His Last Sermon. 399 



the hoary head must come at last; and, if your char- 

 acters are formed on religious principles, if you are 

 pure, upright, benevolent and pious ; if, in a word, 

 you are found in the way of righteousness, then 

 your hoary head will be to you " a crown of glory,'' 

 shedding its radiance on all around you. 



Your aged pastor, who is now addressing you, 

 perhaps for the last time, has arrived at almost the 

 extreme verge of human life. The Psalmist exclaims 

 — " The days of our years are threescore years and 

 ten, and if by reason of strength they he fourscore 

 years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow, for it 

 is soon cut off, and we fly away ." This is an accu- 

 rate description of man's fleeting life. Seventy 

 years are accounted by the inspired Psalmist as the 

 age to which man, under favorable circumstances, 

 may attain ; if, however, by reason of a good consti- 

 tution and God's especial aid, he should reach eighty 

 years, the period has then arrived when his strength 

 shall soon be cut off, and his soul severed from the 

 body. As music from the string ascends, so it 

 mounts upwards to a home of immortality and joy. 



It is by the permission of an All-Wise Providence, 

 that I have presided over this congregation during 

 the long period of fifty-five 3^ears to-day, and in three 

 weeks I shall have entered upon the eighty-first year 

 of my life. I stand not here to-day to repeat the 

 history of other days — of the prosperity and adversity 

 through which we have passed — hand in hand. I 

 only intend to draw some lessons of moral improve- 

 ment from our long connection. 



First let us consider the manner in which we 

 shall be called to an account before God, our Judge, 

 — the one for the performance of his duty as a 

 teacher of righteousness, and the other as a hearer 

 of God's Word. The minister has this solemn warn- 

 ing before him, " Son of man, I have made thee a 



