has been like peace on the battle-field, when the conflict is ended: the dead alone are at rest; the living are maimed, lacerated, writhing with agony. But let them not faint; they shall yet arise; they are rising — and have half-risen since these speculations were first penned. A last day to the present miseries of our country will come; the wounds of war will soon be healed entirely. In the life of every adult there occur many last days. Man is ushered into the world from a source so hidden, that his very parents know him not till he appears, and he knows not himself even then. He passes rapidly through the stages of childhood, youth, maturity, old age; and to each of these there comes a last day. The transitions, indeed, are so gradual as to be imperceptible; no more to be remembered than the moment at which we fell asleep last night, and as little dependent on our will as was the act of awaking this morning. Yet so distinct are these several states of progressive existence, that though all bound together by unbroken consciousness, the changes are in reality as entire as the separate links of one chain. In the issue comes a last day to the whole; and man is withdrawn into an abyss of eternity, as unsearchable by finite thought as that from which he emanated at first. It has been already observed, that in the life of every adult individual there are many last days. There is a last day of the nursery, of the school, of juvenile obedience, of parental authority; there is a last day at our first home, and a last day at every other place that becomes our home in the sequel; there are last days of companionship and of rivalry, of business and of vanity; of promise and exertion, of failure and success; last days of love and of friendship, enjoyment and endearment; every day in its turn is the last to all that went before it. Every year has its last day. Amidst the festivities of Christmas arrives the close of the months; to remind us of the end of all earthly fruition. The most reprobate of men desire to die in peace; on the last night in December, therefore, we should lie down with the same dispositions as if we were making our bed in the grave; on the first morning of January we should rise up with the same hopes as if the trumpet had summoned us to the resurrection of the just: that moment should be to us as the end of time, and this as the beginning of eternity. To every thing beneath the sun there comes a last day from this point our meditations began; at this point they must conclude, leaving those who may have accompanied the writer thus far, to pursue at their leisure the moral inferences associated with the whole. The facts themselves, few, simple, and common-place as they are, cannot have been made to pass, even in this imperfect exhibition, through intelligent minds, without impressing upon them feelings of awe, apprehension, and humility, prompting to immediate and unsparing self-examination. From this there can be nothing to fear; from the neglect of it every thing: for however alarming the discoveries of evil unsuspected, or peril unknown may be, such discoveries had better VOL. II. be made now, while escape is before us, than in that day when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, and escape will be impossible, that day, which of all others is most emphatically called "The Last Day.” 291 POSTSCRIPT. A POET should part with his readers in his own character. If the public will not allow the dignity of verse to the following stanzas, the author of these volumes must expect to bear the ignominy of having assumed a misnomer in his title-page. A LUCID INTERVAL. Oh! light is pleasant to the eye, And health comes rustling on the gale, Whose shadows mock them down the dale; As I have met her in my dreams. For I have been a prisoner long To every form of beauty blind; |