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fun of my life is about to fet, and, utterly unprepared, I am going to appear before God. Oh! that I had but my precious. days to go over again! Eternal God, if thy mercy be infinite, exert it now to fave fuch a felf-ruined wretch as I am!"

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BUT will riches better ftand the teft of that day's trial? Alas! they who have put their confidence in fine gold, will find that it profits not in the day of wrath. When death lifts his arm, and fwift as lightening, disease and pain enter the heart, vain is the hoarded treasure. See that generally esteemed happy man who trusted in riches, ftretched upon the bed of languishing; his body is panting for breath; his throat is parched; his heart flutters; his eyes grow dim; and life's filver cord is loofing: What joy now can riches bring? Surround his dying bed with bags of gold, will they alleviate the pains of the body, purchase a moment's refpite from death, or filence

the

the agonizing remonftrances of confcience? Alas! a golden God is but a dumb idol, neither able to kill nor make alive.

THEN, when earth, and only earth, hath been the purfuit, what wretchednefs to be torn from all that was counted happiness; to leave this dear world behind them forever, to go-Ah! Whither? Not to treafures laid up for them in heaven; not to the place where they have made themselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; but where that rich man went who lift up his eyes in torment, because, though rich in this world, he was not rich towards God.

Now, this is the boasted happiness of numbers. This is the unutterable pleafure of dying worth fo many thousand pounds.

"Guilt's blunder, and the loudeft laugh of hell."

YOUNG.

Nor

Nor will HONOR and FAME render our departure at all more comfortable.

SEND forth your imagination to view the last scene of the greatest and proudeft man who ever awed and governed the world. See a poor, infirm, miserable, fhort-lived creature, that paffes away like a fhadow, and is haftening off the stage where the theatrical titles and distinctions, and the whole mask of pride which he has worn for a day, will fall off and leave him naked as a neglected flave. Behold the empty va pour disappearing! One of the arrows of mortality this moment fticks faft within him: See, it forces out his life, and freezes his blood and spirits.

APPROACH his bed of ftate,-draw afide the curtain,-regard a moment with filence.

ARE thefe cold hands and pale lips all that are left of him who was canon

ized

ized by his own pride, or made a god of by his flatterers?

O GOD! What is man? Even a thing of

nought.

ALAS! That a being whose existence on earth is but for a moment, and whose future mansion is heaven; a being whose immortal foul carries its hopes far beyond time, and extends them even to eternity, fhould fet his mind on objects which time destroys! What is this but to mistake the changeable colours of the dew-drop for the luftre of the ruby, or the radiance of the diamond?

"LAY not up for yourselves treasures on earth," fays the divine Teacher. Long toffed by tumultuous paffions, enraptured and alarmed with hopes and fears, we at laft find earth's boafted treasures. to be vain; its riches, honors, and pleafures utterly infufficient to make us happy. Full feldom are they obtained by the anxious candidate, and feldomer

ftill without much pain and labour; and after all, made taftelefs by disease or age, or embittered by vexation, they are held but a few feverish years, and then forgotten forever in the grave. "Lar not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and ruft do corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal ; but lay up for yourselves treasures in hea ven; for where the treafure is, there will the heart be alfo.". "What treasures? Why love, Love to God and to our neighbour.

THESE are the true treasures; the treasures of the heart. No pleasures are comparable to thofe that affect the heart; and there are none that affect it with fuch exquifite delight, as loving and being beloved by a worthy object. Afk the young Theodofius, and he will tell you, that the most delicious feelings his heart ever experienced, were those of virtuous love; and that he never

knew

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