experimentally know what death is

you and I must die. Let us think of death: it is a serious thing to die: think what it is to be sick : what pain you then feel: but what is that, when compared with death! Let us suppose the king of terrors standing before our eyes, with the fatal dart in his hand; his arm already lifted up; the blow is certain, and the aim is sure. Our last and solemn hour is now come, and we must bid a long and last farewell to all things here below. Our lips quivering-our breath fails-our eyes dim, and our throats rattlingour hands and feet bedewed with a cold sweat, and our cheeks covered with the paleness of death! What an affecting thought. This warm active body becomes cold and still-these feet will cease to walk-these hands will no longer handle these eyes will be closed-this tongue will speak no more, for every mouth will be shut-the heart will cease to beat, and the blood cease to flow-the pulse stops, and the lungs no longer perform their office-the breath is gone, to return no more, till we rise from the dead. The shroud is sent for, and wrapped round the body-the coffin is made, and the grave is dug. Nothing now remains but to carry you to your long home, and cover you with dust, and leave you to be food for worms and mingle with the dust with which you are covered. Many little children, when they see others lying in their coffins, and the gaudy manner in which they are dressed, are pleased with

the thoughts, that when they die, they shall be dressed with the same finery, and carried to the grave in the same manner. It is an awful thing to die; death is terrible to the wicked, for they are driven away in their wickedness."

"Death! 'tis a melancholy day,
To those who have no God;
When the poor soul is forced away,

To seek her last abode.

:

At death, all your plans and schemes must be laid aside all your joys and sorrows will be ended: you must leave all your playmates and play-things behind you: then you will hear no more sermons; sing no more hymns; read no more chapters; repeat no more catechism: your place at school, at church, and at home by your own fire side, will be empty; you will never sit there nor here any more forever. Remember, you cannot be good children after you are dead you cannot pray to God for pardon of your sins: you cannot seek the Lord Jesus Christ for your Saviour, when you are confined in the grave. O, my dear children, think of death.

"O, now improve the hours you have,
Before the day of grace is fled;
There's no repentance in the grave,
Nor pardon's offer'd to the dead."

What is it that makes you so much afraid of death? It is because you are wicked. Sin makes you afraid to die, and it is sin that is the

cause of death: It is the punishment which God told our first parents Adam and Eve, would be the consequence of breaking his commands and eating the forbidden fruit. "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." "Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned." And "as it is appointed unto all men once to die."

All men must die, young and old, rich and poor: death pays no respect to any, but visits all in their turn: to-day he takes the king from his throne; to-morrow the beggar from the dunghill: to-day he takes the infant from the bosom of its mother; to-morrow a lovely youth from school.

"For when he summons, then we all must go, To endless happiness or endless woe."

Your wisdom will not save you from death: Solomon died, and so must you. Your beauty will not save you from death: Abigail died, so must you. Your strength will not save you: Sampson died, so must you. Your goodness or piety will not save you: David died, and so must you. Your sparkling eyes, your rosy cheeks, your lily hands, or handsome feet, will not save you from the pointed arrows of Death; your gold and silver will not bribe Death nor tempt or persuade him to spare you a little longer. You know you must die; you often feel sick and ill, and sooner or later it will end

in death. You often see funerals pass as you walk along the streets; scarcely a day passes, but some one is carried to the grave. Let every child say

"There is an hour when I must die,

Nor do I know how soon 'twill come;
How many children, young as I,

Are call'd by death to hear their doom.”

The time when, and the manner how you may die, are both unknown to you and I. Nothing is so sure as death, and nothing so uncertain as the time. You may be too old to live, but you can never be too young to die; you should therefore live every hour, as if you were to die the next.

The Assyrian king, who spent his life in wickedness, said, when he came to die-O if I had thought I should have died as I do, I would not have lived as I did. A fine boy, above twelve years of age, set off to school at two o'clock; he was met by a boy riding a horse; the boy asked him to ride the horse to the stable, to which he consented: he had not been seated more than two minutes before the horse stumble and threw him; in the fall, his thigh was broken in two places, and awful to relate, a loaded waggon passed over him at the same moment; and after lying two hours, in the greatest agony, his soul entered the eternal world. Four French soldiers were killed in a

R

his horse.

storm, and the fifth struck senseless, for blasphemy against God. A young man, who said he was riding to hell, was killed by a fall from A young girl, who behaved improperly in the house of God, wishing she might have the small-pox, caught it and died. A girl was burnt to death and died in three hours. A little boy, five years old, fell from the top of the house and was killed.

At first, people lived to a great age: Methuselah, lived nine hundred and sixty nine years, and then he died. Then the life of man was gradually shortened from the flood to Moses and David. And the days of our years amount to but three score years and ten. The hour of death is very uncertain. In the 12th chapter of the 2d book of Samuel, we read of the death of David's child, who was quite an infant: in the 4th chapter of the 2d Kings, we have an account of the sudden death of a little boy seven or eight years old; and in the 5th chapter of the gospel by Mark, we read of the death of a little girl, about twelve years old. Some die in the bloom of youth, at eighteen or twenty years of age; like the widow's son, whom Christ raised from the dead. How many die in what is called the middle of life, and how few there are that reach what is called old age.

The manner in which you may die, is at present unknown. Some die what is called a natural death, and others, what is called a violent death. There is but one way into this world,