The most
interesting and valuable part is fled away: what remains is but the
earthly perishing habitation, no longer occupied by its tenant. Yet the
features present the accustomed association of friendly intercourse. For
one moment we could think them asleep. The next reminds us that the
blood circulates no more: the eye has lost its power of seeing, the ear
of hearing, the heart of throbbing, and the limbs of moving. Quickly a
thought of glory breaks in upon the mind, and we imagine the dear
departed soul to be arrived at its long wished-for rest. It is
surrounded by cherubim and seraphim, and sings the song of Moses and the
Lamb on Mount Sion. Amid the solemn stillness of the chamber of death,
imagination hears heavenly hymns chanted by the spirits of just men made
perfect. In another moment, the livid lips and sunken eye of the clay-
cold corpse recall our thoughts to earth, and to ourselves again. And
while we think of mortality, sin, death, and the grave, we feel the
prayer rise in our bosom--"O let me die the death of the righteous, and
let my last end be like his!"
If there be a moment when Christ and salvation, death, judgment, heaven,
and hell, appear more than ever to be momentous subjects of meditation,
it is that which brings us to the side of a coffin containing the body of
a departed believer.
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