216 -THE DEATH OF KINDRED IMY'ROVED. [SEAM. XLII; ship toward their equals, and their sweetness of temper toward all around them. We beheld it, and perhaps we loved and honoured them for it ; but we took but little pains to copy after them. We saw their pity to the poor and the miserable, their charity to persons of different sects and sentiments in religion; their readiness to for- give those that offended them, and their good will and obliging carriage to all men. There was a beauty and lovelines in this conduct, that rendered them amiable in- deed, but how little have we transcribed of their exam- ple, either into our hearts or our lives? We observed their constant tenderness of conscience, their devotion toward God, and their zeal for the honour of Christ, and his gospel in the world.. O that we had made these graces the matter of our imitation ! What can we do now more to honour their memory, than to speak, and' live, and act like them ? It may be we have got their pictures drawn by some skilful hand, and their images hang round-us in their best likeness, as tender memorials of what 'we once enjoyed, to give us now and then a melancholy delight, and awaken in us the pleasing sadness of love. These we call our most precious pieces of furniture, and our hearts rate them at an uncommon price. But it would be much richer furniture for,our souls, to have the best likeness of our pious predecessors- and kindred copied out there. Let us now and then reflect what were their peculiar vir- tues, and the remarkable graces that adorned them; and' if we could imagine the spirit of each of them to look dòwn upon us, through those eyes which the pencil has so well imitated, and to speak through those lips, each of them would say, in the language of the softest and most sacred affection ; " Be ye followers of me as dear children, so far as I was a follower of Christ." And this thought I would more especially impress on those who were most unhappily negligent of the pious counsel of their ancestors, or ran counter to their holy advice and example in their. life-time. " I was too re- gardless, may a young Christian say, of the wise and weighty sayings of my father deceased, they return now upon my thoughts, witha fresh arid living influence. I have been too ready to neglect what a kind mother taught me-; ., but the instructions that I received from her
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