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gister of the Abbey of Ely, now in the Bodlean library, relative to the powerful imagination of a certain Monk, respecting W. De Warren; who was honoured by William Rufus with the Earldom of Surrey, and had violently detained in his possession certain lands belonging to the Monks of St. Etheldred in that city.

"The Abbot, as the story goes, was one night interrupted in his devotions by the rattling of the Devil's carriage, and heard the poor Earl of Surrey in this infernal vehicle most piteously imploring for mercy, but in vain ! He had defrauded the brotherhood of Ely. The sin was too enormous to be forgiven. Next morning the Abbot related to the Monks what he had heard the preceding night. About four days after, there arrived a messenger from the Lady Gundred, his widow, with one hundred shillings, an immense sum in those days, to obtain the prayers of the Abbey for the repose of the Earl's soul. Upon inquiry it was found he had died exactly at the hour in which the good Abbot heard him posting so reluctantly to the lower regions. It was not to be supposed that pious community would receive the mortuary of a sinner thus clearly doomed to endless torture. The messenger consequently returned with the money, and a most dismal account of his deceased master.

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Unfortunately for the credit of Monkery, a material error is evident," says the historian, "in this relation. So that both heretics, and modern

sceptics, enthusiasts, and superstitious devotees. must doubt the truth of it; for the Lady Gundred, who is said to have sent the mass money to Ely, had been dead for three years. She having departed this life, in child-bed, on the 24th of May, 1085; and the Earl on the 23d of June, 1088.”

NUMBER XXXVIII.

ON DEATH.

Is Death a pow'rful Monarch? True-
Perhaps you dread the tyrant, too?
Fear, like a fog, precludes the light,
Or swells the object to the sight.
Attend my visionary page,

And I'll disarm the tyrant's rage.
Come, let the ghastly form appear,
He's not so terrible when near.
Distance deludes th' unwary eye,
So clouds seem monsters in the sky;
Hold frequent converse with him now,
He'll daily wear a milder brow.

DEATH is a solemn subject;-it is a sentence passed on mankind, which cannot be repealed. A change we must all undergo, on quitting this transitory life to enter on eternity. "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." Those who will be found alive at the second coming of Christ, when He shall come in His glorious Majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, will not die, but they will undergo as great a change as death is to us. "Those that sleep

in the grave shall awake, and the dead in Christ shall rise first, and they that are alive shall be changed, and caught to meet the Lord in the air. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump."

Hence we learn that, when Almighty God thinks fit to gather to Himself man's spirit, the disunion of soul and body must take place. Our removal from this transitory life to a state of eternity, cannot be effected without such a change; and yet, of all the evils that oppress mankind, there is not one we seem to dread so much as death. Whether considered as the total dissolution of the body, when the senses are all destroyed, and the faculties of the mind cease to perform their accustomed duties;-whether we apprehend the pain and agony that may attend our dying moments, when the parting stroke is given which separates soul and body;-or whether we behold ourselves on the brink of eternity, and on the very verge of passing into the immediate presence of Divine Majesty, it is awful and appalling. Still, it is not so terrible, perhaps, as man imagines; there is an all-sufficient antidote against the fears, so natural to humanity, of death and dying. Did we reflect properly on these important subjects, our minds would, in all probability, be delivered from a variety of distressing apprehensions. “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the

breath of life, and man became a living soul;" the body was animated, as the soul was infused into it. When all God's purposes, for which He brought us into being, are accomplished in us, he removes us out of this world by death. The breath He breathed into our nostrils departs out of our body-the pulse ceases to beat -the circulation of the blood stops-the intellectual faculties perish, and the body returns to the elements out of which it was formed.

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We look on sickness, disease, and old age, as prognostics of death. But, distinct from these, “There is a time to die;”—God appoints the hour, and we must obey the call. It is sometimes preceded by a fit of sickness—sometimes comes suddenly upon usand, sometimes by slow degrées advances. Come when it will, if we learn to familiarize our thoughts with it, by the consolations which revealed religion offers, we shall meet it with Christian fortitude, and resign our breath to Him who gave it, without dismay.

Many have died without a sigh or groan; may we not do the same? Death is produced by certain physical causes, and may not be so terrible when near at hand, as when viewed at a distance. Of this we have many proofs. Then why should we perplex ourselves, or anticipate those sufferings which we may never be doomed to experience?

The Scriptures speak of death as a sleep: may we not reasonably suppose then, that all fears concerning it are groundless? It is evident that the

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