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I.}
THE
END
OP
TIME.
341
lecture of
mortality from
my 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, and
put
a
full
period
to all
the designs
of
my
heart, and
all
the labours
of
my
tongue and pen
!
Think,
O
my
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
of
it,
in
an unknown world
of
happiness
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,
and
madness, 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