DISC. I:7 l THE END 0-F TIME. 3íJ period, will furnish us with perpetual new occasions of holy meditation." Do I observe the declining day, and the setting sun, . sinking into darkness? -So declines the day of life, the hours of labour, and the season of grace : O may I .finish my appointed work with honour ere the light is fled ! May I improve the shining,hours of grace ere the shadows of the evening overtake me, and my time of working is no more ! Do I see the moon gliding along through midnights and fulfilling her stages in the dusky sky ? This planet also is measuring out my life, and bringing the number of my months to their end. May I be prepared to take leave of the sun and moon, and bidadieu to these visible heavens, and all the twinkling glories of them ! These are all but the measurers of my time, and hasten me on towards eternity. Am I walking in a garden, and stand still to observe the slow motion of the shadow upon a dial there? It passes over the hour lines with an imperceptible pro- gress, yet it will touch the last line of day-light shortly So my hours and mymoments movéonward with a silent pace ; but they will arrive with certainty at the last limit; how heedless soever I am of their motion, and how thoughtless soever I may be of the improvement of time, or of the end of it. Does a new year commence, and the first morning of it dawn upon me ? Let rue remember, that the last year was finished, and gone over my head, in orden to make way for the entrance of the present:' I have one year the less to travel through this world, and to fulfil the various services of-a'travelling state: May my diligence in duty be doubled, since the- number of my appointed years is diminished ! Duo I finda new birth-day, in my survey of the.calen- dar, the day wherein I entered upon the stage of mor- tality, and was born into this world of sins, frailties, and sorrows, in order for my probation for a better state ? Blessed Lord, how much have I spent already of this mortal life, this season of my probation, and how little am I prepared for that happier world ? How unready for my dying moment ? I am hastening hourly to the end of the life of man, which began at my nativity : Am I yet z2
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