ent of this life. By thus speaking of the desire as a
delusion necessarily accompanying the constitution of mind which it has
pleased the Deity to bestow on us, such reasoners but darken the mystery
both of man and of Providence. But this desire of immortality is not of
the kind they say it is, nor does it partake, in any degree, of the
character of a blind and weak feeling of regret at merely leaving this
present life. "I would not live alway," is a feeling which all men
understand--but who can endure the momentary thought of annihilation?
Thousands, and tens of thousands--awful a thing as it is to die--are
willing to do so--"passing through nature to eternity"--nay, when the
last hour comes, death almost always finds his victim ready, if not
resigned. To leave earth, and all the light both of the sun and of the
soul, is a sad thought to us all--transient as are human smiles, we
cannot bear to see them no more--and there is a beauty that binds us to
life in the tears of tenderness that the dying man sees gushing for his
sake. But between that regret for departing loves and affections, and
all the gorgeous or beautiful shows of this earth--between that love and
the dread of annihilation, there is no connection. The soul can bear to
part with all it loves--the soft voice--the kindling smile--the starting
tear--and the profoundest sighs of all by whom it is beloved; but it
cannot bear to part with its existence. It cannot even believe the
possibility of that which yet it may darkly dread. Its loves--its
passions--its joys--its agonies are _not itself_. They may perish, but
it is imperishable. Strip it of all it has seen, touched, enjoyed, or
suffered--still it seems to survive; bury all it knew, or could know in
the grave--but itself cannot be trodden down into the corruption. It
sees nothing like itself in what perishes, except in dim analogies that
vanish before its last profound self-meditation--and though it parts
with its mortal weeds at last, as with a garment, its life is felt at
last to be something not even in contrast with the death of the body,
but to flow on like a flood, that we believe continues still to flow
after it has entered into the unseen solitude of some boundless desert.

"Behind the cloud of death,
Once, I beheld a sun; a sun which gilt
That sable cloud, and turn'd it all to gold.
How the grave's alter'd! fathomless as hell!
A real hell to those who dream'd of heav