Page:Serious thoughts for the living.pdf/7

, it reverberates from sepulchre to sepulchre, and addreſſes me with line upon line, precept upon precept. The reiterated warning, IacknowledgeI acknowledge [sic], is too needful; may co-operating grace render it effectual! The momentous truth, though worthy to be engraved on the tables of a moſt tenacious memory, is but ſlightly ſketched on the tranſient flow of paſſion. We ſee our neighbours fall: we turn pale at the ſhock; and feel, perhaps, a trembling dread. No ſooner are they removed from our fight, but driven in the whirl of buſineſs, or lulled in the langours of pleaſure, we forget the providence, and neglect its errand. The impreſſion made on our unſtable minds, is like the trace of an arrow through the penetrated air, or the path of a keel in the furrowed wave. Strange ſtupidity!

How thin is the partition between this world and another. How ſhort the tranſition from time to eternity!

Legions, legions of diſaſters, ſuch as no prudence can foreſee, and no care prevent, lie in wait to accompliſh our doom. A ſtarting horſe may throw his rider; may at once daſh his body againſt the ſtones, and fling his ſoul into the inviſible world. A ſtack of chimneys may tumble into the ſtreet, and cruſh the unwary paſſenger under the ruins; even a ſingle tile, dropping from the roof, may be as fatal as the fall of the whole