cor. v. 6-9.

He has gone to his God; he has gone to his home; No more amid peril and error to roam:

His eyes are no longer dim ;

His feet will no longer falter;

No grief can follow him;

No pang his cheek can alter.

There are paleness and weeping and sighs below; For our faith is faint and our tears will flow;

But the harps of heaven are ringing;

Glad angels come to greet him,

And hymns of joy are singing,

While old friends press to meet him

O! honoured, beloved, to earth unconfined,

Thou hast soared on high, thou hast left us behind.

But our parting is not for ever,

We will follow thee by heaven's light,

Where the grave cannot dissever

The souls whom God will unite.

IV.

THE SETTING SUN.

"The shadows of the evening are stretched out."-JEREMIAH, VI. 4.

THERE is something at once grand and solemn in a

setting sun. It is the sinking to rest of the great king of day; the withdrawing from the busy world the light that has called out its activity, and the covering up with the veil of darkness the scenes that glistened with the radiance of noon.

As the sun rose in the morning, it awoke the world from slumber, and sent its teeming millions to their tasks and pleasures. As it poised itself for a moment in the meridian, it shone upon an active, bustling, lifefilled hemisphere; and now that it touches the edge of the western sky, and gradually shuts its burning eye, it proclaims a day of work ended, a night of rest advancing, the cessation of toil and business, and the coming in of quiet, sleep, and silence. This change, though so little considered, is very marvellous and striking-from brightness to darkness—from noonday with its garish light, to midnight with its sombre blackness from the din and bustle of intense activity, to the repose and silence of hushing slumber-from scenes gay and blithe in all the adornments of art, and