386 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE [l793 



turn pale, we tremble before him as the king of terrors, and at his ap- 

 proach we cling faster and still faster to this evanescent speck of earth, 

 loth to let go our hold. Few, too {ki^'N, consider death in the right 

 view, as a welcome messenger sent from God to summon the soul (if, 

 peradventure, prepared) to heaven and glory. Few consider that, al- 

 though his marks are sure, he shoots not an arrow but what is directed 

 by the wisdom of our adorable Creator. In this view we consider him 

 not ; but, on the other hand, we consider him as a cruel tyrant, come 

 to disturb our repose, to rob us of our joys and to separate us from all 

 that we hold dear. We look upon him as the merciless ravisher of 

 parents from children, and children from parents; wives from husbands, 

 and husbands from wives. We view him as the despoiler of our fortune, 

 breaking in upon all our busy projects and best prospects; tearing us 

 from our dearest friends and relatives, levelling our fame and proudest 

 honors with the dust, turning our beauty into deformity, our strength 

 into rottenness and our very names into oblivion. We behold him 

 dealing with others as with ourselves, neither sparing the young nor the 

 old, the feeble nor the strong, the rich nor the poor, the beggar in his 

 rags, nor the proudest ruler in his purple. We find him neither to be 

 regardful of our pride, nor to be soothed by our flattery, tamed by our 

 entreaties, bribed by our benefits, softened by our lamentations, nor 

 diverted by accident or length of time. His weapons of destruction 

 are numerous, and we are unable to draw one of them from his grip. 

 A thousand ministers of vengeance attend his call — sword, pestilence, 

 famine and fell disease; the air, the earth, the sea, the fire, and the 

 beasts of the field, are the executioners of his will against man; and, 

 more dreadful to tell, man himself — monstrous, depraved man — becomes 

 the minister of death against his fellow-man ! With scorns and with 

 wrongs, with imprisonments, with torments, with poisons and deadly 

 engines of destruction, man preys upon man, at thy call, O Death, and 

 heaps up thy vast triumphs ! Hence it is that thou art so terrible, and 

 that we startle at thy name, and tremble at thy approach. Yet still, by 

 the due use of reason, enlightened by the blessed considerations and 

 doctrines of our text, after the example of the apostles and saints and 

 pure professors of Christianity in every age, death might be disarmed 

 of his sting and spoiled of his victory! 



If to die were only the lot of a few, we might repine and startle at 

 the partial decree. But since no age that is past hath been exempted 

 from his strokes, nor shall any age that is to come, why should we, with 

 unavailing sorrow and unprofitable stubbornness, think to oppose the 

 universal decree, "Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return?" 

 Let us think what millions have trod the path of death before us, and 

 what millions are yet to follow! Let us think of the instability of all 

 things, temporary and sublunary! Even kingdoms and mighty empires 

 have submitted to their fatal periods! Great cities lie buried in the 



