excellent lives. If Christians say, "True, but their motives are bad;" they say what they cannot prove, and give a lefthanded illustration of the influence of Christianity upon their own minds. Hence, there is an urgent demand for a prodigious acceleration of the beneficent energies of Christianity, in order to confute the most formidable, because the best, of her opponents.

Let us next look to the argument derived from the propagation of Christianity. That has always been considered one of the most cogent of our evidences. But opponents ask, If Christianity, spread without force or fraud, became the religion of the Roman Empire, why did it not go on spreading, and become universal? Why did it degenerate into Popery, or allow Popery to supplant it? and why is its influence, in this age, greatly on the decline, and its propagation more the result of galvanic or mechanical forces than of innate viigor? To give this argument from the propagation of Christianity force, the Gospel must, under a new supernatural impulse, begin to advance at the old rate again.

Look next at the argument drawn in favor of Christianity from the character of the Scriptures. This has been a favorite argument used by some of the ablest defenders of the faith. They have argued that the Scriptures are incomparably superior in power, originality, simplicity, holiness, dignity, depth and grandeur to all other books; so much superior as to prove them the effluence of Eternal wisdom and truth. They contend that the book bears on it the stamp of absolute divinity, and displays an inspiration infinitely higher than that of genius. But this cannot be made evident to the skeptics or infidels of the present day. In short, the evidences are not strong enough to produce that satisfaction men have in receiving the truths of logic and mathematics; and many, in the present day, who are good men, are not satisfied with them; and some new dispensation is necessary to save Christianity from overthrow. Something has to be done, if the great controversy is to be ended in favor of Christianity, if the enemies are to be overpowered, if the honest doubters are to be convinced, and if believers are to have that kind and degree of faith so needful in these strange days.

Surely this is enough from one Christian.-J. B.

ON THE

DEATH OF THOMAS ILLMAN, ESQ.,

OF PHILADELPHIA,

ADDRESS OVER THE BODY,

BY JOSEPH BARKER.

We cannot be indifferent to events like the one which has called us together; nor ought we, if we could. The dead and the living alike have claims on us on such occasions, and those claims we are bound to respect. Alas! that when we would fain do most to console our friends, we should feel ourselves able to do least; that the greatness and the peculiarity of their grief should only oppress us with a consciousness of our own weakness. We cannot cure, we can scarcely hope to lessen, the sorrows of the bereaved Time alone can heal the wounds which the hand of time inflicts. All we can do is to condole with the afflicted; to mingle our sympathies and tears with theirs; and, in cases like the present, when one so dear to us all is removed, to give utterance to our overburdened souls.

"Give sorrow words; the grief that must not speak,
Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break."

But sad as is the event which has called us together, there are considerations connected with it, which may reasonably be allowed to alleviate the grief, both of friends and kindred. Our dear, departed friend, is at rest. His body is free from pain, and his mind from anxiety.

"His quiet, immovable breast
Is heaved by affliction no more."

No sorrow can reach him; no sound can disturb his repose. He sleeps in peace.

Besides, he lived to a good old age. His death is not untimely; it is not unnatural. He was no unopened flower nipped in the bud; or a blossom withered as soon as blown. Long did he bask in the summer's sun, and even into autumn his blooming was prolonged; it was not till the winter of old age approached that he drooped and disappeared. Some live to be older; but few live to be so old. When youth and virgin energy are crushed by death; when friends are snatched from our midst when they have just begun to discharge the duties, and to taste the pleasures of life, it is but natural that the event should shock and appal us. But when our friends have been spared to us till they have had full experience of what life can give, tiil age has enfeebled their frame, and diminished their mental energies, it is

but just to acknowledge that our affliction might have been far more grievous.

Then again, our friend had an easy death; he had no convulsions, no agonies, no long distracting or exhausting pains. He was feeble, almost powerless, for a few days, but never tortured. Death approached him so gently, that in his closing scene he seemed but as a wearied traveller sinking to timely rest.

He was as free from perturbation of mind, as from pain of body. He was afflicted with no terrors; he suffered from no anxieties with regard to the future. He manifested a becoming concern for the comfort and welfare of a beloved and numerous family, as an affectionate husband and fond father must do.

"For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?
On some fond breast, the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires,
Even from the tomb the voice of nature cries,

Even in our ashes live their wonted fires."

It is no virtue to forget our friends or kindred even in the hour of death; it is no vice, it is no weakness, to think of them on such an occasion with quickened affection, with keener concern. Nor is it any virtue to be indifferent to life, great as are its trials, or to be weary of the world, grsevous as are its conflicts; nor is it any weakness, when death seems near, to wish to retain our hold of existence a little longer. Still less is it a weakness to wish, before retiring to our last, long rest, to lessen the sorrows, to lighten the lot of those loved ones, dearer always to the truehearted than life itself. Oh! the heart is not human that can cease to beat, without beating first more hurriedly in its anxiety to secure one more chance of drying the tears and alleviating the sorrows of a devoted wife and adoring children.

Our friend would gladly have lived a little longer, that he might have arranged his affairs more perfectly, and left them in a better shape for his successors; and he would gladly have contributed a little more to the furtherance of the cause of human improvement. It was natural, it was noble to do so. But when he found his strength was too far gone, he made no unseemly struggles, uttered no unmanly complaints, but with calmness and composure resigned himself to his lot.

He

We have another consolation in the manner of his death. died at home; in the midst of his friends, and in the bosom of his family. He might, as many have done, have perished on the sea, or in a foreign land, with no soft voice of love or friendship to soothe him in his last hours, and with no opportunity on his

part to bid a fond farewell to his surviving friends, a fearful ag gravation of the pains of death and of the pangs and sorrows of bereavement. But his last fond looks could rest and linger on his loved ones, and their fond looks on him. Whatever affection could devise, they were permitted to administer; whatever consolation weakness and declining strength could receive, he was permitted to realize. The hands that had ministered to his comfort in health, were permitted to close his eyes in death; and the friends that had trod with him the path of life, are permitted to accompany him to his place of rest.

But more than all this: our friend lived a virtuous, an honorable and a useful life. He did his duty to the best of his ability, both to himself and to others. He did his duty to himself. He cultivated his understanding, and stored his memory with useful truth. He loved his family, and labored hard and incessantly for their welfare. He loved mankind, and shrank not from either toil or sacrifice when demanded by the cause of truth and humanity. And he labored not in vain. There are those in this assembly, and there are many in the country, who regard him as their teacher and their guide-who trace to him their first awakening from spiritual slumber, and their first free thoughts on those important subjects which agitate so fearfully the minds of men.

He had, therefore, a quiet conscience; a conscience that not only did not reproach him with unfaithfulness, but which cheered him with a thousand recollections of generous deeds, and of noble efforts in the cause of humanity.

And he secured the respect and love, not only of those who agreed with him in sentiment, but of those who differed from him. Even those who regarded his opinions with horror were compelled to respect his character. I have often been in his room when religious people and clergymen have called on him, and listened to conversations between him and them, and in every case his pious visitors seemed to feel that they were in the presence of a man of true moral worth, and of superior talents and attainments, whom they were constrained to respect. He was remarkably well informed. He was familiar not only with the Bible, and ecclesiastical history, and general literature, but with every other subject bearing on great theological and biblical questions. His treasures of knowledge seemed inexhaustible, and always available. I have never in my life met with more than a very small number who would bear even a comparison with him as to the extent and variety of his knowledge. I never met with one among the orthodox, whether clergyman or layman, who was not, compared with him, a very child in understanding. And he was as good, as kind, as cour

teous, and as unpretending and unobtrusive as he was intelligent. And he was always gentle and tolerant. I never saw him angry, and I never hear heard him utter a violent expression. I never saw anything in him like unfairness. He was more than just to an opponent; he was generous: he was a real, a true-bred gentleman. No one that had much to do with him could fail to see that in manners, as well as intelligence, he was superior to the generality, even of men in better circumstances. I have seen him insulted; but I never saw him offer an insult to any one. I never saw him resent one. And no one could question his sincerity, or doubt his consistency. His head, his heart, his tongue, and his life were all in harmony. What he believed, he uttered; what he taught, he practised.

My greatest grief is, that he was not more favored of fortune. I could never help thinking that he was fitted for a higher position than that which he occupied, and that he deserved a happier portion than that which fell to his lot. He never was formed for business as it is conducted in the present state of the world. He was too delicately organized, both bodily and mentally, for its eager competitions and its violent struggles. He was not a match for the coarse, the greedy, the heartless and unprincipled hordes that everywhere crowded his path, seeking to snatch from his grasp the means of subsistence. He was formed for something higher, for something better. He ought to have been a student, a teacher, an author. His life should have been spent in the library and the pulpit. His associates should have been the lovers of science and of literature; his only work the instruction and elevation of mankind. To be doomed to the cares and conflicts of business in an age and a world like this, was a fearful misfortune both to himself and the community. He had neither the coarse taste nor the vulgar talent necessary to enable a man to feel at home and happy amid the hurry and noise, the strife and confusion of business life. Such a life could be no other than grief and pain and uneasiness to such a man. It was a misfortune to the community for a man like him to be engrossed by the cares of business. His genius, his talents, his learning, his wit, his virtues, fitted him for extensive usefulness as a writer, a teacher; and to the work of a teacher and writer he should have been entirely devoted. He should have been made independent of the cares and anxieties of business, and left free to devote himself exclusively to the acquisition and diffusion of knowledge.

If communities understood their own interests, they would make provision for the independence of such men, and not allow them to waste their days in uncongenial toil. They would employ them to better advantage. They would place them in posi