servations, which pretend to any charm of novelty. The motive for my earnestness, and it should be an additional spur to your attention, is this,-The matters, which I am bringing before you, are so far from dubious, that their very notoriety has caused them to lose part of their due weight. And alas! in the overwhelming and universal topic of death there is so little of what is new, that every scheme of abstraction is resorted to, every mean of dissipation employed, lest the too frequent recurrence of the unwelcome sound should disturb our repose or invade our pleasure.

9 Let us then force our thoughts to dwell awhile upon the shortness, the uncertainty, and the vanity of human existence. Meditating upon these acknowledged truths, we shall surely be brought to confess the extreme folly of risking any hope in eternity for any hope, or even any possession, which can be supplied by such a life as this.

First if we look to the most extended term of human life, we must acknowledge it to be short, short even in itself, but infinitely short, if compared with eternity. Few, very few of our species, are permitted to approach the verge of fourscore years,

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and supposing, what is very unusual, a great degree of prosperity and health during all that period, yet if we consider how much of enjoyment must be necessarily cut off by the weakness of infancy, the discipline of youth, and the gradually increasing infirmities of old age, this cannot be deemed a protraction of existence, upon which any one, accustomed to reflect, will pride himself, or found his projects of de

light, but especially one, who is permitted to regard himself as a destined heir of immortality.-So true, as well as affecting, is that declaration of the Psalmist, "The days of our age are threescore years and ten ; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow: for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.'

,, 2

This however is taking the term of life in a favourable point of view. For, improved as may be the condition of existence, and enlarged its duration in these latter days, from an increase of the blessings for which we are continually indebted to a gracious Providence, from a more ample diffusion of science and extensive discoveries in the healing art, yet how rarely is it that we see any of our fellow creatures arrive at fourscore years, and still more rarely, to see them in the possession of bodily strength or intellectual power! Rarely, I mean in comparison of the numberless crowds, who are hurried to their graves before they have reached the middle term of human exist

Here then we feelingly assent to the truth of the observations, made by the holy Moralist; "Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep in the morning they are like grass which groweth up. In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down and withereth." b

:

This comparison of the space of human life with the time, in which herbs of the field are permitted to flourish, is a favourite image with the Sacred

a Psalm xc. 10.

b Ib. 5, 6.

Writers, and is introduced with marked solemnity by the Prophet Isaiah. "The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass."

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Nothing indeed can be more elegant, or more appropriate than such a comparison as this. The symmetry and comeliness of the human frame are represented by the nice adaptation of parts and the beautiful arrangement of colours, so conspicuous in the blossoms, which are scattered in sweet profusion over the trees; and the flowers, that so agreeably diversify the surface of the ground. Yet, beauteous as they are, they are short-lived; they seem but to spring up in order to decay. In this, as well as in their structure and their comeliness, they are but too apt a resemblance of our perishable frame. "As for man,

his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no

more.

We We may further observe that these delightful productions of the field and of the garden, are not only, in their own nature and by the law of their growth, of short duration,-some of them ephemeral, lasting but for a day, others even the short term of an hour, but they are subject to a variety of accidents; Land thus the period is abridged, which otherwise they

a

Isaiah, xl. 5, 6.

b Psalm ciii. 15, 16.

might have reached. The herbs of the field are not only exposed to the tread and the teeth of animals, but to the unsparing scythe of the mower; while the flower, that adorns the garden, falls an early sacrifice to accident or design, to caprice or to taste. The prudent hand of the cultivator restrains its luxuriance; the child, in thoughtless frolic, levels its pride; and the joint attractions of beauty and of fragrance conspire to shorten still more its previously short existence.

In this respect too the comparison holds between human existence and vegetable life. They are both exposed to accidents from such a variety of causes) that the duration in each is not only short but extremely uncertain.

J

2. Here then is an additional reason, why the value we might otherwise set upon life should be di-i minished, and the attachment we feel for it abated. Surely no wise and reflecting man will bestow all his time and thoughts upon an object, which at the best cannot last very long; and which, by many causes of ordinary occurrence, may be at any time terminated as it were in a moment. If we could safely and reasonably reckon upon the longest continuance upon earth that is permitted to any of our fellow-creatures, the wisdom of devoting all our time and thoughts to it would be very questionable; since it must, by the inevitable law of our nature, come to a close. But, when so many causes are continually in operation, which at the bidding or by the permission of an Allwise and Omnipotent Creator, may "bring our years to an end," it is folly to cleave with undue fondness

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to a possession so precarious; it is worse than folly to suffer ourselves to be overtaken as by "a thief in the night;" without any defence against an assailant. who, we ought to have known, was lying in wait for us; without any preparation for a summons, which we know would infallibly be sent, although we were not informed of the precise time of its arrival.

Human life, as we have had occasion to observe, and as daily and hourly observation teaches us, is not of great extent in its utmost duration. With the seeds of existence, by the gracious but mysterious appointment of Providence, are mingled the seeds of decay, so that the very cradle witnesses the departure, as well as arrival, of a great portion of the human species. These seeds of decay however lose not their strength in the cradle; they accompany us in our progress through life, and shoot up, sometimes at an earlier, sometimes a later period; but still forsake us not, till they have consigned their victims to the tomb.one de, o as rogu » good bas orat toOther diseases there are, floating in the very atmosphere, and infusing the poison of contagion. If to these various and fertile sources of destruction, we add the calamitous effects of war and of famine poverty and ignorance; the cup of human calamity should seem to be full, and the term of human life" sufficiently short and sufficiently uncertain. Moreover; to the natural and ordinary causes, which embitter and abridge existence, we must add that class of evils, which assume the name of accident; and which, under every possible form, and in every various mode of infliction, in a moment hurry the wise and

of