600 MATH OF KINDRED. death tells us, it was a poor dying comfort, a pretty piece of brittle clay, broken and dissolved, and mouldering to the dust. Our love;and our grief, it may be, join together, to recal the past days of fondness and delight, short-lived delight, and empty vain fondness, that ends in tears and long mourning ? We have lost a superior relation, or perhaps, t n equal, a father, a wife, a hùsband, or a brother : We have lost a guide, a support, a helper, a deer affectionate friend, entirely loving and entirely beloved. He was a kind and skilful guide, but death teaches us the insufficiency of his guidance, who left us in the mid-way, and lets us travel through all the remaining part of this dark wilder- ness alone. Hehas given us sweet coons^1 and direction in days past, but he can now direct us no more, we can consult him no more: Those lips of advice, on which we hung, are closed and silent in death : That voice will be heard no more : We must walk without this counsellor all the rest of our way, be it never so long, and never so dangerous. I-Ie was our helper, and our support under daily difficulties ; but it wasa weak support, that could not stand itself, when death shook him : A poor helper, and a sorry defence, that could not resist the powers of disease and mortality, nor defend himself from the assaults of death. Hewas a friend, and a faithful one too ; but it was a feeble, a failing friend, even in the midst of his love and faithfulness ; for he was called away, and constrained to depart from us in a dark and sorrowful minute, and bath left us to mourn alone. Ile could not abide with us a moment beyond his summons ; he forsook us while we were drowned in grief, and could give us no more consolation. Ourfathers where are they? Our prophets, our instructors, our guides, and helpers are gone down to the land of silence, they lie asleep in the dust and darkness; Zecfa. i. 5. Thus death is made of advantage to us, even whenit strikes us in so tender a part : For it teaches us this sacred lesson, how vain and empty are all our hopes in creatures ! 'l'he dart of death is like a pen. of iron in his hand, and he writes emptiness and vanity-,onevery friend, on every relative that he takes front our family, from our side, from our bosom : He writes it in deep and painful characters, and holds our souls to the solemn lesson. The same truth stands written in many a part of the book Of God, in divine and golden letters ; but perhaps, we would never have learned it, had not death copied it out for us in letters of blood. H. The deathof our kindred drives us to a more immedi- ate and constant dependance on God. When the stream is cut
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