The Madisonian. (Canton, Miss.) 1850-1855, 1850-05-30

known, may in vain question earth of
the destiny Of the soul beyond the
grave, and lift to heaven the passionate
invocation:
ANSWER me. burning stars Of night,
Where hath the spirit gone,
Which passed the reach Of mortal
sight, ~
Fen as breeze hath flown!
And the stars answer him. We roll
In pomp and power on high,
But Of the never dying soul
Ask things that cannot die!"
Things that cannot die!" God
only can tell Of the spirit world. He
assures US by his Son, that death is the
child Of sin. He tells what is the pow
er Of this king of terrors. He shows
us /" that in Adam all die" He de,
clares to US that, sinful by nature and
by practice, we are condemned to
death; that we are unfit for Heaven,
that we are consigned to wo: that the
destiny of the soul which remains thus
condemned and unchanged is far
dfearier and more dreadful beyond
than this side the grave. No wonder
that men shrink from the thought Of
death, for all.his messages are woful
and appalling.
| But thanks be God, though death be
here, so also, is deaths Lord aud Mas
ter. GAS in Adam all die, even so in
Christ shall all be made aive!" That
Saviour, assures us that all who for
sake their sins, who believe in him,
and live to him, shall rise to alife glo-
rious and eternal with him and HIS
lin Heaven. He tells us if we are of his,
those sharp shafts which death rattes in
our earlo>day shall trausfx, but for a
season, the garment Of our mortality;
and that the emarcipated spirits of the
righteous, shall be borne on angels
wings, to that peaceful Paradise where
they shall enjoy perpetual rest and feo
Iicity. Then it need not be voice Of
gloom which announces to us to-day
"Ye shall die az men, and fall as one of
the princes" for it tells us that the
humbest men may be made equal to
the angels and that earth's princes may
become kings aud priests unto God. "
In hepresencs Of these simplest yet
grandest truths; with these thoughts of
death, and the conqueror'of death; and
above all with this splended trophy
of his power, proudly held up to our
view, by death to-day, I need utter to
you no common>places on the vanity
Of life, the inevitablencss of our death,
and the soemnitles of our after-being.
Here and now, upon this very theme
The silent dead Is preaching TO you
more impressively than could the most
eloquent Of the living. You feel it now
in your inmost hearts, that that great
appearance Of things with which you
are connected as immortals; that moral
administration Of God which stretches
over the infinite Of existence, that mag~
niicient system of ordered govern
ments, to whose lower range we now
belong, which consists Of thrones, do
mlnions, principalities and powers,
which rise,
"Orb DER orb. and hight DER hight"
to the cnthroned Supreme'you feel
that this your high relation to the Ia
finite and Eternal, makes poor and low
the most august and imposing scenes
and dignilies of earth which fit, like
shadows, through your threescore
years and ten. All! happy if the vivid
sentiment Of the hour shall become the
actuauns convection of ybur life! Hap
py ifi ii takes its place in the centre of
! the sool and inform all the thoughts,
THE feelings and the aims.oFilfe! Then
shall this lower system of human things
be consciously linked TO, and BECOME
part Of, and take glory from that spir-
itual sphere, which, all unseen, en-,
closes US whose actors and heroes
are angels and archangels and all the
company Of Heaven. Then would
that be permanently felt by all which
we here and in the other chamber yes
terday SO eloquen;ly expressed, that
"vain are the personal strifes and par
ty contests in which you daily engage,
in view Of the great account which you
may soon be called upon to render;"'
and that "it is unbecoming and pre-
sumptuous in those who are the ten
ants of an hour in their earthly abode
to restle and struggle together with a
violence which would not be jnstiRable
If it were your perpetual home. II.
Then, as we saw to day, the sister
States, by their representatives., linked
hand andhandaround the bier Of one IN.
whose fame they all claim share, we
should feel that we saw you engaged
IN a sacrament Of religious patriotism,
whose spontaneous, unprecedented
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