preffions of grief take the strongest hold of the mind. There is a time when folitude has a charm; when cheerfulness gives place to melancholy; and when the house of mourning is better fuited to the foul than the house of mirth. Even our amusements of

ten partake of a serious turn. For the fake of amusement, we give our attention to hiftories of wo; we fit spectators to the scene of forrow, and devote the hours to melancholy and to tears. And yet, by a strange perversion of mind, though we rufh into foreign wo, and take delight in weeping for the fate of others, yet our own departure excites little attention or regard, notwithstanding the many warnings which tell us that here we have no continuing city. Although few weeks elapfe without being marked with the funeral of a neighbour or a friend, we remain in a criminal indifference; the tear is foon dried upon our cheeks, and we mufe upon the fate of our friends with unconcern. If, by removing the thought of death, men could remove the day of death, their conduct would admit of an excufe. But whether you think of it or not, death approaches, and the want of preparation will only ferve to fharpen the fting, by the surprise with which it may ftrike.

Since we know then affuredly, that God will bring us to death, and to the house appointed for all living, let us confider, in the first place, the certainty of its approaching foon; fecondly, the time and manner of its arrival; and, thirdly, the change which it introduces.

In the first place, let us confider the certainty of death's approaching foon.

All the works of nature, in this inferior fyftem,

feem only made to be deftroyed. Man is not exempted. There is a principle of mortality in our frame, and, as if we were only born to die, the first step we take in life is a step to the grave. It was not always fo. Adam came from the hands of his Creator perfect and immortal. The Almighty created man after his own image. He planted in his frame the feeds of eternal life, to grow and flourish

through a fucceffion of ages. This noble fhoot, which the hand of the Moft High had planted, was blafted by fin. When man became a finner, he became mortal. The doom was pronounced, that, after few and evil days, he should return to the dust from whence he was taken. Since that time, as soon as our eyes open on the light, we come under the law of mortality, and the fentence of death is paffed. In the morning of our day, we fet out on our journey for eternity; thither we are all faft tending; and day and night we travel on without intermiflion. There is no standing still on this road. To this great rendezvous of the fons of Adam we are continually drawing nearer and nearer. Our life is for ever on the wing, although we mark not its flight. Our motion down the ftream of time is fo fmooth and filent, that though we are for ever moving, we perceive it not, till we arrive at the ocean of eternity. Even now, death is doing his work. At this very moment of time, multitudes are ftretched on that bed from which they fhall rife no more. The blood is ceasing to flow; the breath is going out; and the fpirit taking its departure for the world unknown.

When we look back on our former years, how many do we find who began the journey of life along

gone

with us, and promised to themselves long life and happy days, cut off in the midft of their career, and fallen at our fide! They have but before us; one day we must follow. O man! who now rejoiceft in the pride of life, and looking abroad, fayeft in thy heart, thou fhalt never fee forrow, for thee the bed of death is fpread; the worm calls for thee to be her companion; thou must enter the dominions of the dead, and be gathered to the duft of thy fathers. If then death be certainly approaching faft, let us learn the true value of life. If death be at hand, then certainly time is precious. Now the day fhines, and the Mafter calls us; in a little time the night cometh, when no man can work. To-day, therefore, hear the voice which calls you to heaven. "Now "is the accepted time; now is the day of falvation." "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy "might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wifdom in the grave, whither "thou goest."

In the second place, we may confider the time and manner of the arrival of death.

Death is called in Scripture, the land without any order; and without any order the king of terrors makes his aproaches in the world. The commiflion given from on high was, "Go into the world: "Strike; ftrike so, that the dead may alarm the liv

ing." Hence it is, that we feldom fee men running the full career of life; growing old among their children's children, and then falling asleep in the arms of nature, as in the embraces of a kind mother; coming to the grave like a fhock of corn fully ripe; like flowers that shut up at the clofe of the day.

Death walks through the world without any order. He delights to surprise, to give a fhock to mankind. Hence, he leaves the wretched to prolong the line of their forrows, and cuts off the fortunate in the midst of their career; he fuffers the aged to survive himself, to outlive life, to ftalk about the ghost of what he was, and aims his arrow at the heart of the young who puts the evil day far from him. He delights to fee the feeble carrying the vigorous to the grave, and the father building the tomb of his children. Often when his approaches are least expected, he bursts at once upon the world, like an earthquake in the dead of night, or thunder in the ferene fky. All ages and conditions he sweeps away without distinction; the young man juft entering into life, high in hope, elated with joy, and promifing to himself a length of years; the father of a family from the embraces of his wife and children; the man of the world, when his defigns are ripening to execution, and the long expected crifis of enjoyment feems to approach. These and all others are hurried promifcuoufly off the stage, and laid without order in the common grave. Every path in the world leads to the tomb, and every hour in life hath been to fome the last hour.

Without order too, is the manner of death's approach. The king of terrors wears a thousand forms; pains and diseases, a numerous and a direful train, compofe his hoft. Marking out unhappy man for their prey, they attack the seat of life, or the seat of understanding; hurry him off the stage in an inftant, or make him pine by flow degrees: blafting the bloom of life, or, waiting till the decline, according to the pathetic picture of Solomon, "They make the

"strong men bow themselves, and the keepers of the “house tremble; make the grinders ceafe; bring "the daughters of mufic low; darken the fun, and "the moon, and the stars; scatter fears in the way, " and make defire itself to fail, until the filver cord "be loofed, and the golden bowl be broken, when "the duft returns to the dust as it was, and the fpir"it afcends to God who gave it."

In the third place, We have to confider the change which death introduces.

Man was made after the image of God; and the human form divine, the feat of so many heavenly faculties, graces and virtues, exhibits a temple not unworthy of its Maker. Men in their collective capacity, and united as nations, have displayed a wide field of exertion and of glory. The globe hath been covered with monuments of their power, and the voice of history tranfmits their renown from one gen. eration to another. But when we pafs from the living world to the dead, What a fad picture do we behold! The fall and defolation of human nature; the ruins of man; the dust and afhes of many gene. rations fcattered over the earth. The high and the low; the mighty and the mean; the king and the cottager, lie blended together without any order. The worm is the companion, is the fifter of him, who thought himself of a different fpecies from the reft of mankind. A few feet of earth contain the ashes of him who conquered the globe; the fhadows of the long night stretch over all alike; the monarch of disorder, the great leveller of mankind, lays all on the bed of clay in equal meannefs. In the course of time, the land of defolation becomes ftill more def

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