betrayeth me is at
hand!"

And thus it often happens in the life of us all. An hour is given us
when something may be done for our Lord or our brethren, which cannot
possibly be done if that hour is permitted to pass away unimproved.
Then we may teach an ignorant soul, or rouse a slothful one to action;
we may alarm one who is lethargic, worldly, sensual, "without God or
Christ in the world," so as to win him to both; or we may comfort the
feeble-minded, and support the weak. Circumstances may give us the
opportunity, and the "moment in life," when such works may be done.
The persons to be helped are perhaps inmates of our dwelling; they are
our relations: they are sick or dying; or they have cast themselves
upon our aid. But we let the moment pass. The work given us is
not done. We have neglected it from sloth, procrastination,
thoughtlessness, or selfishness. And we may become awake to our
culpable negligence, and rouse ourselves to duty. But, alas! those
whom we could have aided are past help. They are dead, or are removed
from our influence, or in some way "past remedy." And so the moment
in life given us is gone, and gone for ever, except to meet us and to
accuse us before the bar of God. And thus it is with duty in countless
forms. What our hands find to do must be done quickly, if done at all,
and in the time given us. If not, a night comes, and may come soon and
come suddenly, in which either we ourselves cannot work, or in which,
though at last willing to do it, it is no longer given us to do.

But there is one moment in life--and I conclude by suggesting it to
your thoughts--which must come to every man, and which generally comes
with signs sufficiently significant of its importance,--I mean the
last moment which closes our life on earth. Come it must. And, as an
old writer remarks, "the day we die, though of no importance to the
world, is to ourselves of more importance than is all the world." That
moment in life ends time to us, and begins eternity; it ends our day
of grace and begins the day of judgment; it separates us from the
world in which we have lived since we were born, and introduces us to
the unseen, unknown world of things and persons in which we must live
for ever during the life of God. What a moment is this! It may come in
the quiet of our own chamber, or amidst the confusion and excitement
of some dread accident by land or sea; it may be heralded by long
sickness or old age, and accompanied