blindness of our mind and of the depravity of the heart? Can we conceive a conduct more foolish or absurd ? Above all, can there be any thing more opposite to the dispositions most indispensable to those who wish to die in a holy and a Christian manner ?

It is certain also that they are deceived in the world itself. But the conduct of those survivors cannot be sufficiently reprobated who, wishing it to appear that they are doing honor to the dead in making for them pompous and magnificent funerals, gratify only their own vanity, as well in affecting to appear so generous and grateful as in apprizing the world of the nobility and distinction of their family, by the honors they render to the departed person. I admit that this second kind of vanity is not quite so indefensible as the first; but I maintain that there is but little difference between them. It is always ostentation; that is to say, the most absurd and contemptible of all vices. It is even a vanity so much more intolerable, as connected with the idea of death, at least with that of the death of others, which sufficiently warns us of our own, and which imposes on us the necessity of thinking thereon. Let us judge as we will, for myself. I declare, that nothing shocks me more than the idea which is presented to my mind by pride connected with the thought of death. These two ideas, when suggested in combination, form a composition which appears to me intolerable.

I would desire to see Christians then, always humble and modest; but I would have them so in every thing which has any connexion with death, as well their own as that of another. I would desire that this object should ever produce its natural effect, which is certainly to humble us. I would desire that it might make us remember what we are, and what we are about to be. This is what would be very proper, and could not fail to be salutary.

CHAPTER XIV.

THAT A HAPPY DEATH IS MUCH MORE RARE THAN IS

GENERALLY IMAGINED.

Such are briefly the dispositions and feelings which are necessary to a happy death.

By this it is evident that nothing is more true than what I remarked in the commencement of this book, – that a happy death is a privilege as rare as it is excellent. In fact, among so many as are daily removed by death, there are few who can be said to die in this manner. There are few, comparatively, who before they die, have become reconciled to God: few who, by a sincere conversion, have passed from a state of sin to a state of grace : few who have a lively faith, and a true and sincere love for God, and for their neighbor.

That we may be more fully convinced of this, we have only to consider how prodigious is the number of those who die in their sins, as speaks our Saviour to the Jews. This will more plainly appear if we consider the different descriptions of character in society, and that there is not one of these that does not comprehend in it a vast multitude.

a

The first is of those who die in actual sin. Such are they who die murmuring against God; or even they who are unwilling to submit to his righteous dispensation in removing them from the world. They who perish in unjust and crimi. nal enterprises : they who fall in private combat: they who commit suicide: and many others who will not cease to sin till they cease to live.

The second description is of those who, never having belonged to the number of God's children, and having lived, some in profaneness, others in hypocrisy, and the most of them in the indulgence of one or more habitual sins, from which they have never been truly delivered by a sincere conversion, are cut off by unforseen accidents, which allow them not a moment for reflection, or by diseases attended by symptoms which deprive them of the free use of their reason, and consequently prevent their seeking reconciliation with God.

The third description is of those who, having lived in the same manner as the preceding, and seeing death approach, and enjoying the full and free exercise of their reasonable faculties, with all the advantages of those means of grace and instruction which might promote their conversion, pay no attention to this great concern, or apply themselves to it only feebly and indifferently, giving almost all their thoughts to the pain they suffer, or to the remedies which they imagine may mitigate their sufferings, to their temporal affairs, or to other objects of a similar kind.

The fourth is of those who, though applying themselves with care, bestow not a sufficiency of thought upon it, and carry it not to the desirable result of a true and sincere conversion, which transfers them from a state of sin and condemnation, to a state of justification and grace. These without doubt, compose a very great number, and may be divided into several classes.

The first is of those who, far from repenting of some of their greatest sins, are ignorant of them, and have no idea that they have ever committed such. These are generally idolaters, persecutors, the proud, the envious, liars, the malicious; among whom it is extremely rare to find any who do not consider themselves exempt from all these faults, although they are at the same time not only subject to them, but carry them to their greatest excess.* Insensible to their great trans

* "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." — How many are there in this land of Bibles and of gospel light who shut their eyes against the brightest beams of truth where their own characters are concerned! They idolize and pursue wealth as their chief good, and call it only a prudent concern for themselves and families. They are