008 DEATH OF KIreDEEr,. It may be we have got their picturesdrawn by some sÍei)'ful hand, and their images hang round us in their best likeness, a$ tender memorials of what we once enjoyed, to give us now and then a melancholy delight, and awaken in us the pleasing sad- ness of love. These we call our most precious pieces of .furni- turn, and our hearts rate then 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 virtues, and the remarkable graces that adorned them ; and ifwe could imagine the spirit of each of them to look down 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 Iwas a follower of Christ. And this thought I would more especially impress on those who were most unhappilynegligent of the pions counsel of their ancestors, or ran counter to their holy advice and example in their life-time. " I was too regardless, may a young christian say, of the wiseand weighty sayings of my father deceased, they return now upon my thoughts, with a fresh and living influence. I have been tooready to neglect what a kind Mother taught me; but the instructions that I received from her dying lips, had suer; an air of solemnity and tenderness in them, that they have made a deep impression upon ny,heart ; andI hope I shall never forget them. The prudent and pious rules that my elder relationshave often set before me, recur to my thoughts withdouble efficacy since their death : I shall hear them speak no more, I shall see their holy examples no more : I will gather up the fragments of their religious counsels, and make them the rule of my conduct: I am well assured their souls are happy, and by the grace of God I will tread in their steps, till I arrive at those blessed regions, where I hope to meet them." This thought leads theon to the last instanceofbenefit which we derive from the death of our kindred in the flesh. VII. Thedeath of dear and near relations calls our thoughts in a more powerful and sensible manner, to converse with the graveand eternity. When our neighbours, or our common acquaintance die, we attend the funeral, and cast an eye into the grave; we spend a thought or two on the pit of corruption, and the mouldering dust We awaken a meditation or two on things heavenly and the world to come; and we return quickly, and busily to this world again : But when God sends death into our chambers, and it makes a slaughter there, it awakens us more effectually from a droWsy frame, and it nails'our thoughts down to our most important . and
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