And lives to teach us that they were mortal. Not to refer to that signal instance by which our whole species was rendered mortal, and at the same time susceptible of transmitting an evil influence from generation to generation; in many of the forms of cruelty and crime, of pollution and guilt prevalent among men, we are taught that numbers preeminent in sin, have passed away from the scenes of time. Their image and superscription stamped on the world through subsequent periods of time, come to remind us that their bad preeminence did not give them HERE A CONTINUING CITY. We perceive by prevailing vicious customs and maxims, at once, that they lived, and that they did not continue by reason of death. Indeed, nearly every species and form of sin originated ages far back in some illustrious sinner, who lived only long enough to complete the work of opening a new channel for human corruption to flow in. The very immortality of heroes reminds us that they were mortal. The canonization of saints in those ages of darkness, which came over the christian church, announces to us that they died. They who first taught the art and practice of war-they who first invented refinements in cruelty-they who first struck out the various methods of fraud and dishonesty-they who first reared the system of idolatry-they who first subjected to the yoke of bondage their fellow heirs of inherent and unalienable liberty-they who first uttered the language of impurity, falsehood, or blasphemythey who first converted poetry, music, painting, or sculpture into instruments of moral contamination-they who first showed how to employ literature and science. against the cause of God and truth-they who first were skilful in perverting and misinterpreting the scriptures of God-These all died-not in faith, but perished from off the earth; and live only in their ruinous influence which tells us that they have been. Thus have we received whatever has had a hurtful aspect on ourselves and our contemporaries, through the medium of

those who have left the world. Almost all the monuments of vice and crime, of error and sin, of impurity and guilt with which we meet, are in this way associated with the unabiding character of human condition.

2. The same fact is introduced to our notice by the works of those, who in various ways have proved benefactors to their species. We to whom it is allotted to live in these concluding periods of this world's history, are surrounded with such works. Earth has become covered with them. Contemplate for one moment the single department of letters. Our libraries are crowded with works, the efforts of minds attached to bodies which have been sleeping for ages in the dust. With whose minds are our youth most conversant, who are availing themselves of the benefits of a more accomplished and finished course of education? With minds that ceased to be active in the world long before this continent was known to be a part of it. Their course is a sort of pilgrimage through the splendid relics of other ages. The great rules and principles of literary criticism, and the laws and powers of numbers, with which they make themselves acquainted as the foundation of all their attainments, were discovered and settled by men who departed from the scenes of this world, before it became the scene of the Saviour's ministry. So that we can learn nothing from the whole range of human literature and science, without learning the truth of man's transitory being below. The bible itself, the sum of all literary excellence, and whose disclosures throw the importance of mere human science into the distance, and whose value no power or combination of numbers can show-the bible, while it brings life and immortality to light, reveals, as merely an authentic record, more impressively than any thing else, the passing nature of our earthly residence. It presents us with a succession of waymarks along "the course of time," noting the vanishing ages in their flight, and the successive generations of men, which like wave on wave, have

been passing off from the earth for more than a score of centuries. Thus in the works of those holy men of God who under his inspiration wrote the bible, are we reminded of the interesting fact that HERE WE HAVE NO CONTINUING CITY. During the ages in which they lived, or which their history embraces, not less than forty thousand millions of our race left the world.

But there is no occasion to recur to works of these remote benefactors, in order to receive admonitions of our brief stay on earth. We can scarcely think of a blessing which has not come to us through the intervention of those of our species, who have finished their course on earth. Where are our pilgrim fathers, who two centuries ago with prayers, and labors, and selfdenials, and sufferings, laid the foundation of our rising empire? Where is that constellation of great and wise men, who only half a century since, signed the great charter of our national supremacy? Only one of them still lingers above the horizon of mortal life, to tell us that they were, and what they were. But we abide in the very field, where others ceased from their earthly labors. We walk in the streets which they laid out. We dwell in houses which they built. We worship in sanctuaries which they reared and consecrated. In a word all the desirable circumstances of our existing condition, are associated with mementoes of its brevity. Our literature, our arts, our sciences, our religion, our laws, our liberties, our dwellings, our temples, and even the city of our earthly residence, come to us with a voice from the departed, admonishing us that they cannot be ours long.

3. We are admonished of the same fact by events which have occurred in relation to many, who heretofore shared with us the injurious and beneficial influence from past generations of men. While they have been marching along with us in the path of life with vigorous and confident tread, their strength has been weakened in the way, their days shortened, and they have

left us. They seemed to have only just started in the race, when it was finished. Though not far advanced ourselves, the field of our recollections abounds with many affecting instances of common, and yet premature departures. They abode with us only a few little rounds of years, and then looked or pressed the unutterable farewell. Before we had learned how dear they were to us, the clod of the valley was pressing upon their bosoms. Some perishable memorial may stand up to tell where their relics repose. But there are more constant, present, and enduring remembrances of their brief abode below-remembrances that will not depart from us through the little remnant of our yet unfinished course, but constantly remind us how short our time is. Every trace of their former presence with us, has a tongue to admonish us, that our residence here is only for a short and uncertain interval. The habitations where we abode together, the scene of our retired walks in company, the spots where we kneeled together around the throne of mercy, those portions of "the christian volume" which engaged us mutually in high and delightful conversation, those peculiar spiritual trials about which we were wont to seek of each other counsel and comfort, the house of God to which we went in company-these all are so many mementoes of their early, and of our own speedy departure.

4. We have proof that our residence below must be short in our utter inability, either to retard our own advancement through time, or to prolong life. It matters not, what may be our situation here, outward circumstances have no power to cause time to pause and linger in his career. However strongly attracted by earthly scenes, and however desirous we may be to perpetuate a residence amidst scenes grateful to our taste and feelings, we are ever hurrying through them. We would, it may be, prolong the gladsome and careless season of childhood. We would sport away scores of years in the amusements and adventurous enterprises

of youth. We would retard the wings of time, that we may long be absorbed in the more dignified, honorable, and gainful avocations of manhood. Nay, we would, if we could, even cripple time's pinions, and groan away a long interval beneath the accumulating infirmities, pains, and sorrows of old age. But we cannot. These periods of human life hasten away in rapid succession, and yet so unperceived, as to be almost unheeded and uncredited. Each is actually gone, before we are aware it is fully come. We find ourselves actually old, before it has occurred to us, that we have ceased to be young. Now every marked point that occurs in our earthly career-the flight of days and the return of Sabbaths—the lapse of months, and the return of the new year day-the progress of years, and the succession of youth to childhood, of manhood to youth, and of old age to manhood, remind us, that as they cluster along the range of mortal life, we are drawing near its close, and cannot abide here long.

Tokens of the unabiding nature of the city of our earthly residence, as apparent from our inability to hinder our own rapid approaches towards another world, appear in an impressive light, when we contemplate the prominent circumstances which at once fill up the fleeting interval, and serve, as in some sort, measures of its duration. There is not a single thing connected. with the city of our residence here, to which we can cling as something substantial and abiding. Our firmest grasp on these things cannot detain them a moment in our possession, or ourselves a moment amidst the scenes of earth. We cleave to friends. The very fibres of our hearts become entwined about them. But if they become not unworthy of such endearment, they take their early flight from us, and beckon us away to a more enduring substance. If riches ever come to us, they meet us flying to disappoint some other denizen of time, and not to abide our portion. If any of the enviable distinctions of the world cluster around us,