The Destiny of the Soul

PAUSING, in a thoughtful hour, on that mount of observation whence the whole prospect of life is visible, what a solemn vision greets us! We see the vast procession of existence flitting across the landscape, from the shrouded ocean of birth, over the illuminated continent of experience, to the shrouded ocean of death. Who can linger there and listen, unmoved, to the sublime lament of things that die? Although the great exhibition below endures, yet it is made up of changes, and the spectators shift as often. Each rank of the host, as it advances from the mists of its commencing career, wears a smile caught from the morning light of hope, but, as it draws near to the fatal bourne, takes on a mournful cast from the shadows of the unknown realm. The places we occupy were not vacant before we came, and will not be deserted when we go, but are forever filling and emptying afresh. "Still to every draught of vital breath Renew'd throughout the bounds of earth and ocean, The melancholy gates of death Respond with sympathetic motion." We appear, there is a short flutter of joys and pains, a bright glimmer of smiles and tears, and we are gone. But whence did we come? And whither do we go? Can human thought divine the answer?