Univ.of Ill. Library 
 
 53 
 
 s 
 
 2UXC, 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/thechristianmaidOOpage 
 
/ 2?4/*± S&l v 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 -- 
 
 The following Sermon was delivered in the 
 antumn of ’52, and was published at the time 
 in one of the Periodicals of the Church. Its 
 
 typography, however, was so inaccurately and 
 
 unsatisfactorily executed, that the author deter¬ 
 mined to avail himself of the first favorable 
 opportunity to present it to the public in a 
 
 more readable and acceptable shape; and he 
 therefore now commits it to the press, in the 
 
 belief that in so doing, he will be performing 
 a not ungrateful service to the surviving rela¬ 
 tives of the deceased; and, at the same time, 
 calling the attention of the community to an 
 interesting psychological phenomenon, and to a 
 most beautiful illustration of the power of our 
 blessed faith to sustain, in their last periods, those 
 even to whose young and fervid imaginations 
 the world is all brightness and beauty. 
 
 New-York , April 3d, 1858. 
 

 cnr 
 
 SERMON. 
 
 -+■ 
 
 
 “ Our Friend Lazarus Sleepeth. ” 
 
 Gospel of St. John , c. xi, v. 11. 
 
 rJL 
 
 The occasion on which these words were 
 uttered, is best explained by the simple and 
 beautiful language of the preceding context. 
 “ Now a certain man was sick, named Laza¬ 
 rus, of Bethany. It was that Mary who 
 anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped 
 his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus 
 was sick. Therefore his sisters sent unto him, 
 saying , Lord behold, he whom thou lovest is 
 sick. When Jesus heard that, he said , this 
 sickness is not unto death, but for the glory 
 of God, that the Son of God might be glo¬ 
 rified thereby. Now, Jesus loved Martha 
 and her sister, and Lazarus. When he had 
 
 
6 
 
 heard, therefore, that he was side, he abode 
 two days still in the same place where he was. 
 Then after that, saith he to his disciples, 
 let us go into Judea again. His disciples 
 say unto him: Master, the Jews of late 
 sought to stone thee, and goest thou thither 
 again ? Jesus answered, are there not twelve 
 hours in the day ? if any man walk in 
 the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth 
 the light of this world; but if a man 
 walk in the night, he stumbleth, because 
 there is no light in him. These things, 
 said he; and after that he saith, our friend 
 Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may 
 awake him out of sleep.” 
 
 I. The first remark which I would make 
 upon these beautiful words is, that there 
 is nothing in the genius of Christianity 
 which at all militates against the cultiva¬ 
 tion of particular and private friendship ; 
 and I make this remark, because it has 
 been objected to Christianity—that it is 
 unfavorable to the cultivation of these pe¬ 
 culiar and personal regards to which the 
 term friendship has come to be appro- 
 
7 
 
 priated, inasmuch as, though it inculcates 
 general benevolence and universal philan¬ 
 thropy , yet it lays no stress upon friend¬ 
 ship in its specific and distinctive charac¬ 
 ter. But it should "be considered that par¬ 
 ticular and private friendship is not like 
 justice and charity—a duty of imperative 
 and universal obligation. All men are not 
 capable of the delicacy of such a senti¬ 
 ment ; and those who are capable of it, 
 may be deprived, by uncontrollable circum¬ 
 stances, of its peculiar advantage and plea¬ 
 sures ; and it is just in proportion as we 
 cultivate the benevolent and unselfish tem¬ 
 per to which Christianity would form us, 
 that we become really susceptible of a 
 sentiment so exalted and pure. 
 
 But the example^6ur Lord seems to show 
 us, that there is nothing in the spirit of his 
 religion which is at variance with the sen¬ 
 timent of friendship; for St. John is called, 
 you know, “ the disciple whom Jesus loved? 
 He is said to have leaned upon his breast 
 when at supper, and to have received from 
 him whatever are the marks of a peculiar 
 
 df 
 
confidence and affection. In the text he 
 speaks of Lazarus under the endearing epi¬ 
 thet of “ our friendand the evangelist 
 beautifully says, as we have just seen, “ Jesus 
 loved Martha and her sister , and Lazarus 
 and described him as being wont to seek 
 in the village mansion of those loved and 
 cherished friends, an asylum from the toils 
 and solicitudes of his ordinary ministrations. 
 
 And what a beautiful example of the ten- 
 derest and most generous friendship have 
 we not, in his intercourse with his disci¬ 
 ples ! How kind and affectionate and fami¬ 
 liar was his converse with them ! How for¬ 
 getful, was he not, of himself, and how deep 
 and touching a concern did he not manifest 
 for them! “ Ye now have sorrow” said he to 
 them upon the eve of his passion—“ Ye now 
 have sorrow , but I will see you again , and your 
 hearts shall rejoice , and your joy no man 
 taketh from you.” And even as he was sus¬ 
 pended upon the cross , when he saw his 
 mother and the disciple standing by whom he 
 loved , he saith to his mother , “ Woman, behold 
 thy son. Then saith he to the disciple , Be- 
 
9 
 
 hold thy mother • and from that time that 
 disciple took her to his own home.” 
 
 We have a "beautiful exemplification, let 
 me add, of the truest friendship, in the 
 case of those primitive believers, of whom 
 it is said that they were of “ one heart and 
 of one soul? And it is plain from these 
 considerations, therefore, that so far is it from 
 being true that Christianity lays no stress upon 
 the sentiment of friendship, that the very con¬ 
 verse is the fact; and were Christians more 
 thoroughly imbued with the spirit of their 
 religion, they could not but be bound together 
 by the ties of an intimate, and self-sacrificing, 
 and all-enduring friendship. 
 
 II. The next reflection suggested by the 
 passage before us is, that the death of the 
 righteous is wont to be represented in Holy 
 Scriptures as a sleep—a soft and gentle slum¬ 
 ber. This beautiful form of speech occurs 
 frequently in the New Testament, “ Our 
 friend Lazarus sleepeth,” says our Saviour. 
 Speaking of the first martyr, St. Stephen, it is 
 said, that “ he fell asleep and says St. Paul the 
 apostle, “ I would not have you ignorant , breth- 
 
10 
 
 ren, concerning them that are asleep ; for if we 
 believe that Jesus died and rose again , even 
 so them also that sleep in Jesus will God bring 
 with him.” In sleep our bodies are inert and 
 motionless, our senses steeped in oblivion, and 
 we are utterly unconscious of what is passing 
 around us, and, therefore, death is often rep¬ 
 resented by the ancients under the similitude 
 of sleep ; but it is remarkable, that wherever 
 this figure is employed outside the sacred re¬ 
 cords, it is invested with associations which 
 make an uncertain and ineffectual response to 
 the soul’s yearnings after immortality. The 
 philosophers speculated , indeed, upon the im¬ 
 mortality of man; and we may imagine one of 
 them to have reasoned about it in this wise: 
 “The horrid sentiment, that man is but a 
 higher species of organized existence, is refuted 
 by every operation of my mind, and by every 
 instinct of my heart; for can it be that man, 
 whom the gods have endowed with such noble 
 capacities, and powers, and affections—man, 
 who, while the materialism that surrounds him 
 is wholly inert and mindless, is a thinking, ac¬ 
 tive, and in some sense, all-pervading intelli- 
 
gence;—man, who alone of all the animal 
 tribes, is capable of reflecting on the various 
 objects which address themselves to his 
 senses,—of analysing, combining, and arrang¬ 
 ing his thoughts and emotions,—of exploring 
 the wonders of the earth and of the heavens,— 
 of retiring into the abysses of the past, and of 
 penetrating the labyrinths of the future;— 
 man, for whom such magnificent arrangements 
 have been made in nature and society, and 
 who, with all the intensity of his sentimental 
 heart, pants after a brighter, nobler, happier, 
 endless life;—can it be that he is to flutter 
 through his little span of being, and then to sink 
 down into the gulf of a lifeless and a hopeless 
 nothingness?” And yet, reason as they might 
 upon this subject, brethren, the profoundest sa¬ 
 ges of antiquity viewed the immortality of the 
 soul as a consummation to be hoped for rather 
 than a truth to be believed—as a problem to 
 be solved, rather than a fact demonstrated 
 and certain—as an enchanting vision of the 
 imagination, rather than as a glorious reality , 
 shedding light upon the understanding and im¬ 
 parting joy to the heart. 
 
J 
 
 
 12 
 
 Not so the Evangel; for, as said our 
 Heavenly Teacher, as he stood by the 
 grave of him of Bethany, our friend La¬ 
 zarus sleepeth, but I go that I may awake 
 him out of sleep; so the glorious hour is 
 speeding towards us when all the dead in 
 Christ shall awake to sleep no more—shall 
 arise to a state of glory and of bliss 
 which mortal eye hath not seen, nor mor¬ 
 tal ear heard, nor mortal heart imagined. 
 And even now can we discern the first 
 radiance of that resurrection morning, when 
 the Lord himself shall descend from Hea¬ 
 ven with the voice of the Archangel and 
 the trump of God, and the dead in Chr ist shall 
 rise first. But the words before us are 
 susceptible moreover of a touching local ap¬ 
 plication. To us of the ministry, indeed, 
 they have a richness and a depth of mean¬ 
 ing which can be appreciated by those 
 only, a part of whose sacred office it is to 
 bury the dead in Christ. How many 
 images throng around me of the departed 
 saints once living in the several fields of 
 labor, where, in the Providence of God, it 
 

 
 rp) 
 
 13 
 
 lias been my appointment to minister! 
 Now one rises to my view who was wont 
 to welcome me to bis hospitable mansion, 
 not merely in obedience to a customary 
 form of civility, but out of no common 
 respect and reverence to the Institutions 
 of Christ, and because he esteemed the 
 pastors^of^ his flock very highly in love 
 for h^ <f jvork’s sake, and whom, though 
 for many long years the wild flower has 
 bloomed upon his grave, I love to cherish 
 with a frequent and a grateful remem¬ 
 brance. What a halo of glory surrounded 
 that old man’s dying couch—how he went 
 into the world unknown, leaning upon his 
 beloved—staying himself upon the Lord, 
 the Everlasting God—possessed of a peace 
 which passeth all understanding, and sus¬ 
 tained by that glorious Hope which is as 
 an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast. 
 “ Marie the perfect man , and behold the up¬ 
 right—-for the end of that man is peace? 
 This is one of the pictures which memory, 
 not imagination, brings before me. 
 
 And then I go back in the long past to 
 
 
14 
 
 the parting hour of another of Christ’s 
 blessed saints, and well remember what a 
 lively interest she took in the Master’s work ; 
 the faithful friend, the affectionate sister, 
 the intelligent and cheerful companion,— 
 who, wherever she went, gave a zest to 
 conversation, and diffused an innocent spright¬ 
 liness over the domestic and social circle. 
 And then I think of another and another, 
 of whom, or of such as them, it has been 
 so beautifully said : u The vision is loveliest 
 at its vanishing away, and we perceive 
 not, perhaps, till we see the parting wing, 
 that an angel has been with us.” 
 
 And now I would bestow a few sweet 
 memories upon another dear sister in Christ, 
 that most interesting young maiden, with 
 whom we were wont to take sweet coun¬ 
 sel, and come up to this house of God 
 in company; for she too has fallen asleep in 
 Jesus—her place before us is empty, and 
 she lives in the blessed remembrance of 
 those whom she has left behind hei\ And 
 remember, brethren, that it is for no pur¬ 
 pose of pompous and vain declamation that 
 

 15 
 
 I have selected this as the topic of to¬ 
 day’s discourse. I have chosen it because 
 it will prove, I trust, eminently profitable 
 and interesting to the younger members of 
 Christ’s flock among us. 
 
 There is a peculiarity about it, more¬ 
 over, in a psychological point of view, 
 *— _—- 
 
 which might afford matter for profitable 
 and entertaining contemplation to the phi¬ 
 losopher not less than to the Christian. 
 
 In a letter, which I recently received 
 from a well-known citizen* of this place, the 
 friend and guardian of our departed young 
 sister, he said: “ In death she was even more 
 lovely than in life. All the blessings which 
 Christ gives to those who trust in him, were 
 given to her in overflowing fullness. Oh, how 
 sweetly and triumphantly her spirit passed 
 away!” And again he says : “ It was not 
 
 the fatigue of travel that did her harm. 
 It was the intensity of her emotions at the 
 novelty, sublimity, magnificence and beauty 
 of the scenery and objects she witnessed 
 and visited.” I saw the effect, and did all 
 that was in my power to restrain her; but 
 
 
 * 
 
 Henry G. Smith, of the Memphis Bar. 
 
W" 
 
 10 
 
 # 
 
 d 
 
 I could not withhold her from Niagara, the 
 St. Lawrence, Lake Champlain, and the ever- 
 shifting magnificence, beauty, freshness and 
 gentleness of the mountains, hills and val¬ 
 leys of New England. Ller susceptibility to 
 impressions of this kind was of wonderful 
 quickness and intensity. Her emotions were 
 constantly struggling, and overcoming her, 
 for utterance—words failed her, and at length 
 and often she would sink back in utter and 
 sad despair, that she could not find any 
 words to tell her emotions. She had al¬ 
 ways been dissatisfied, she told me, with 
 the descriptions she had read in books of 
 things sublime and beautiful, and wondered 
 at the meagreness of the language of the 
 writers, and ascribed it to the meagreness 
 of their vocabulary; but that now she found 
 no words within her command to describe 
 such things, and to express the feelings they 
 gave rise to in her bosom. The effort 
 to find words was a fatigue and an afilic- 
 tion. Those which were common had be¬ 
 come threadbare and disagreeable, and she 
 avoided using them. One only remained 
 
 df 
 
17 
 
 to her, and that she could not help using— 
 
 ‘ Beautiful, beautiful!’ One day she repeated 
 me some lines, the phraseology and imagery 
 of which have gone out of my memory ; but 
 the idea was that the beauty and the love¬ 
 liness were so intense that they had become 
 painful. The chief elements of her soul 
 were Love and Beauty. She loved every¬ 
 body, and in everything there was beauty 
 to her heart. No coarse feeling was in 
 her, and it was hard for her to discover 
 any such in anybody else. She loved her 
 friends and the attendant clergymen, (‘ Holy 
 ministers of God,’ was her phrase when 
 speaking of them,) and physicians, and every 
 member of the family about her, and was 
 thankful for each attentive act with a 
 grace and affection perfectly celestial. The 
 prayers and the hymns, and the Communion 
 Service, and the voices of those who joined, 
 were sweetly beautiful to her. 
 
 “ But I cannot tell you of all these things : 
 they cannot be told; the sweet words to 
 all about her, and the affectionate messages 
 to her absent friends and relatives, and 
 
18 
 
 the radiant looks which from time to time 
 illuminated her face, as a kind word or 
 act, or a pleasant thought would occur to 
 her. The window of the chamber where 
 she lay opens to the West, and before it 
 stretches out a landscape of exceeding 
 beauty—the blue hills in the distance, and 
 before and around a little vale of green 
 fields and fruits, and a silver band of spark¬ 
 ling and rippling waters. Her eye resting 
 upon it as she was lying in bed, the cur¬ 
 tain being lifted from the window, she 
 said: ‘ 0, beautiful, beautiful—here let me 
 
 die !’ and, alas! in fourteen days from that 
 time, in the same chamber, and with the 
 same scene expanding before her in all its 
 rich and gentle loveliness, the chill hand 
 of Death fell npon her, and her eyes closed, 
 never again to open upon the beautiful and 
 lovely of earth.” 
 
 Speaking of a gallery of paintings to which 
 he had taken her, my friend goes on to 
 say; “Some of them are fine specimens of 
 the art, many of them very interesting in 
 their subject, and several of them of very 
 
19 
 
 brilliant and impressive coloring. It was 
 the first gallery of the kind she had ever 
 seen. I observed when she went into the 
 room, and her eye glanced round the wall, 
 her very soul seemed swept away with an 
 overwhelming flood of intense emotion. She 
 could scarcely stand while I handed her a 
 chair. I told her to keep seated—not to 
 walk about—to notice those paintings only 
 that were near and before her, and that 
 we would again visit the place. I then 
 left her for an hour or more. When I re¬ 
 turned, she shewed she was much over¬ 
 come. She had doubtless been unable to 
 restrain herself. The excitement was too 
 great. Her nervous system gave way be¬ 
 fore it. We took her back to my father’s— 
 she went to bed, and never again left it 
 until the morning when carried from the 
 chamber of death. Her bodily disease was 
 of the nervous kind, which was aggrava¬ 
 ted—perhaps made fatal—by the intensity 
 of her emotions of wonder and delight. I 
 guarded much against it, endeavored much 
 to withhold her, and did so to a great ex- 
 
20 
 
 
 
 tent; but not enough, I fear, to prevent 
 the fatal result. I may be wrong, perhaps 
 I worshiped the child too blindly to be 
 able to judge accurately; but I surely am 
 of the opinion that she has fallen a victim 
 to a sensibility too intense and delicate to the 
 beautiful , the lovely , and the magnificent. 
 Her sense of beauty ivas a disease. It 
 clothed all her thoughts in her sickness — 
 covered everything she saw or heard that was 
 kind and attentive , and its language was 
 constantly flowing from her lips. And surely 
 the Communion Service, as administered to 
 her by the Rev. Dr. Cox, as the dim twi¬ 
 light of evening was fading out of the West 
 into the dark night, was holy, heavenly, 
 beautiful, radiant of peace, happiness, and 
 as was never religious office before, in all 
 that I have seen. She seemed to have in 
 her memory almost the whole service, the 
 responses of which she repeated without 
 the book; and her thin, silver voice ming¬ 
 ling with the others present, seemed like 
 the string of an angel’s harp just tuned 
 for the presence of God. 
 
21 
 
 “ O, I despair of being able to write so¬ 
 berly of these things. The soul of the 
 dear child is in my heart; would to God 
 it could forever stay there, and the hard 
 earthly things never more obtain posses¬ 
 sion of it. She comprehended clearly the 
 Communion Service, and accompanied it all 
 through. When the minister handed her 
 the cup, she clasped it with her hand and 
 put it to her lips; and as he pronounced 
 the words ‘and be thankful,’ she held his 
 hand with the cup, and turned upon him 
 her full and gleaming eyes, and said in a 
 tone of most clear and fervent plaintiveness: 
 ‘ I am thankful.’ One hears words so spo¬ 
 ken but once in his life, and that one 
 time can never be forgotten. She never 
 omitted her prayers at night, sick or well, 
 at home or abroad, alone or in a crowd. 
 I do not think she could have slept had 
 she omitted them. In her sickness, and 
 during the last hours, she loved to hear 
 prayers and hymns, and passages of scrip¬ 
 ture, and would suggest those of most ap¬ 
 propriate character. Mr. Cox asked her at 
 
22 
 
 one time if she would like to hear him 
 read a hymn. She replied in the affirma¬ 
 tive. He asked her if there was any one 
 she wished particularly to hear. She strug¬ 
 gled a few moments to collect her memo¬ 
 ry, and seemed to be unable to recall the 
 one she wanted; she said, ‘1 can’t re¬ 
 member the first line —but trials will befall , 
 or something like that.’ The minister at 
 once turned to the 183d hymn, and read 
 it to her. When he read the lines, 
 
 But with humble faith to see, 
 
 Love inscribed upon them all. 
 
 ‘ Yes,’ she said, opening her full eyes, and 
 looking up, ‘Yes, Love inscribed upon 
 them all!’ 
 
 “ But I must stop,” adds my stricken friend. 
 “A volume would scarce contain the thou¬ 
 sand touching little incidents of her sick¬ 
 ness. All was gentleness, and faith, and 
 love. She had no petulance nor cross 
 words—not one. She was full of thank¬ 
 fulness to all about her.” 
 
 I have also received from the Kev. Mr. 
 Benedict, one of the clergymen who at- 
 
23 
 
 tended her in her last periods, a letter, 
 in which he writes as follows: “ I was 
 
 not called to her till yesterday morning. 
 It was thought she was dying. It requir¬ 
 ed but little examination to find that re¬ 
 ligion had been with her a living princi¬ 
 ple, and was then her joy and support. 
 She frankly owned her desire to live if 
 it were consistent with God’s will, but her 
 desire and prayer was to be willing to die. 
 Once, a fear of the cold, dark grave pass¬ 
 ed over, but it did not long continue to 
 disturb her. As the Service of the Holy 
 Communion began, she seemed to collect 
 herself and followed it through, I think 
 understanding every word. Her voice was 
 clear and fervent in all the responses in 
 the Confession, the Trisaghln, and the Gloria 
 in Excelsis. She breathed "'Tier last so gent¬ 
 ly and so quietly, that we hardly knew 
 when the breath ceased. We were at the 
 very moment, we think, commending her 
 soul to the Sacred Trinity in the closing 
 words of Bishop Andrews’s Liturgy. Such 
 a death as hers,” he concludes, “ such a death 
 
24 
 
 as hers, leaves all her friends more of com¬ 
 fort than of sorrow; and though they can¬ 
 not but be desolate for awhile, yet hers was 
 such a clear, calm, joyous trust in Jesus, 
 and such a lovely example of the Chris¬ 
 tian character, that they will learn, I trust, 
 to bless God for His dealing with them, 
 and submit to what is truly her great gain. 
 The many interesting incidents of her sick¬ 
 ness and death, all indicated one thing— 
 her preparation for, and readiness for, her 
 Lord’s coming.” 
 
 This affecting and beautiful scene, my breth¬ 
 ren, is eminently suggestive of highly profita¬ 
 ble and profoundly interesting thought. Let 
 us dwell for a moment upon the reflections 
 which it gives rise to. "We may learn, then, 
 from this most instructive and touching story, 
 the inestimable value of systematic and 
 earnest instruction in the principles of the 
 Gospel in the Church. There are those 
 here to-day who well remember, as one of 
 the aboriginal members of this parish, the 
 late Durant Hatch, and who will bear me wit¬ 
 ness when I say, that he was equally remark- 
 
25 
 
 able for being an honest man , a polished gen¬ 
 tleman, a sincere Christian, and an enlightened 
 and decided Churchman. That most estima¬ 
 ble person was the grandfather of the lamen¬ 
 ted young lady, whose premature depar¬ 
 ture has supplied me with the lesson of 
 to-day; and when I say this, I say all 
 that is necessary to explain the manner of 
 her life and the manner of her death. In 
 other words, the family of Durant Hatch 
 was a type of many a family in our com¬ 
 munion—whether in our Fatherland or in 
 these United States of America; families, 
 that is to say, who, instead of presenting 
 the not unusual spectacle of a particolored 
 and divided household, where some forward 
 Miss or beardless Master is not slo# to 
 enter into a theological dispute with the 
 mother that bore him, or with that ven¬ 
 erable person, “ the old man or the Gov¬ 
 ernor ”—as behind his back they call him— 
 present to the world the symmetrical and 
 beautiful aspect of a united and well-or¬ 
 dered, and compact, and Christian family. 
 Such families, for example, are always to 
 
be seen in their proper places in the par¬ 
 ish Church, devoutly joining in the offices 
 of our venerable ritual, with meek heart 
 and due reverence, hearing and receiving 
 God’s Word, and who, though not unreasona¬ 
 bly solicitous to press their creed upon 
 those of different sentiments, nor hazarding 
 the safety and the dignity of their own 
 principle by exposing it- to the unreason¬ 
 ing cavils and quaint railleries of men of 
 heterodox minds; yet, in their adherence 
 to the principles of the Bible, as attested 
 by the Creeds and the Catechism, and the 
 Articles, and the Homilies, and the Collects, 
 and the Canticles, turn neither to the right 
 hand nor to the left, but ever keep on in 
 these good old trodden paths of the 
 Apostles and Prophets, and exhibiting^ in 
 all their domestic and social relations and 
 intercourses, the restraining, regulating, re¬ 
 fining, elevating principles of the Gospel 
 in the Church. Need I tell you, breth¬ 
 ren, that there is a real respectability in 
 such a household which must commend it¬ 
 self to every person of solid judgment and 
 
27 
 
 laJ' 
 
 of chastened feelings ? and whenever any 
 member of such a family is gathered to 
 his fathers, we are prepared to hear that 
 he died “ in the confidence of a certain 
 faith , and in the comfort of a reasonable , 
 religious and holy hope.' 1 ' 1 Some of you, 
 perhaps, may be able to appreciate the force 
 of these observations, and some of you may 
 not; but mark well my words, brethren: 
 never in your lives have you listened to a 
 saying, whether from the pulpit or else¬ 
 where, which was more worthy of your 
 profound consideration and good heed, as 
 men, as citizens, and as intelligent and 
 moral beings. 
 
 And now I would say to you, my younger 
 brethren in especial, prepare to stand be¬ 
 fore ^the judgment-seat of Christ. The Gos¬ 
 pel’s truth is attested by your consciences. 
 You feel that you have erred and stray¬ 
 ed from right ways. You feel that God 
 is coming to judge the world in righteous¬ 
 ness. You feel that it is they only who 
 do his commandments, who have a right to 
 the tree of life, and who enter in through the 
 
 
gates into the City. Prepare, then, I say, 
 prepare; be ready, be ready. “ For have 
 you not heard how such an one went to 
 his bed a healthy and prosperous man, on 
 whose countenance the shadow of death 
 was dark in the morning ? How the mar¬ 
 riage feast was spread in such a house, 
 and the young bride passed to her cham¬ 
 ber, and knew not that the mirth of her 
 friends would soon be changed into sor¬ 
 row over her grave ? Of such a neighbor 
 who went forth to the gates of the City, 
 and the crowd trod on him that he died? 
 Of these men slain by robbers; of those 
 swallowed up by the sea; of some that 
 fell victims to the pestilence that walketh 
 in darkness; and of others whom a fly, a 
 grapestone, a flint in the path, a tile from 
 the house top, took away in the morning 
 of their lives, and the heat of their blood 
 and their transgressions, without a day, an 
 hour, a mofhent, for reflection or for pray¬ 
 er?”* Prepare, then, I say, prepare; be 
 ready, be ready . 
 
 * Jeremy Taylor. 
 
29 
 
 When Popilius, by order of the Roman 
 Senate, required Antiochus to withdraw 
 his army from the king of Egypt, and he 
 desired time to deliberate about the mat¬ 
 ter, the Roman drew a circle with his 
 wand about him, and said, “ Give an an¬ 
 swer before you move.”* And thus, says 
 an old writer, “ Eternity, whose proper em¬ 
 blem is a circle, a figure without end, 
 sets before us life and death, even that 
 life or death which sooner or later awaits 
 us all.” Watch, therefore, for ye know 
 not when the Master of the house cometh, 
 at even or at midnight, or at cock crow¬ 
 ing or in the morning, lest coming sud¬ 
 denly he find you sleeping. 
 
 Finally, h ow inestimable is that holy 
 faith which inspires us wi th the exalted 
 andb lessed hopes whereon we have be en 
 
 me ditating to-day! - What a supggrt amid 
 the toils; what a refuge from lifefo storms! 
 What a powerful and constraining motive 
 to the most magnanimous sacrifices, to the 
 most beneficent and God-like deeds! Oh, 
 that we may ever hold fast to this glorious 
 
30 
 
 
 hope; that we may wholly surrender our¬ 
 selves to its purifying 1 influences; that we 
 may abundantly experience its blessed effi¬ 
 cacy; that we may finally attain to its en¬ 
 rapturing consummation /