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the other. On retiring to reft, he fell on DISC. his knees; confeffed, and intreated pardon for, the tranfgreffions of the day; renewed his faith in the mercies of God through Chrift; expreffed in a prayer of interceffion his charity towards all mankind; and then committed his foul into the hands of his Creator and Redeemer, as one who was to awake no more in this world. His fleep, after this, was perfectly fweet; the days added to his life were estimated as clear gain; and when the laft came, it ended with as much tranquillity as all that had preceded. I would wish to recommend this example to your imitation. The practice will cost you fome pains and trouble, perhaps, for a little while; but you will never have cause to repent that you bestowed them; and I know of no better method whereby you can place yourselves in a state of conftant fecurity and comfort.

5. When we fay, that we have loft a `friend, we can mean only, that we have loft him for a time. He is not finally perished:

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Disc. we shall fee him again; and, therefore, it behoves us to confider, what our fenfations will be at the fight of him; which must always depend on our usage of him during his life. We fhall fee him with joy, or grief, as we have formerly used him well, or otherwise; and all that we have ever said or done relative to him, will then be known. We are too apt to forget this circumstance; and seem to think, that when they are dead with whom we have been concerned, no farther account will be taken of our behaviour towards them. Otherwife, the confideration could not but have a great effect in the regulation of our conduct.

The cafe is exactly the fame respecting the old year now departed. It is indeed, as we have obferved before, numbered among the dead; but, like the dead, it will, in one sense, arise, and appear to us again, and we shall be made to recollect the usage it received at our hands, while we were in poffeffion of it upon earth. Memory will in that hour be quickened and perfected.

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Like a mirror holden before our eyes, it DISC. will reprefent faithfully to our minds the various tranfactions of the year, in which we bore a part; and we shall be forced to recognize and acknowlege the thoughts, the words, and the actions, which paffed, during it's continuance with us. May we find pleasure in reviewing them!-But review them we must-and fo muft He, who is to be our judge, at the day of his fecond manifestation. That day draws on apace. For not only friends die, and years expire, and we ourselves fhall do the fame, but the world itself approaches to it's end. It likewife muft die. Once already has it fuffered a watery death: it is to be destroyed a second time by fire. A celebrated author, having in his writings followed it through all it's changes from the creation to the confummation, describes the eruption of this fire, and the progress it is to make, with the final and utter devastation to be effected by it, when all fublunary nature shall be overwhelmed and funk in a molten deluge. In this fituation of things, he ftands over the world,

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DISC. world, as if he had been the only furvivor,

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and pronounces it's funeral oration in a strain of fublimity scarce ever equalled by mere

man.

"Let us reflect, upon this occafion, on "the vanity and tranfient glory of this ha"bitable world. How, by the force of one "element breaking loose upon the reft, all "the varieties of nature, all the works of "art, all the labours of men, are reduced "to nothing. All that we admired and "adored before, as great and magnificent, "is obliterated, or vanished; and another "form and face of things, plain, fimple, "and every where the fame, overspreads the whole earth. Where are now the

great empires of the world, and their im

perial cities? their pillars, trophies, and "monuments of glory? Shew me where

they stood, read the infcription, tell me "the conqueror's name. What remains, "what impreffions, what difference or dif"tinction do you difcern in the mafs of fire? "Rome itself, eternal Rome, the great city,

"the

"the empress of the world, whofe domina- DISC. "tion and superstition, ancient and modern,

"make a large part of the history of this "earth; what is become of her now? She "laid her foundations deep, and her palaces

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were strong and fumptuous; he glorified

berfelf, and lived deliciously, and faid in her heart, I fit as a queen, and fhall fee no for

"row. But her hour is come, she is wiped

away from the face of the earth, and "buried in everlasting oblivion. But not "cities only, and the works of men's hands "—the everlasting hills, the mountains "and rocks are melted as wax before the

fun, and their place is no where to be "found. Here stood the Alps, the load of "the earth, that covered many countries, "and reached their arms from the Ocean to "the Black Sea: this huge mass of stone is "foftened and diffolved, as a tender cloud "into rain. Here ftood the African moun"tains, and Atlas with his top above the "clouds; there was frozen Caucafus, and "Taurus, and Imaus, and the mountains "of Afia; and yonder, towards the north,

" stood

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