368 THE WATCHFUL CHRISTIAN DYING IN PEACE. [DISC. II. ownstrength and sufficiency, for the glorious change to be wrought in your sinful hearts, and yet neglect not your own labours and restless endeavours, under a pretence, . that it is God's work, and not yours. "Awake, thou that sleépest,. and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light ;" .Eph. v. 14. . . Nor should frail dying creatures, in their youngest years, delay this-work oneday, nor one hour, since the con- sequences of being found asleep when Christ calls, are terrible indeed. We are besetwith mortalityall aroundus; the seeds of disease and dissolution are working within us fromour very birth and cradle, ever since sin entered into our natures and we should ever be in readiness to remove hence, since we are never secure from the sum- rlions of heaven, the stroke of death, and the demands of the grave. There was a lovely boy, the son of the Shunamite, who was given to his mother in a miraculous way, and when he was in the field 4mong the reapers, he cried out, "My head, my,head;" he was carried home immedi- ately, and, ina few hours, died in his mother's boson, Kings iv: ' 18,19. Who would have imagined, that head- ache should have been death; and that in so short a time too? This is almost the case which we lament at pre- sent; the head-achewas sent but a few days before, nor was the pain very intense, nor the appearance danger- ous, yet it became the fatal, though unexpected, fore- runner of death. This providence/ is an awful warning-piece to all her young acquaintance, to be ready for a sudden removal; for she was of a healthy make, and seemed to stand at as great distance from the gates of death, as anyof you ; .But the firmest constitution of human nature is bornwith death in it. From every age, and every spot of ground, and everymoment of time, there are short and sudden, ways,of descent to the grave. Trap-doors, if I may use so low a metaphor, are always under us, and a thousand unseen avenues to the regions of the dead. A malig- nant fever strikes the strongest nature, With a mortal blast, at the command of the great author and disposer of life. My youngest hearers may be called away from the .earth by then next pain that seizes them. Nothing but religion, early religion and sincere godliness, can
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