New Hampshire Statesman And Concord Register

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS.

Of all the periods and events of life, the concluding scene is the one of deepest interest to the person himself, and to surviving spectators. Various are the ways in which it comes, and various the aspects it presents ; but in all it is solemn. What can be more so, than the approach of that moment, which, to the dying man, is the boundary between time and eternity ! which concludes the one and commences the other : which terminates all his interests in this world, and fixes his condition for a never ending existence in the world unknown! What can be more so than those moments of silent and indescribable anxiety, when the last sands of the numbered hour are running ; when the beat of the heart has become too languid to be felt at the extremities of the frame ; when the hand returns not the gentle pressure ; when the limbs lie still and motionless ; when the eye is fixed, and the ear turns no more towards the voice of consoling kindness ; when the breath, before oppressive and laborious, becomes feebler and feebler till it dies slowly away-and to the listening ear there is no sound amidst the breathless silence, nor to the arrested eye, that watches with the unmoving look of thrilling solicitude for the last symptom of remaining life, is motion longer perceptible ; when surrounding friends continue to speak in whispers, and to step through the chamber on the tiptoe of cautious quietness, as if still fearful of disturbing him-whom the noise of a thousand thunders could not now startle-who has fallen on that last sleep, from which nothing shall rouse but " the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet of God."—Wardlaw.