urselves may be as they.

3 Our eyes have seen the rosy light
Of youth's soft cheek decay,
And fate descend in sudden night
On manhood's middle day.

4 Our eyes have seen the steps of age
Halt feebly towards the tomb;
And yet shall earth our hearts engage,
And dreams of days to come?

5 Death rides on every passing breeze,
He lurks in every flower;
Each season has its own disease,
Its peril every hour.

532. L. M. J. Taylor.

The Shortness of Life.

1 Like shadows gliding o'er the plain,
Or clouds that roll successive on,
Man's busy generations pass,
And while we gaze their forms are gone.

2 "He lived,--he died;" behold the sum,
The abstract of the historian's page!
Alike, in God's all-seeing eye,
The infant's day, the patriarch's age.

3 O Father! in whose mighty hand
The boundless years and ages lie;
Teach us thy boon of life to prize,
And use the moments as they fly;

4 To crowd the narrow span of life
With wise designs and virtuous deeds;
And bid us wake from death's dark night,
To share the glory that succeeds.

533. C. M. Collyer.

Prayer for Support in Death.

1 When, bending o'er the brink of life,
My trembling soul shall stand,
And wait to pass death's awful flood,
Great God, at thy command;--

2 Thou Source of life and joy supreme,
Whose arm alone can save,
Dispel the darkness that surrounds
The entrance to the grave.

3 Lay thy supporting, gentle hand
Beneath my sinking head,
And let a beam of light divine
Illume my dying bed.

534. L. M. Watts.

Christ's Presence makes Death easy.

1 Why should we start and fear to die!
What timorous worms we mortals are!
Death is the gate of endless joy,
And yet we dread to enter there.

2 The pains, the groans, and dying strife,
Fright our approaching souls away;
Still we shrink back again to life,
Fond of our prison and our clay.

3 O! if my Lord would come and meet,
My soul should stretch her wings in haste,
Fly fearless through death's iron gate,
Nor feel the terrors as she past.

4 Jesus can make a dying bed
Feel soft as downy pillows are,
While on his breast I lean my