when a professed believer in Christ stands moralizing among graves. It is a sad thing to tell man that he must die, without pointing out to him the way to the everlasting mansions; and à profitless thing, for the most part, for the reasons just given.

Those, then, are the best epitaphs which bring down a light from heaven to irradiate the darkness of the tomb, as did the two angels seen at Easter-morn in the Sepulchre by the highly favoured Mary. The shortest inscriptions over the remains of the early Christians in the Catacombs (“In Peace” and “In Christ") are more eloquent in their brevity, than all the flatteries which vainly strive to “soothe the dull cold ear of death" in our churches and churchyards. These three lines, on a seventeenth century monument in the chancel of a church in the north of England, may be read with pleasure :

“Here lyes the Casket, but the Jewel's gone,
Guarded by Angels to the Almighty's Throne,

To rest, for ever, with the Three in One.” And there is sound Christian truth in the following short epitaphs :

“Behold, vain man, in every tomb,

The sinner's just and certain doom;
Then look to Him, who died to save,-

Jesus ! the conqueror of the grave."
“Let no proud stone with sculptured honours rise

To mark the grave wherein a sinner lies;
But, if some stone must mark a sinner's grave,
Record His name who died our souls to save."
“ Oh! let thy life, while here below,

Be hid with Christ above;
Then death shall lead thee forth to know

The fulness of His love."
“ They only who the promised land espy,

Can leave the wilderness without a sigh.”
“Believer, shrink not from thy doom ;

Where are the terrors of the tomb ?
Oh! look, and be not thou dismayed,

See where thy Lord for thee was laid.”
“Now seek, through Christ, thy soul to save :

There's no repentance in the grave.”
“ To live for Christ, in Christ to die-

This is redemption from on high."
“ Hear thou the voice from heaven—the voice that cried :

Write in the pages of eternal truth,
Blessed are the dead who have in Jesus died,

In age, in manhood, or in early youth.”* * From “Voices from the Tombs,” by the Rev. B. Ritchings; a work from which we have derived some interesting information, and which clergymen would find useful for reference for suitable monumental inscriptions, texts, &c.

But no words of man can speak to the heart as the words of God can do. And every monumental inscription should comprise one or more suitable texts of Scripture. Such are especially interesting when they were chosen beforehand by the deceased, or selected by his friends, because especial favourites of his in his lifetime. Of the latter class is the beautiful verse engraved on the memorial of that eminently useful man, the late Rev. W. C. Wilson, of Casterton : « Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” (Rev. i. 5.) An example of the former class is afforded by the text inscribed, by his own particular desire, on the tomb of the pious and humble Bishop Daniel Wilson: “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Where no such special circumstances direct survivors in their choice of a passage of Scripture, they will do well to select one speaking of the Atonement, of the Resurrection, or of the Life Everlasting Texts which seem to appropriate the blessings of salvation to the departed should only be used on the memorials of the pious; in other and less happy cases, one should be chosen instead, which offers them to general acceptance. There are a few texts which appear to us suitable for the monuments of departed Christians, which we cannot recollect to have seen so employed : we will therefore insert them here for our readers to consider. “As for Thee also, by the blood of Thy covenant I have sent forth Thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water. Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope.” (Zech. ix. 11, 12.) “God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him.” (1 Thes. v.9, 10.) And these two in conjunction, as mutually explanatory : “I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me à people.” (Heb. viii. 10.) “He is not a God of the dead, but of the living : for all live unto Him." (Luke xx. 38.) Or again : “ If we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.” (Rom. vi. 5.)

Nor let any one think it a matter of small consequence to exercise care in choosing texts of Scripture, or sacred stanzas for the tombs of the departed. The idler, loitering in the churchyard may be aroused by one of these short “Sermons in stones,' to give attentive heed to that about to be preached within the sacred walls. By them may be consoled the mourner as he lingers near some dear one's grave. These silent monitors may quicken all to watchfulness and prayer. Whether we stand among the graves on some calm autumn day, and mark the falling leaves, which have symbolized, from Homer downwards, the fading life of man; or whether we rest among the

tombs when the bee is busy amid the lime blossoms overhead, the holy words which meet our eye will help us to feel, as Keble says, that

“ Tuneable as their sweet song,

And gentle as the honied flowers
Thev haunt and cherish, is the throng

Of thoughts within these hallowed bowers :
On every gale that stirs the rew

They flat, and glisten in each drop of morning dew."
Wbilst we

“ Wearied lean Upon the wicket gate and tell

Our tale of playmates gone before us here to dwell," — of friends with whom we walked of old to the house of God; of pastors who now only speak to us by their memory; of those dear to us as our own soul, who travel by our side no longer, -let the Word be very nigh us, to pour balm into our wounds, and to bid us follow the faith of the departed; reminding us, when life's changes pain us most, of One who changes not, even “ Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for

ever."

The testimony of that eminent servant of God,* the Rev. Charles Simeon, proves how useful a pious inscription on a gravestone may be made. “It was in July, 1783,” says this excellent and kind man, “I was waiting in Horsleydown churchyard for a corpse, which I was engaged to bury, and for my amusement I was reading the epitaphs upon the tombstones. Having read very many which would bave been as suitable for Jews or heathens as for the persons concerning whom they were written, I at last came to one that characterized a Christian :

· When from the dust of death I rise,
To claim my mansion in the skies,
E'en then shall this be all my plea-

Jesus hath liv'd and died for me.'” Mr. Simeon proceeds to say, that observing a young woman similarly employed to himself, he called her to him, and drew her special attention to these simple and touching lines. She told him that she was in great distress ; her health was ruined, she could no longer support her own little children, nor the aged mother who also depended upon her. Mr. Simeon conversed with her, tried to turn her eyes to Him who says, “ Come unto me all ye who labour and are heavy laden,” &c., and asked for her address. He visited her, found her tale as true as it was

med to believe ihe fatherlesst her care rted and impless though

sad, and befriended her and her children henceforward in every way. When he had visited this afflicted family twice, the young woman said to him that the interview with him, already described, in the churchyard, had been the means of saving her from committing suicide! Helpless and hopeless though she was, the good man's words comforted and impressed her; she became able to commit her care to God, to know Him as the Father of the fatherless, and the Husband of the widow, and to believe in Jesus as her Saviour. Thirty years after,* speaking of this affecting circumstance, Mr. Simeon said, “If my whole life had been spent without any other compensation than this, my labours had been richly recompensed.”

Alas ! how many, even Christian people, lose such opportunities of doing good! How few remember, “A word in season, how good is it!”

In conclusion, our prayer for ourselves and our readers is, that we may get to look on death more and more as did the early Christians, whose sentiments, as expressed by Prudentius in some stanzas of his celebrated funeral hymn, we offer translated for their acceptance.f May we be, as they were, mindful,

* Over the remains of this venerable servant of God an inscription, suggested by himself, denotes how Christ crucified was the great subject of his teaching and preaching, and the ground of his own hopes for eternity.

+ Aurelius Prudentius : “ In Exequiis Defunctorum.”
O God of living souls, the fount of fire,

Who didst two elements conjoin in one
To mould for life and death at once, great Sire,

Man, thine immortal and yet mortal son ;
Thine, mighty Ruler, Thine are both; for Thee

Their mystic knot e'en from the first was tied;
To Thee both live, while lasts their unity,

The spirit bridegroom and his fleshly bride.
But when their bond is severed, from on high

The word goes forth: Return whence first ye came :'
Then eagerly the spirit cleaves the sky,

Then into dust dissolves the fleshly frame.
Yet Thou, for those who serve Thee, God of grace,

Preparing to abolish death, dost deign
A road, which none may violate, to trace

Whereby the limbs they lost may rise again.
Why else the hollowed rock to hold their dust ?

What else can mean the fair memorial stone ?
Except that unto these a thing we trust

Not dead, but given unto sleep alone.
And death itself from hence becomes more blest

That all its cruel torturing pain unbars
Unto the righteous the steep road to rest ;

And by its pangs we mount unto the stars.
So too these bodies which death now lays waste,

Shall rise to bloom beneath a better day;
Nor “waxing warm,” his chilling winter past,

Shall ought in them or feel or fear decay.
Vol. 68.-No. 380.

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not only of our mortality, but of our resurrection—that resurrection which sinners shall not escape, and which saints shall so joyfully hail !

“When our wasted frames shall see the true San and live.” Truly of this blessed hope through Christ we may say, with the excellent Bishop Pearson, “This encourageth all drooping spirits; THIS sustaineth all fainting hearts; THIS sweeteneth all present miseries ; This lighteneth all heavy burdens; This encourageth in all dangers; THIS supporteth in all calamities.”

D, E.

MILL ON THE CONDITION OF WOMEN. The Şubjection of Women. By John Stuart Mill. Second Edi

tion. London : Longmans. 1869. Among the features which characterize the present age, none is more remarkable than the widespread tendency to look with suspicion on the customs and opinions of former generations, and to call in question principles and institutions which were once fondly imagined to be settled on a firm and abiding basis. The same spirit is rife amongst us which was long ago noted by the poet :

“Qui fit, Mæcenas, ut nemo, quam sibi sortem

Seu ratio dederit seu fors objecerit, illa

Contentus vivat, laudet diversa sequentes ? ” but while in the days of Horace it was their individual condition, it is now their political and social state which men regard with discontent. This disease—for such it may fairly be called-may, and no doubt does, by its presence, effect for us a riddance of other long-standing maladies; but at the same time it ought to be narrowly watched and kept in check, as being itself fraught with danger to mankind. “Meddle not,” says the wise man, "with them that are given to change”; and while we readily admit that an unreasonable adherence to an old institution, and a mistaken adoption of a new one, are alike evils, we have no hesitation in saying, that of the two the former is in general the less pernicious; involving, as it for the most part does, a merely negative, instead of a positive, injury.

'We therefore wholly dissent from Mr. Mill when, in the Essay before us, he asserts that, in reference to the condition of women, the barthen of proof lies on those who uphold the