THE CHRISTIAN NATURALIST. 205 



* A scene 



Of evanescent glory ; once a stream, 

 And soon to slide into a stream again ; 

 Treach'rous and false ; it smil'd, and it was cold. * 



What, indeed, is the hope of every ungodly profes- 

 sor of Christianity, but a delusion of this kind; — cold, 

 but splendid mockery, having no reality of faith or 

 good works, and vanishing into its native element, when 

 exposed to the full light and splendor of God's law 

 and testimony. How melancholy also is the thought 

 that the most frightful image which a winter night can 

 suggest, is but a faint picture of the wretchedness of 

 that soul which is at length stopped in its career of 

 iniquity by the hand of death ! Poetry has presented 

 us with striking descriptions of travellers perishing in a 

 snow-storm, and the event is far from being uncommon 

 at this season. We shudder with horror at Thomson's 

 vivid representations of a catastrophe of this sort. But 

 if it be, indeed, so dreadful for the traveller to be thus 

 surrounded and trapped in the toils of death in the 

 midst of a wide waste, — 



* Far from the track and blest abode of man, 

 While round him night resistless closes fast ; 

 And every tempest howling o'er his head. 

 Renders the savage wilderness more wild,*— 



/ 



