F69 
 .B77 
 
Class i_t^L 
 
 Book__^__n 
 
EXTRACT 
 FROM A DISCOURSE 
 
 c 
 
 REV, j: s. buckminster 
 
 PREACHED IN THE CHURCH IN BRATTLE SQUARE, BOSTON, 
 
 October, 1§11, 
 
 THE SABBATH AFTER THE INTERMENT 
 
 HON. JAMES BOWDOIN. 
 
 ALBANY: 
 PRINTED BY JOEL MUNSELL. 
 
 1'^ ^ 1848. 
 
Bit 
 
EXTRACT. 
 
 The language of the Psalmist in the text^ 
 has appeared to me not unappropriate to the 
 circumstances of him whose distressing death 
 has clothed so many of the present worshippers 
 in sackcloth. Surely, if any man among us 
 may be said to have had ample experience of 
 the pains, infirmities, and vanity of this mortal 
 life, and at the same time ample means of esti- 
 mating its real value, it was the departed Mr. 
 BowDOiN. From the heart he might have said 
 with David, "thou hast made my days as a 
 handbreadth, and mine age is as nothing before 
 thee: Surely every man at his best estate is 
 altogether vanity : Surely every man walketh 
 in a vain shew ; surely he is disquieted in vain ; 
 
 * Psalm xxxix. 5th and 6th verses. 
 
he heapeth up riches and knoweth not who 
 shall gather them." I fancy that I hear him 
 crying out with the king of Israel in the midst 
 of his infirmities and sufferings, "Lord, make 
 me to know mine end, and the measure of my 
 days, what it is ; that I may know how frail I 
 am! O spare me, that I may recover strength 
 before I go hence and am here no more ! I am 
 a stranger with thee and a sojourner, as all my 
 fathers were . . . My hope is in thee !" 
 
 The birth, family, education, and various 
 events in the life of Mr. Bowdoin are so well 
 known among us, that it would be superfluous 
 on this occasion to collect memoranda of his 
 life, or to enter into any regular detail of his 
 character. Neither would it be expected of me 
 by his family, except as a voluntary offering to 
 the curiosity of the audience. But the heredi- 
 tary interest which he has always manifested 
 for this society, the large share which his family 
 have contributed to its good estate, and particu- 
 larly his remembrance of our poor in his will,=^ 
 
 tMr. Bowdoin, among other bequests in his will, \eh Jifty 
 pounds to the Church in Brattle Square and Jifty to the 
 Pastor. 
 
would demand of me some tribute of public 
 acknowledgement, even if this claim were not 
 reinforced as it is in the mind of the speaker by 
 a deep sense of personal obligation, and an un- 
 interrupted course of kindness from him and 
 his afflicted consort. 
 
 God, in whose hands is the entire disposal 
 of our lot in life, was pleased to give our de- 
 parted and respected friend a long experience 
 of some of the severest pains and trying infirmi- 
 ties of humanity. In the midst of continual 
 admonitions of his mortality, while he every 
 day felt the waste of his life, and was tempted 
 at intervals to exclaim, why is this remnant left 
 to him who is in misery, the deaths in his family 
 pressed more closely upon him the thought of 
 his own departure. Yet was he never more 
 actively engaged than during the few last years 
 of his life, in employments of which every man 
 will acknowledge the utility, and of which his 
 country will reap the benefit. He was finding 
 in the pursuits of agriculture, and in the intel- 
 lectual as well as active exertions of a very in- 
 dustrious life, a degree of satisfaction, which is 
 often sought in vain in the pleasures of sense, 
 the tumults of faction, the career of public life, 
 
or the retreats of solitude and luxurious indo- 
 lence. If God had been pleased to spare him 
 longer, every day, I doubt not, would have 
 rendered his life more valuable and desirable, 
 as it does that of every man who lives in the 
 exercise of a conscientious and willing benefi- 
 cence; but at the same time the pang of separa- 
 tion and the regret of the community would 
 have been proportionably increased. Now his 
 days are past, his purposes are broken off, may 
 God so order it that his worthy designs shall be 
 promoted, his good intentions be carried into 
 complete effect, and all that blessing be diflused 
 which himself would have been desirous to see, 
 and to which he would have been ready and 
 happy to contribute ! 
 
 Mourners ! ye too are strangers and sojourn- 
 ers on the earth, as all your fathers were. For- 
 get not how many of them died persuaded of 
 the promises, and embraced them afar off; de- 
 sirous of a better country, even an heavenly. 
 Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their 
 God. Their faith follow then, remembering the 
 end of their conversation; and may it please 
 God, that they without you shall not be made 
 perfect ! 
 
But I see before me an object* which ad- 
 monishes us that the usual time of service has 
 elapsed, while we have been speaking of him 
 whose name it bears. Once it reminded us of 
 his bounty; now it reminds us of his departure. 
 Once it told us that he remembered us; now 
 it calls on us to remember him. Lately it 
 measured the handbreadth of his age, as it now 
 measures our own ; . . . but to him hours, and 
 weeks, and days, and years revolve no more ! 
 He has entered on an unmeasurable period ! 
 
 How fair an emblem is this of man himself; 
 always passing on, yet unconscious of his own 
 motion! When we fix our attention on the 
 moment which is passing, we seem to arrest it. 
 "We discern no lapse. All appears stationary; 
 and the time is long and tedious. But let us 
 withdraw our attention from the dial, and yield 
 ourselves for a few moments to the usual suc- 
 cession of thoughts, and when we return again 
 to examine the index of our time, what a space 
 has been traversed ! 
 
 *The former clock in the Church in Brattle Square was 
 given by Governor Bowdoin ; but as it was old and much 
 out of repair, the late Mr. Bowdoin replaced it not long before 
 his death by the present time-piece. 
 
Is it possible that a minute can be made to 
 appear so long by attention ? How long then 
 might the whole of life be made to appear, would 
 we but attend to it, and vigilantly mark and 
 improve the hours ! . . . But that steady monitor 
 proceeds, whether we mark or not its motion. 
 Here, in the place of our solemnities, it measures 
 off some of the most important portions of life. 
 Presently the shadows of the evening will rest 
 on this holy place, and this house be emptied 
 of its worshippers. Presently, after a few more 
 revolutions of those unconscious indexes, not 
 one of these worshippers will be heard of on 
 earth. The places which now know them will 
 know them no more forever; and when it is 
 asked, where are they; the answer must be, 
 they are gone to appear before God ! 
 
 Lord, make us to know the measure of our 
 days ... to mark the shadow of our lives ! For 
 man that is born of a woman fleeth as a shadow 
 and continueth not.