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and be merry.” And where is he the next? Some 
accident, as it is called, has befallen him: his Sys¬ 
tem is disarranged, and he is in his coffin. « A 
wind passeth over it and it is gone, and the place 
thereof shall know it no more.” Is it not an as- 
tonishing delusion that, seeing as we do, almost daily 
instances of the uncertainty of life, we yet continue to 
trifle it away as if, though ail around us are vanish- 
ing from sight, we were immortal? Nay, so insen¬ 
sible are we in our own case of its lapse that we 
even talk of « passing it away ” as if the thread of 
our life could never be spun out. 
“ The man 
Is yet unborn who duly weighs an hour.” 
Oh! how different will be. our feelings when we corne 
to die. How invaluable will then seem one of those 
hours now thoughtlessly squandered in folly or in 
sin ! How touching the warning cry of Queen Eliza¬ 
beth, on her death bed, “ Millions of money for one 
inch of time.” 
But we will suppose that man passes his prime, 
and arrives at an advanced âge. Still, though he 
has escaped the storm, he cannot ward off the stroke 
