aps, grasping the _things below_ as if they would never
let them go, shutting their eyes, instead of using their telescope,
and neglecting their title-deed, as if it was the parchment of
another man's estate, and not of their own; till one after another
each felt his tenement tumbling about his ears. Oh! then what a
busy, bustling, anxious, terrifying, distracting moment was that!
What a deal of business was to be done, and what a strange time was
this to do it in! Now, to see the confusion and dismay occasioned by
having left every thing to the last minute. First, some one was sent
for to make over the yellow heaps, to another, which the heaper now
found would be of no use to himself in shooting the gulf; a transfer
which ought to have been made while the tenement was sound. Then
there was a consultation between two or three masons at once
perhaps, to try to patch up the walls, and strengthen the props, and
stop the decays of the tumbling tenement; but not till the masons
were forced to declare it was past repairing (a truth they were
rather too apt to keep back) did the tenant seriously think it was
time to pack up, prepare and begone. Then what sending for the wise
men who professed to explain the title-deed! And oh! what remorse
that they had neglected to examine it till their senses were too
confused for so weighty a business! What reproaches, or what
exhortations to others, to look better after their own affairs than
they had done. Even to the wisest of the inhabitants the falling of
their tenements was a solemn thing; solemn, but not surprising; they
had long been packing up and preparing; they praised their lord's
goodness that they had been suffered to stay so long; many
acknowledged the mercy of their frequent warnings, and confessed
that those very dilapidations which had made the house uncomfortable
had been a blessing, as it had set them on diligent preparation for
their future inheritance; had made them more earnest in examining
their title to it, and had set them on such a frequent application
to the telescope, that the _things above_ had seemed every day to
approach nearer and nearer, and the _things below_ to recede and
vanish in proportion. These desired not to be _unclothed but to be
clothed upon, for they knew that if their tabernacle was dissolved,
they had an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens_.

THE VALLEY OF TEARS.

A VISION;

OR, BEAR YE ONE ANOTHER'S BURDENS.

Once