grass, the corn, flowers of various colours, and different odours. How beautiful did creation appeared a few months ago! We could then sing, "Lo, for us the wilds are glad, The fields appeared like so many green carpets, embroidered with a variety of flowers, the fragrance of which revived the fainting traveller; but now they are become like so many barren heaths, and not a sprig of life appears; all looks waste and mournful. The trees presented a variegated scene; some adorned with blossoms, others nursing their offspring, namely, delicious fruits, shaded by verdant leaves; but now they are like so many dead logs, or lifeless trunks. Thus we see death has entered into the composition of the inanimate creation for man's offence, in which he may read his own destiny, even his own dissolution. 2. ANOTHER circumstance, which preaches mortality to us, and that is, the daily distruction of animals. In this we may say, as the apostle does, in another respect; namely, that death has passed upon those which have not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression. The poor brutes have not sinned, and yet millions of these feel the pangs of death every day; are violently dragged to slaughter, to feed the race of him whose sin brought the punishment upon them. And if they escape the violence of man, they are either destroyed by one another, or "the lurking principle of death" gradually brings them to the dust from whence they were taken. Thus, however useful, or pleasing, they must go the way of all the earth, and cry aloud to us to prepare for our turn. It is the opinion of some, and it is perfectly innocent, that the brutes will have a future existence, as a recompence for their sufferings here. It is certain, they are made to suffer here most cruelly, under the tyrannical hands of man; they groan under the most dreadful oppressions; and the common parent of good, is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works. We see, in many instances, how a kind providence, careth for even the brute creation, and the charge which he hath given concerning them. See Exod. xxiii. 5. Deut. xxii. 4. verses 6, 7. Prov. xii. 10. But man, cruel man, violates all those laws either to gratify his avarice, pleasure, or revenge: the design of providence in giving mankind the creatures was for his use and comfort, and not for his abuse. But the whole creation groans and travails in pain till the great deliverances come; when the creature shall be delivered from the bondage of correction into the glorious liberty of the children of God. (a) (a) Rom. vii. 22, 23. BUT let them die of themselves, or let them be destroyed by man, they inforce the first awful sentence, Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return. 3. BUT what speaks more loudly, and what is a more emphatic call, the death of our own species, and that daily. And yet the frequency of that circumstance lessens the solemnity of it. Should such a thing as a funeral happen, in a neighbourhood, once in fifty years, it would create an alarm; but as it is happening daily, it becomes a common place thing; and though the bell tolls, and the graves open, the mourners walk in solemn procession, yet it is not regarded. The accents of the deeptoned bell sound in vain. The design of our forefathers, in ordering what we term, the passing bell, to be rung was wise and pious; as it was to announce to the parish, that a soul was passed from time into eternity; and therefore properly called a passing bell. How solemn! how awful to leave all things here below, which we may have been acquainted with all our lifetime, and to enter upon an untried state, and among inhabitants which we are so ignorant of? Likewise to consider, that the soul enters upon its fixed state; only in the resurrection to rise into a higher state of glory or sink into the great depth of misery for ever-more. Awful thought, "How shall I leave my tomb? 4. THE word of God puts this matter out of all doubt, the excellent of the earth have all gone this gloomy road except two. Let their lives have been prolonged to a period which now surprises us, yet the close of the matter is, they died. I have read, somewhere, of an infidel, who happened to go into a church where prayers were read on a week day; and the first lesson was the fifth chapter of Genesis; in which the longevity of the antedeluvian patriarchs is described; he listened, and the reading struck him with attention. He heard that Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years and he died; others lived their nine hundred and odd years, and then died. The repetition of the word, he died, brought him seriously to think that he himself must die too, and it seems had a blessed effect upon his own mind. In such a manner does infinite wisdom over-rule even curiosity, and also makes the most trivial things contribute to his glory and the happiness of his creatures. O! tis a serious thing to die; and yet it must be submitted to; as there is a time which we were born, so there is a time in which we must die. For it is appointed to man once to die; and to die well is to live for ever. There have been here and there a few who took it into their heads that they should escape their last enemy, but they did not remain long in that opinion; death put them in another mind; even they died like the rest of their fellow mortals. Such must be our lot. The psalmist exclaims, I said, ye are gods, speaking to magistrates and rulers, and all of you children of the most high, But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the people. As much as if he had said, I honour you for the sake of your office, but there is no bye way for you: no, you must go the common way of all the earth, and die like the meanest of the human race. Most likely some of you are saying in your hearts, what avails the preacher detaining us here this cold day, in ringing the changes a thousand times in our ears that we are to die? do not we all know that we must die? All assent and consent to it, as they do to the being of a God, or to heaven or hell; but then, as one says, "All men think all men mortal but themselves!" I want the awful truth to penetrate into thy heart, my fellow sinner; so that thou mayest cast off the works of darkness, that the thought may arouse thee from thy slumber; so that death may no longer appear like the picture of a lion, or a lion at a distance, but as the lion in the narrow pass; and to see that his teeth are broken and his cut off, or as the apostle expresses it, that paws |