SERMON
V.

ECCLESIASTES, xii. 5.

Man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets.

THIS is a sight which incessantly pre-
sents itelf. Our eyes are so much
accustomed to it, that it hardly makes any
impression. Throughout every season of
the year; and during the course of almost
every day, the funerals which pass along
the streets shew us man going to his long
Lome. Were death a rare and uncommon
object; were it only once in the course of
a man's life, that he beheld one of his fel-
low-creatures carried to the
grave, a solemn
awe would fill him; he would stop short in
the midst of his pleasures; he would even

V.

be chilled with secret horror. Such impres- SERMON sions, however, would prove unsuitable to the nature of our present state. When they became so strong as to render men unfit for the ordinary business of life, they would in a great measure defeat the intention of our being placed in this world. It is better ordered by the wisdom of Providence, that they should be weakened by the frequency of their recurrence; and so tempered by the mixture of other passions, as to allow us to go on freely in acting our parts on earth.

Yet, familiar as death is now become, it is undoubtedly fit that by an event of so important a nature, some impression should be made upon our minds. It ought not to pass over, as one of those common incidents which are beheld without concern, and awaken no reflexion. There are many things which the funerals of our fellow-creatures are calculated to teach; and happy it were for the gay and dissipated, if they would listen more frequently to the instructions of so awful a monitor. In the context, the wise man had described, under a variety of images, suited to the eastern style, the grow

SERMON ing infirmities of old age, until they arrive

V.

at that period which concludes them all, when, as he beautifully expresses it, the silver cord being loosened, and the golden bowl broken, the pitcher being broken at the fountain, and the wheel at the cistern, man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the the streets. In discoursing from these words, it is not my purpose to treat, at present, of the instructions to be drawn from the prospect of our own death. I am to confine myself to the death of others; to consider death as one of the most frequent and considerable events that happen 'in the course of human affairs; and to shew in what manner we ought to be affected, fist, by the death of strangers, or indifferent persons; secondly, by the death of friends; and thirdly, by the death of enemies.

if

I. By the death of indifferent persons; any can be called indifferent to whom 'we are so nearly allied as brethren by nature, and brethren in mortality. When we observe the funerals that pass along the streets, or when we walk along the mo

1

;

V.

numents of death, the first thing that na- SERMON turally strikes us, is the undistinguishing blow, with which that common enemy levels all. We behold a great promiscuous multitude all carried to the same abode all lodged in the same dark and silent mansions. There, mingle persons of every age and character, of every rank and condition in life; the young and the old, the poor and the rich, the gay and the grave, the renowned and the ignoble. A few weeks ago, most of those whom we have seen carried to the grave walked about as we do now on the earth; enjoyed their friends, beheld the light of the sun, and were forming designs for future days. Perhaps, it is not long since they were engaged in scenes of high festivity. For them, perhaps, the cheerful company assembled; and in the midst of the circle they shone with gay and -pleasing vivacity. But now to them, all is finally closed. To them no more shall the --seasons return, or the sun rise. No more shall they hear the voice of mirth or behold the face of man. They are swept from the universe as though they had never been. They are carried away, as with a flood: the wind

G3

SERMON wind has passed over them,

V.

gone.

and they are

When we conteraplate this desolation of the human race; this final termination of so many hopes; this silence that now reigns among those who, a little while ago, were so busy or so gay; who can avoid being touched with sensations at once awful and tender? What heart but then warms with the glow of humanity? In whose eye does not the tear gather, on revolving the fate of passing and short-lived man? Such sensations are so congenial to human nature, that they are attended with a certain kind of sorrowful pleasure. Even voluptuaries themselves sometimes indulge a taste for funeral melancholy. After the festive assembly is dismissed, they choose to walk retired in 'the shady grove, and to contemplate the venerable sepulchres of their ancestors. This melancholy pleasure arises from two different sentiments meeting at the same time in the breast; a sympathetic sense of the shortness and vanity of life, and a persuasion that something exists after death; sentiments which unite at the view of the house appointed for all living. A tomb, it has

been