discharge of the duties of
life and supports under its troubles; especially at the approach of
death, when worldly comforts fly away.

The wicked who live in habitual neglect of religion, or the indulgence
of vicious desires, are commonly filled with dismay and horror, if
reason remains, when they perceive their end draw nigh. The flights
which they have cast on the gospel, and on the grace therein offered;
their neglects of known duty; their acts of injustice, intemperance,
uncleanness, or other immoralities, the remembrance of which were
almost obliterated by time, at that awful period rise up before them!
Conscience awakes; and when they consider the denunciations of divine
wrath against those who do such things, and have pleasure in them,
fear harrows up their souls! They anticipate eternal woe, and are
filled with agonizing horror! Then do they appear all hurry and
confusion! The great work of life to do, and opportunity gone forever!
Bewailing past madness they cry undone! Undone! Such often continues
their state, till the king of terrors driving them away without hope,
shuts up the scene!

But _the perfect and upright man_, how happily different when death
draws near? If possessed of himself, like the still summer's evening,
he is calm and serene. He talks of death with as much composure, as
one returning from a strange country, to his native land; or as one
returning from captivity and slavery, to his father's house, to his
family, and to the society of friends, dear as life, and with much
more raised expectations!

Some ties of nature--dear connexions, bind him indeed to earth, and
would detain him here; but stronger bonds allure and draw him away
toward a better world. If concern for dear ones he must leave behind
intrudes and tempts him to wish a longer stay, he remembers that
though he dies, his God lives--that God hath stiled himself the
"Father of the fatherless and judge of the widow;" that he hath said
"Leave thy fatherless children with me, I will preserve them alive,
and let thy widows trust in me." Supported by such comforting
declarations--such kind promises of a faithful God, and the allured
belief of his mercy and truth, he resigns them to his care and leaves
them with him, not doubting, but he will preserve them, or dispose of
them, as shall be most for his own glory, and their good.

As to temporal matters, which often trouble those, who are chiefly
concerned about worldly things, they cann