read a light book in a leisure hour. _We_ must die, the
youngest, the healthiest, the most thoughtless; _we_ must be thus
unnaturally torn in two, soul from body; and only united again to be
made more thoroughly happy or to be miserable for ever.

Such is death considered in its inevitable necessity, and its
unspeakable importance--nor can we ensure to ourselves any certain
interval before its coming. The time may be long; but it may also be
short. It is plain, a man may die any day; all we can say is, that it
is unlikely that he will die. But of this, at least, we are certain,
that, come it sooner or later, death is continually on the move towards
us. We are ever nearer and nearer to it. Every morning we rise we are
nearer that grave in which there is no work, nor device, than we were.
We are now nearer the grave, than when we entered this Church. Thus
life is ever crumbling away under us. What should we say to a man, who
was placed on some precipitous ground, which was ever crumbling under
his feet, and affording less and less secure footing, yet was careless
about it? Or what should we say to one who suffered some precious
liquor to run from its receptacle into the thoroughfare of men, without
a thought to stop it? who carelessly looked on and saw the waste of it,
becoming greater and greater every minute? But what treasure can equal
time? It is the seed of eternity: yet we suffer ourselves to go on,
year after year, hardly using it at all in God's service, or thinking
it enough to give Him at most a tithe or a seventh of it, while we
strenuously and heartily sow to the flesh, that from the flesh we may
reap corruption. We try how little we can safely give to religion,
instead of having the grace to give abundantly. "Rivers of water run
down mine eyes, because men keep not Thy law," so says the holy
Psalmist. Doubtless an inspired prophet saw far more clearly than we
can see, the madness of men in squandering that treasure upon sin,
which is meant to buy their chief good;--but if so, what must this
madness appear in God's sight! What an inveterate malignant evil is it
in the hearts of the sons of men, that thus leads them to sit down to
eat, and drink, and rise up to play, when time is hurrying on and
judgment coming? We have been told what He thinks of man's unbelief,
though we cannot enter into the depths of His thoughts. He showed it
to us in act and deed, as far as we could receive it, when He ev