To his grim cave; all dismal yet to the sense More terrible at the entrance than within. All our knowledge, our employments, our riches, and our honors must end in death; so that we must seek a sanctuary of happiness some where else. When the scene of life is shut up, the slave will be above his master, if he has acted a better part thus nature and condition are once more brought to a balance. How poor will power, wealth, honor, fame, and titles seem at our last hour? and how joyful will that man be, who hath led an honest, virtuous life, and travelled to heaven, though through the roughest ways of poverty, affliction and contempt. That life is long which answers life's great end. One eye on death, and one full fix'd on heav'n, Becomes a mortal, and immortal man. The young man may aged cannot live long. plucked off, or shaken will fall of itself. die shortly, but the Green fruit may be down; but the ripe Death is the privilege of human nature, Our lives are ever in the power of death. I was wonderfully affected (says a worthy Christian) with a discourse I had lately with a clergyman of my acquaintance upon this head, which was to this effect: The consideration (said the good man) that my being is precarious, moved me many years ago, to make a resolution, which I have diligently kept, and to which I owe the greatest satisfaction that mortal man can enjoy. Every night before I address myself to my Creator, I lay my hand upon my heart, and ask myself, whether, if God should require my soul of me this night, I could hope for mercy from him. The bitter agonies I underwent in this my first acquaintance with myself, were so far from throwing me into despair of that mercy which is over all God's works, that it proved motives of greater circumspection in my future conduct. The oftener I exercised myself in meditations of this kind, the less was my anxiety; and by making the thoughts of death familiar, what was at first so terrible and shocking, is now become the sweetest of my enjoyments. These contemplations have indeed made ne serious, but not sullen; nay, they are so far from having soured my temper, that I have a mind perfectly composed, and a secret spring of joy in my heart;-I taste all the innocent satisfactions of life pure, as I have no share in pleasures that leave a sting behind them. -Man but dives in death, Dives from the sun, in fairer day to rise; The grave his subterranean road to bliss. Death is only terrible to us as a change of state. Let us then live so, as to make it only a continuation of it, by the uniform practice of charity, benevolence, and religion, which are to be the exercises of the next life. Fond foolish man would fain these thoughts decline, And lose them in his business, sports, and wine ; But canst thou lose them? Se'st thou not, each hour, Age drop like autumn leaves, youth like a flow'r Cut down; do coffins, graves, and tolling bells, Warn thee in vain ?-In palaces and cells, The heights of life above, the vales beneath, In towns and fields, we ev'ry where meet death. In death's uncertainty thy danger lies. As the tree falls so must it lie; as death leaves us, judgment will find us. If so, how importunate should every one of us be to secure the favor of the Almighty Judge, to be interested in the Redeemer's love, and among the number of his chosen people, before it is too late. Be like a sentinel, keep on your guard, In the death of others we may see our own mortality, and be taught to live more and more in the daily expectation of, and preparation for that awful hour, to which we are all hastening as fast as the wings of time can carry us: Seek then an interest in the blessed Redeemer. Our birth is nothing but our death begun, As tapers waste that instant they take fire. Death is the end of fear and beginning of felicity. Death is the law of nature, the tribute of the flesh, the remedy of evils, and the path either to heavenly felicity, or eternal misery. Eternity, that boundless race, Which time himself can never run (Swift as he flies, with an unwearied pace) Which when ten thousand thousand years are done, Is still the same, and still to be begun. We always dream; the life of man's a dream, In which fresh tumults agitate his breast; Till the kind hand of death unlocks the chain, F Which clogs the noble and aspiring soul, EDUCATION. LET holy discipline clear the soil, let sa cred instruction sow it with the best of seed; let skill and vigilance dress the rising shoots, direct the young idea how to spread; the wayward passions how to move. Then what a different state of the inner man will quickly take place! Charity will breathe her sweets, and hope expand her blossoms; the personal virtues display their graces, and the social ones their fruits: the sentiments become generous; the carriage endearing; and the life honorable and useful. Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, Posterity wisely regulates the rewards due to men of learning, and equals them to the greatest princes: Three thousand years after |