chimera, a chaos, which offers to their view only darkness and nothingness. They make haste to enjoy the present; but as a thousand vexations poison their enjoyment, as the world itself, in which they seek a sinful happiness, often despises them, abandons them, or overwhelms them with its rigorous or cruel treatment, they find themselves unhappy, without any resource. They have nothing to console them but black melancholy, bitter complaints of the injustice of the world, or a frightful despair, concealed under the specious names of philosophy and contempt of mankind; and death will put an end to these transitory pains which they experience in this life, only by introducing them to more severe and more durable misery. Beyond the grave they have no cheering prospect; for they know not what they shall be in that dark and eternal abode, in the contemplation of which their reason loses itself, and to them religion presents nothing but frightful and tormenting objects. But as for those who hope in thee, great God, though they may be smitten, despised and afflicted, in this life, still the consideration of that future state which is near, and which is incessantly present to their eyes, dries up their tears; they know that, united to Jesus Christ their chief, they shall rise like him, that their souls, instead of being confined in the grave, will mount aloft to mansions of bliss,and that their flesh, if it has not the privilege, like the flesh of thy divine Son, of being exempt from corruption, in the abode of the dead, will one day be re-animated, that it will be changed into living flesh, shining with glory and immortality, and that a hair of their heads will not perish.

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VERSE 11. Thou wilt shew me the path of life in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

FOR ever blessed be thy name, O Lord, that thou dost not permit me to lose sight of those consoling truths, and of that last hour which is to conduct me to life and immortality! The objects of sense and the cares of the world tend incessantly to put them at a distance from my thoughts, and to deprive me of them; but through this thick cloud, I see thee who art at the door, and who wilt soon require my soul of me. The terrible account which I shall have to render to thee troubles me, at times, and penetrates me with fear; but, O thou shepherd of my soul! thou hast not withdrawn me from the ways of sin and taken me in thine arms, to cast me away and leave me a prey to the devouring wolf. Thou soughtest me when I fled from thee; thou wilt not, therefore, abandon me now thou hast found me, and given me joy, by the marks of tenderness which I have received from thee, and by the consolation which I have found in returning to thee, and remaining united with thee. Open then incessantly to the eyes of my faith those everlasting gates which conceal from man the delights and inestimable blessings which thou hast prepared for thine elect. Upon earth there is in reality nothing but weariness and sadness. Though I should blindly abandon myself to the pleasures of life, I should every where find a void, or a satiety,—a secret inquietude which would poison them all. No, Lord, we are not made but for thee; and it is only in thine adorable bosom that we can find that repose, that perfect happiness which men have, for so long a time, sought in vain upon earth. We see thee here below only through the clouds of our mortality; yet we see enough of thee, O eternal source of light and truth! to love thee; but not enough to have that love fill our hearts wholly, fix them, and annihilate

all earthly attachments. When we shall see thee, face to face, and thy Son seated at thy right hand, then thy love will reign alone in our hearts,-it will absorb them wholly; and that holy love, always satisfied and still always excited by thine adorable presence, will make us taste new delights, through all eternity.

PSALM XIX.

Meditations of a saint who, to strengthen himself in his fidelity to God, celebrates the divine perfections as manifested in the immensity of the heavens,—devoutly acknowledges the excellence, holiness, and sublimity of the divine law,—and prays for grace to keep him from sin.

VERSE 1. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handy work.

O

MOST great and glorious God! How contemptible is the impious unbeliever, who prides himself in the superiority of his genius and understanding, in not acknowledging thy glory, thy greatness, and thy wisdom, in the magnificent appearance of the heavens and of the stars suspended over our heads! He is struck with the greatness of princes and conquerors, who subjugate nations and found empires; but he will not acknowledge the almighty power of thy hands which alone laid the foundations of the world. He admires the ingenuity and skill of a workman who has erected proud palaces, which the wind may overthrow and destroy, he even speaks of the structure of the heavens with admiration, and thus gives honor to chance; but he refuses to acknowledge thee in the constant and regular harmony of those immense and superb works which the revolution of times and years has always respected, and will respect to the end. Is it not a sufficient manifestation of thyself to mankind, that thou showest them every day these wonderful works of thy hands? Men of all ages and nations, instructed by nature alone, have acknowledged in them thy power and godhead; and yet the infidel chooses to contradict the whole human race, to attribute to credulity a sentiment universally prevalent, and to the prejudices of

education a light which was born with him, rather than to give up an absurd and incomprehensible opinion, in which his sins, the offspring of darkness, have forced his reason to acquiesce, and which his sins alone have rendered probable to him.

VERSE 2. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.

If the Lord had but once showed to man the striking spectacle of the stars and the heavens, the infidel might have considered them as a temporary prodigy; he might perhaps have persuaded himself that they were some of those sports of chance and nature, some of those transient phenomena, which owe their origin to a seemingly accidental concourse of atoms. But, O glorious God! this grand spectacle has been presented to the eyes of man from the beginning of the world. The succession of day and night has never been interrupted, but has gone on in a regular and majestic order ever since thou didst first establish it, for the decoration of the universe and the utility of man. The first day which enlightened the world published thy greatness, by the splendor of that immense body of light which then began to appear, and which in silent but most expressive language, has proclaimed to man thy power and glory, in all succeeding days. The stars which presided over the first night have presided over all others since; and, by the continual regularity of their motions, they have perpetuated a knowledge of the wisdom and majesty of the sovereign creator who formed them from nothing.

VERSE 3. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.

YES, O Lord, the most gross, the most barbarous people hear the language of the heavens, whose mag