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rottenness, and dust, no longer swell in brief and borrowed arrogance!

But see the afflicting sight! Five tender children, each in an almost infant state, are led by weeping friends, in mournful procession, after the body of their departed father.

In a coach behind, waiting to complete the melancholy view, is an infant, three days old, brought into the world, by its half-distracted mother, before its appointed time! Big sorrow, and insupportable, hath hastened the throes and dire anguish of birth; and behold the little orphan, insensible of its misery, is offered to the regenerating font, while its father is consigned to the bowels of the earth!

Crowds of spectators from every part are attentive to the moving scene: on every face sits sympathetic sorrow; in every eye swells the generous tear of compassion and concern.

But a few days are past since a trembling messenger, with breathless speed, urged my instant attendance at the sick bed of NEGOTIO, on whose life, it was to be feared, the remorseless fever had made fatal inroad. I hastened without delay; and I found-but who can describe the afflicting

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misery? Confusion, anguish, and distress; weeping, lamentation, and woe; dismay and unutterable agony took up their residence in the dwelling of NEGOTIO! Surprised in the midst of youth, and in the ardour of earthly pursuits, by the awful and irresistible summons of death, the husband, the father, the man, lay wracked with such thoughts, as his condition might well be supposed to awaken. Unable to bear the shock, his wife, who long sleepless had watched by his couch, was thrown on the ground in an adjacent chamber, and her little infants were weeping around her, the more to be pitied, as unconscious of their misery, and wondering with artless plaints, why their beloved mother was thus sad and in tears! Near relations were tender in their best offices, while every heart was anticipating the wretched widow's distress.

When I sat down by his bed, and gently undrew the curtain, he looked-and shall I ever forget the earnest, anxious, speaking look? A tear dropt from his eye, he caught my hand, he strove to speak, but his full heart forbad; and the organs of speech, deeply affected by his malady,

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were unfaithful to the trust of words which he gave them: we sat silent for some time, and with difficulty at length I perceived that he said, or wished to say, "I fear it is too late. Pray for me: for Christ's sake pray." I endeavoured, as well as the affliction of my mind would permit me, to suggest every ground of hope, every motive of consolation. he squeezed my hand and sighed. "Little is to be done, he strove to say,

amid all the distractions of a sick bed like mine : oh, consider my wife, consider my poor little babes!" We said all which could be said; had scarce finished the usual prayers, and were preparing to mention the Sacrament, when the visit was interrupted by the necessary attendance of the physician, whose departure the lawyer waited to settle his temporal affairs. Two more blisters were ordered to six he already had upon him: a drowsy sleepiness, dire prognostic of death, seized him; which, hourly increasing, at length terminated in strong convulsions, and the busy, active, sprightly NEGOTIO died in his thirty-third year.

Died! utterly unprepared and unprovided to leave this world, far less provided and prepared

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to enter into the next. His worldly concerns totally unsettled; his eternal concerns scarce ever thought of!

How much to be deplored is the fate of NEGOTIO! and yet, alas, how much is it to be feared, that many thousands are hourly splitting on the same rock with him!

He lived only for this world. Full of hope, and buoyant with life, death was not in all his thoughts; and à future state, when suggested to him, was considered as unworthy his present concern, because it was judged so distant. He thought not of the present span of existence, as of a short state of trial, an hour of weary pilgrimage; nor considered himself as an immortal being, speedily to give an account to the dread judge of mankind. But, deluded by the specious pretence of making necessary provision for his family; a duty he well knew incumbent upon him; à duty he saw universally approved and applauded; he had no other view than to amass wealth, and provide a large fortune for his children; the comforts of which he promised himself to partake, and had formed many chimerical schemes of chariots and

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country retirements, of brilliant gaiety and envied splendor.

Amid these designs and pursuits, it might with too much truth be said of NEGOTIO, that God was not in all his thoughts. Indeed, he regularly attended his church in the morning of the Sabbath, and as regularly gave the afternoon to indulgence and dissipation. But while at the church how listless was he to the prayers, now and then yawning out an unmeaning Amen; for his heart was there where his treasure was placed. The sermons had seldom much weight with him; he sometimes observed they were good: and when they touched on the subjects most pertaining to himself, he failed not to remark, that the preacher was rather too severe. Thus he went on; and, in the eagerness of temporal pursuit, and the over-earnest desire to grow rich, had too far engaged his fortune, and not been successful according to his hopes; the reflection on which harassed his mind; while his industrious desires to obtain his ends and bless his family, as much harassed his body, and brought on that fever, the sad issue of which we have seen.