y its contrast with that of
such an Atheist, than by contrast with a fiend to brighten the beauty of
an angel.

Finally, are the deathbeds of all good Christians so calm as this--and
do they all thus meekly

"Pant for where congenial spirits stray,"

a line, besides its other vice, most unscriptural? Congenial spirit is
not the language of the New Testament. Alas! for poor weak human nature
at the dying hour! Not even can the Christian always then retain
unquaking trust in his Saviour! "This is the blood that was shed for
thee," are words whose mystery quells not always nature's terror. The
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is renewed in vain--and he remembers, in
doubt and dismay, words that, if misunderstood, would appal all the
Christian world--"My God--my God--why hast thou forsaken me?" Perhaps,
before the Faith, that has waxed dim and died in his brain distracted by
pain, and disease, and long sleeplessness, and a weight of woe--for he
is a father who strove in vain to burst those silken ties, that winding
all round and about his very soul and his very body, bound him to those
dear little ones, who are of the same spirit and the same flesh,--we
say, before that Faith could, by the prayers of holy men, be restored
and revivified, and the Christian once more comforted by thinking on
Him, who for all human beings did take upon him the rueful burden and
agonies of the Cross--Death may have come for his prey, and left the
chamber, of late so hushed and silent, at full liberty to weep! Enough
to know, that though Christianity be divine, we are human,--that the
vessel is weak in which that glorious light may be enshrined--weak as
the potter's clay--and that though Christ died to save sinners, sinners
who believe in Him, and therefore shall not perish, may yet lose hold of
the belief when their understandings are darkened by the shadow of
death, and, like Peter losing faith and sinking in the sea, feel
themselves descending into some fearful void, and cease here to be, ere
they find voice to call on the name of the Lord--"Help, or I perish!"

What may be the nature of the thoughts and feelings of an Atheist,
either when in great joy or great sorrow, full of life and the spirit of
life, or in mortal malady and environed with the toils of death, it
passes the power of our imagination even dimly to conceive; nor are we
convinced that there ever was an utter Atheist. The thought of a God
will enter in, barred though the