been summoned
to the land where our fathers have gone before us.

Again we are called to assemble among the habitations of the dead, to
behold the "narrow house appointed for all living." Here, around us, in
that peace which the world cannot give or take away, sleep the
unnumbered dead. The gentle breeze fans their verdant covering, they
heed it not; the sunshine and the storm pass over them, and they are not
disturbed; stones and lettered monuments symbolize the affection of
surviving friends, yet no sound proceeds from them, save that silent but
thrilling admonition, "Seek ye the narrow path and the straight gate
that lead unto eternal life."

We are again called upon to consider the uncertainty of human life, the
immutable certainty of death, and the vanity of all human pursuits.
Decrepitude and decay are written upon every living thing. The cradle
and the coffin stand in juxtaposition to each other; and it is a
melancholy truth that so soon as we begin to live, that moment we also
begin to die. It is passing strange that, notwithstanding the daily
mementos of mortality that cross our path--notwithstanding the funeral
bells so often toll in our ears and the "mournful processions" go about
our streets--we will not more seriously consider our approaching fate.
We go on from design to design, add hope to hope, and lay out plans for
the employment of many years, until we are suddenly alarmed at the
approach of the Messenger of Death, at a moment when we least expect
him, and which we probably conclude to be the meridian of our existence.

What, then, are all the externals of human dignity--the power of wealth,
the dreams of ambition, the pride of intellect, or the charms of
beauty--when Nature has paid her just debt? Fix your eyes on the last
sad scene, and view life stripped of its ornaments, and exposed in its
natural weakness, and you must be persuaded of the utter emptiness of
these delusions. In the grave, all fallacies are detected, all ranks are
leveled, all distinctions are done away. Here the scepter of the prince
and the staff of the beggar are laid side by side.

Our present meeting and proceedings will have been vain and useless, if
they fail to excite our serious reflections, and strengthen our
resolutions of amendment.

Be then persuaded, my brethren, by this example of the uncertainty of
human life, of the unsubstantial nature of all its pursuits, and no
longer postpone the all-important concern of p