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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, with
a
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