584 DEATH IMPROVED. foreign nations, and findthat those whole nations and ages are all dead and mingled with the dust, and eventhose, who once made a great bustle and figùre in this world, are now but an empty name, we cry out, " What vain creatures we are P' When we behold our neighbours and our acquaintance on the right-hand, and on the left, dropping away all around us ; when we see one following another daily clown to the grave of silence; it is a. very natural and just reflection: " Alas, how frail is man !" When we behold the young, the healthy, the fair, and the strong, the rich, and the powerful, together with the poor, the feeble, and the slave, all yielding to the common law of death, and turning into earth androttenness, we have just occasion to, cry out, " What a vain empty thing is human nature, even the best of it : A piece of pretty mouldering clay : These bodies of ours are fine and curious engines but made of the dust, and to dtist they return again." . This is thecommon state, situation, andview of things in all seasons, and in every generation. But when we fix our thoughts on some special seasons or causes of.,mortality, when we think of a famine or a pestilence that sweeps away thousands in a few days, that empties the whole streets in a night or two, and lays towns or cities desolate ; when we read of wars and battles that overspread the mountain with slaughter, and cover vast plains with human carcases ; when we hear of storms at seathat drown many hundreds at once, and perhaps some thousands sink down to death in their floating habitations, then we are more feelingly penetrated with a sense of our vanity, then we sigh and groan aloud andbreak out into this mournful language ? O Lord ! hast thou made all mankind in vain? Ps. lxxxix. 49. I3ow awful is thy government ! How terrible are thyjudgments, thou Almighty Sovereign of lifeand death ! The ancient saints have made such remarks often, and mixed these scenes of mortality with their piousthoughts, and turned them into devotion : Theyhave drawn many serious and pathetic inferences from such meditations on death, and ventedtheir musings of thought in holy language. (1.) " Shall man compare himself withGod? Mortal man that dzc'elleth in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, and who is cruslied before the moth! Shall he set himself to contend with the eternal Godhis Maker;" Job. iv. 17-19. Again : (2.) " What little reason have we to be proud and boastful Poor dying mushrooms, who start up for a few hours, but cannot. assure ourselves of to-morrow ! To-day we swell and look big amongmen, to- morrowwe are a feast for worms. Our days are as a hand's breadth ; verily everymanat his best estate is altogether vanity ", Ps. xxxix. 5. Again : (3.) as Flow vain and fruitless a thing is it to put our trust
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