DEATH AND ETERNITY.

THE day of death which we so much fear,

is the birth-day of eternity.

How terrible is death to one man, which to another appears the greatest providence in nature, even towards all ages and conditions, it is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all; it sets the slave at liberty, carries the banished man home, and places all mortals upon the same level.

If with the pains we endure here, we were immortal, we should be the most miserable of beings. It is sweet and pleasing to hope, that we shall not live always.

We feel death but once, he who fears it, dies every time he thinks of it.

Destiny has decreed all men to die; but to die well is the particular privilege of the virtu ous and good..

To die is the fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish, is generally his folly.

Our decays are as much the work of na ture, as the first principles of our being: we die as fast as we live; every moment subtracts from our duration on earth, as much as it adds to it.

Death is no more than a turning us over from time to eternity. It leads to immortality; and that is recompence enough for suffering it.

To neglect at any time preparations for death, is to sleep on our post at a siege, but to omit it in old age, is to sleep at an attack.

He that dies well has lived long enough. Soon as death enters upon the stage, the tra gedy of life is done.

It is the perfection of happiness, neither to wish for death nor fear it.

How miserable is that man, that cannot look backward, but with shame, nor forward, without terror! What comfort will his riches afford him in his extremity; or what will all his sensual pleasures, his vain and empty titles, robes, dignities and crowns, avail him in the day of his distress.

The time is near, when the great and the rich must leave his land and well built house; and of all the trees of his orchards and woods, nothing shall attend him to his grave, but oak for his coffin, and cypress for his funeral.

He that is your chief mourner, will quickly want another for himself.

The young may die shortly; but the aged cannot live long; green fruit may be plucked

off, or shaken down; but the ripe will fall of itself.

Neither wisdom, strength, or beauty, can resist the stroke of death. Solomon the wisest died, Absalom the beauty of Israel died, and Sampson the strongest died.

When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow; when I see kings lying by those who deposed them; when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests, and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions and debates of mankind; when I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died as yes

terday, and some of six hundred years ago—I consider that great day, when we shall all of us be cotemporaries, and make our appearance together.

A holy desire of a religious death is not the humour, the fancy, the fear of some men, but the serious wish of all. Many have lived wickedly; very few, in their senses, died so.

Good men are happy both in life and death; the wicked in neither.

To live is a gift; to die is a debt; this life is only a prelude to eternity.

When we observe the funerals that pass along the streets, or when we walk among the monuments of death, the first thing that naturally 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, min