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world, having no anxious father to watch over their early years, to instil into them the principles of piety and virtue, and to protect the tender buds from the noxious blasts of vice. But this is a wound too tender now to be probed. Over this scene my feelings compel me to draw a veil. Let us commend them to the almighty protection of our compassionate High-Priest, who has a fellow-feeling with all our infirmities; who, in all our afflictions, is afflicted; who knoweth our frame and remembereth that we are dust; who is the father of the fatherless, the judge of the widow, the stranger's shield and the orphan's stay; who hath expressly promised, leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them; and let thy widows trust in me. And under what more infallible and certain protection can we place them than under the protection of the everlasting God, who fainteth not, neither is weary, who giveth power to the faint, and to them who have no might increaseth strength.

While we yet stand in the presence of God, with this affecting spectacle before our eyes, and surrounded with the numerous mansions of the dead, let me call upon all who hear me, whatever may be their interest in this dispen

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sation of Providence, to attend to, and to improve the important lessons so forcibly taught by the present scene. See here, my brethren, a faithful representation of the vanity of all earthly pursuits, of all human glory! Youth, health, beauty, fortune, talents, honours, serve for a short time to distinguish one worm of the earth from another. The grave opens and reducesall to a perfect equality. Look into the house appointed for all living: What a sad spectacle do we there behold! Ye fathers and mothers of families! who are still so wedded to the world, whose affections, with a sinful excess are placed on the creature more than on the Creator, see here the ghastly remains of that amiable and beloved daughter, once so fair and so gay, whose memory still wrings your heart and moistens your eyes of that promising boy who was the idol of your soul and the hope of your declining years, but who was stopt short in the midst of his career, and cut off in the flower of his age! Disconsolate husband! Behold the mangled form of that youthful spouse to whose accents of affection you surrendered the soul, on whose beauteous face you gazed with rapture. Afflicted widow! see here the husband of your youth, whose unstrung arm can no longer yield you protection, whose dull cold ear cannot listen to your soothing strains, whose breast, once kindled with the purest fire and beating with the best affections, is now mingled with the clods of the valley. " How vain are all things " here below!" How uncertain and transitory our dearest possessions, and our purest joys! How careful should we be to place our affections on the "Friend that sticketh closer than " a brother," and who will not, like earthly friends, die and leave us.

Hither let the men of the world also repair, and derive instruction from this scene. What desolation do you here behold! What profound silence reigns among the inhabitants of the tomb! But this silence is instructive; it is eloquent. Hear you not a voice issuing from yonder grave and saying, number your days, and apply your hearts unto wisdom.

Listen ye votaries of ambition ! to what is addressed to you by one of the occupants of that church-yard! "I have enjoyed before "you that place of preferment which you "now seek. I have been surrounded with " that splendour which now dazzles your sight. "I made a figure in the world. My titles,

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my wealth, my dignity, my credit, were " spoken of with admiration and applause. "But where did all terminate? In the grave. " And where shall it terminate also with re"gard to you? In the grave!"

Listen, ye covetous! to what another of these dead seems to utter : "I was tormented " with the same insatiable desire of heaping

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up wealth that now occupies your breast. I " became fat on the substance of the widow " and the orphan. I got to myself large pos"sessions. But of all these what did I bring " with me into this dark abode? Nothing but " a winding-sheet and a coffin. And what "more will you carry away of the treasures "which you may amass?"

Listen, ye sons of pleasure! to the voice from the tomb : " I, too, lived voluptuously. "I withheld not my heart from any joy. "Pleasure I tried in all its forms. But now "the voice of musick is low: My pomp is " brought down to the grave, and the noise “ of my viols : The worm is spread under "me, and the worms cover me. What you

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are, I have been; and what I now am, you " will soon be."

May the salutary impressions which have this day been made upon our minds, abide with us, and influence our conduct during the whole of our remaining abode on earth ! AMEN!

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