for working out salvation, the mansion of the grave. Therefore let him be sober!

Is any man afflicted with cares and sorrows? Let him pray frequently to the God of all consolation; and let him remember, that, as the years of the longest life are soon gone, so no misery can be very far from having an end; if not before, yet certainly in the day on which the Lord shall call him to rest in the grave. Therefore let him be patient.

If we may learn humility; if we may learn moderation; if we may learn meekness; if we may learn to resist sin; if we may learn patience, from thinking, in this manner, on the certainty with which we are every moment approaching to the grave; in a much greater degree shall we learn these and all other Christian graces, if we extend our views beyond the grave. The sea and the dry land shall at the trump of God give up their dead. There shall be most assuredly a resurrec tion of all bodies; there shall be most assuredly a re-union of our bodies and souls. Then cometh the day of retribution; and this is the point to which we should steadfastly direct our thoughts. For then shall those, who have wilfully persisted in doing evil, be condemned to the pangs of eternal misery; and then shall those, who have earnestly laboured to continue in doing good, receive the reward of faith and obedience; they shall receive, through the mercies of our Lord and Saviour, the blessing of eternal happiness.

Thus should we think concerning the grave, and concerning the judgment which will follow the grave. If we cannot so meditate on every day, yet at least we should do it on those occasions when we either hear the knell of some departing soul, or when we deposit either a parent, or wife, or child; when we deposit either some kinsman, or friend, or neighbour, in a spot

consecrated for the reception of deceased bodies. Of these opportunities for sober reflection, we shall do well if we avail ourselves. But whether we use, or whether we omit to apply, these solemn occasions, to the purpose of moral and religious improvement; still, however, we shall discharge our duty to the dead, if we give them interment after a decent manner, and in a Christian form for we shall thereby pay them the last mark of affection which they can receive from us and we shall show, that we regard them as beings far exalted above the brute creation; that we honour them as beings belonging to the race for which the Son of God, in his unspeakable compassion, was content to suffer; that by his death, and the sanctification of the Spirit, we might here rise from sin to righteousness, and hereafter be justified before Almighty God! To this salvation may we all attain; both those among us who shall be gathered unto our fathers in other holy places; and those, for whom it remains to find their graves in this ground, which we now consecrate. And that the work of consecration may be the more fully and devoutly completed, we will now offer up to Almighty God that proper, pious, and instructive prayer delivered to us by our ancestors, and continued to us by our church, as particularly applicable to the present and similar

occasions.

THE END,

LONDON:

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