"broken," and " every spirit" will have returned to the God who gave it."It is a reflection, in truth, to which no ignorance nor barbarity hath rendered the human mind insensible. Even amid all the licentious worship of antiquity, it was upon these occasions the plaintive call of the herald, "Come to those solem"nities, which no living eye hath seen, "and which no eye will see again."

Amid this dark and tremendous prospect, is there no voice which whispers to you, my brethren, how good" for you "it is to be here:" or that prostrates you in these moments before the throne of Nature, in thankfulness to Him" who hath given you the victory," through Jesus Christ your Lord? "And I was "in the spirit (says the evangelist,) upon "the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a great voice, as that of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the

"First and the Last. And I turned to the "voice that spake with me, and I saw

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one like unto the Son of Man, clothed

"with a garment down to the foot, and

girt about with a golden girdle. His "head and his hairs were white like "snow, and his eyes were as a flame of

fire, and his voice as the sound of many "waters. And when I saw Him, I fell at his feet as dead; and he laid his

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right hand upon me, saying unto me, "Fear not, I am the First and the Last, "I am He that liveth, and was dead"And behold I am alive for evermore, "and have the keys of Hell and of "Death."

These, my brethren, are the sublime anticipations of the true Christian-these the hopes which He, "who liveth for ever " and ever," hath given to the weakness of mortality. It is to that greater world, (which, ere this century shall close, all of

us must know) that the eye of piety is permanently directed. It is there that the great system of Almighty Wisdom shall finally be displayed; when all doubts shall cease, and all anxieties be dispelled; when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality; and when all the tears which life hath raised, shall be wiped away for ever.

It is, to this great termination that time is advancing; every thing that we see around us, teaches us that life is an imperfect scene, of which the mighty conclusion is yet to come: and every year, as it passes, takes to a better world some of those whom we have loved or honoured. In the last receptacle of mortality, the rich and the poor" make their bed together;" and there we alike deposit the youthful head, whose opening virtues are to blossom in a nobler clime; and the "hoary

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"hairs," which descend at last to the grave, "full of years and of honour."

This last scene, my brethren, we have lately witnessed. The same hours which closed the century, closed also the life of one, who, for half its period, has been the greatest ornament of the church of this land, and who has left to every church a model of piety and virtue which no age can destroy. Over this recent and ever memorable grave, the tears of humanity will fall; but it is not fit they should be the tears of unmanly sorrow: it is fit, on the contrary, while we stand around it, that our hearts should kindle at those ashes which yet are scarcely cold: that while we see the "death of

* THE REVEREND DR HUGH BLAIR. This great, and amiable man died a few days before this Sermon was preached; and, after the lapse of so many years, I confess that I have still a melancholy satisfaction in being able to pay this humble tribute to a memory which I have not ceased to love and to venerate.

"the righteous," we should pray that "our life" and our "end may be like "his ;" and that we should think what is the power of that religion, over which the " grave hath no victory," and to which "death hath no sting." Happy, indeed, beyond the usual lot of mortality, was that long and venerable life, of which, alas! we have witnessed the close: and, to Him" whom he had made good "in his sight," the Almighty dispensed, even here, no common measure " of "knowledge, and wisdom, and joy.”— Happy, in being called into existence in the most splendid age of his country, in being the friend and contemporary of all those who have enlightened or adorned it, and in sharing with them in the applause and admiration of mankind:-Happy in an old age, in which "his eyes waxed not diin," nor his " na"tural strength decayed," and in a death,