verge of the grave, in one dreadful moment of furprize, they plunge into it.

That we fhall die, is a truth fo manifeft, and so frequently repeated, that it hath almoft ceafed to be felt. And the uncertainty of the time of our departure hence, which ought to keep it ever present to our view, is that very circumftance which human corruption lays hold of to make us forget it altogether.

This fearful uncertainty fhall be the whole fubject of our meditation at present.

It is a fubject, however, fo frequently treated of, and so constantly presented to us in the whole courfe of providence, that nothing new, nothing, indeed, that is not trite can now be faid upon it. All that I can hope is to recall to your memory a few of thofe ideas which you have heard a thousand times repeated, and to endeavour to give them, if poffible, a new impreffion on the heart.

Of that hour knoweth no man." Accordingly we fee the feeble and the strong,

the humble and the great, the young and thofe in middle life, infancy and age mingled promifcuously in the duft. Death equally strikes at all; and every moment from the cradle to the grave fhould be regarded as the possible moment of our own departure. Men are furprised in the midst of business, in the midft of pleafure, in the midst of the most firm health, in the midst of the flattering profpects of fortune that are opening round them-taken in the moments when they are leaft thoughtful, and, in their own apprehenfions, the fartheft from danger.

Life is a fountain fed by a thousand ftreams that perishes if one be dried—It is a filver cord twifted with a thousand firings that parts asunder if one be broken. Frail and thoughtlefs mortals are furrounded by innumerable dangers which make it much more ftrange that they escape so long than that they almoft all perifh fuddenly at laft. We are encompaffed with accidents ever ready to crufh the mouldering tenement that we inhabit-The feeds of difcafe are planted in our conftitution by the hand of nature-The earth and the atmosphere,

whence we draw our life, are impregnated with death-Health is made to operate its own deftruction-The food that nourishes the body contains the elements of its decay -The foul that animates it by a vivifying fire tends to wear it out by its actionDeath lurks in ambush about all our paths.

Notwithstanding this is a truth fo palpable, and confirmed by daily examples before our eyes, how little do we lay it to heart! We fee our friends and neighbours perifhing around us, but how feldom does it occur to our thoughts that our own knell, perhaps, fhall give the next fruitless warning to the world.

He

Would you have a picture of human folly and inconfideration? Imagine a multitude of children blindfold, and engaged in thoughtless fports, while death is walking in the midst of them shaking a fatal dart. pierces one, and then another and another— Destruction overtakes them-their agonies feize upon them; but they know not whence the evil comes. The furvivors are aftonished for a moment; but, not perceiving the cruel murderer, they play on, and

the next moment they are pierced themfelves. This is an image of men. They are blind to their approaching fate till it has overtaken them. That uncertainty which fhould forever place it before their eyes, they make the means of banishing it from their thoughts. All grounds are affumed by them, however contradictory, to flatter themselves with the delufive hopes of life. The healthy expect to live, because they do not perceive in themfelves the fymptoms of decay-The infirm expect to live, because their infirmity has become a habit-The young expect to live, because they have not lived fo long as others-And the old, because they have lived longer. Who expects his laft fickness till it has overtaken him? Who of the fick apprehends he fhall die till his cafe has become defperate? And. even in the last agonies, frequently, does he not look to find fome fhred of hope, because life is ftill poffible?-Oh! fatal deceiver! that forever blinds the finner and cheats him of his falvation! that infatuates him with the world and makes him unmindful of his eternal ftate! that perfuades him to trust to life, and hides the importance, and

even the certainty of dying in the uncertainty of the time of death!

If God, in fome clear and manifest way, fhould indicate to us, as he did to Hezekiah, the term of our years, and give us affurance that, at fuch an appointed time, we fhould die, would not that fixed period continually occupy our minds ?* Could we fufferit toescape a moment from our thoughts? Hurried perpetually acrofs the interval between us and that inflant that fhould decide our everlasting ftate, it would appear too fhort for the work we fhould have to do in it. The image of death, forever prefent, would efface the impreffions of the worldit would render unlawful pleafures infipid and difgufting-we could feel no other interefts but thofe that connected us with eternity. If then death, feen at a diftance, but at a certain and determined period, would fo alarm, would fo occupy our thoughts, would fo detach the heart from the world, is it not extreme folly to fuffer this folemn and interefting event, now, that it may ar rive every moment, to flip from our minds?

Maffillon.