YT1sc. I.} THE END OP TIME. 341 lecture of mortality frommy grave -stone, which my lips are now preaching aloud to the world : And if love and sorrow should reach so far, perhaps, while his soul is melting in his eye-lids, and his voice scarce finds an ut- terance, he will point with his finger, and shew his com- panion the month, and the day of my decease. O that solemn, that awful day, which shall finish my appointed time on earth, andput a full period to all the designs of myheart, and all the labours ofmy tongue and pen ! Think, Omy soul ! that while friends or strangers are engaged on that spot, and reading the date of thy depar- ture hence, thou wilt be fixed under a decisive and un- changeable-sentence, rejoicing in the rewards of time well-improved, or suffering the long sorrows, which shall attend the abuse ofit, in an unknown world ofhappiness or misery, Reflection III. We may learn, from this discourse, -" the stupid folly and madness of those, who are terri- bly .afraid of the end of time, whensoever they think of it, and yet they know not what to do with their time, as it runs 'off daily and hourly." They find their souls unready for death, and yet they live, from year to year without any further preparation for dying : They waste away their hours of leisure in mere trifling, they lose their seasons of grace, their means and'opportunities Of salva- tion in a thoughtless and shameful manner, as though they had no business to employ them in ; they live as though they had nothing to do, with all their time, but to eat and drink, and be easy and merry. From the rising to the setting sun, you find them still in pursuit of imper- tinencies; they waste God's sacred time, as well as their own, either in a lazy, indolent, and careless humour, or in following after vanity, sin, andmadness, while the end of time is hastening upon them. What multitudes are there of the race of Adam, both in higher and in lower ranks, who are ever complaining they want leisure; and when they have a release from business, for one day or one hour, they hardly know what to do with that idle day, nor how to lay out one of the hours of it for any valuable purpose ? Those in higher station, and richer circumstances, have most of their time at their own command and disposal; but, bÿ their actual disposal of,it, you plainly see they know not ,z3
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