Page:Sermons preached in the African Protestant Episcopal Church of St. Thomas', Philadelphia.djvu/198

194 dim with age, the earth shall wax old as doth a garment, and be changed: and man, its honored inhabitant, involved in the same destiny, like the flowers of the field, shall fade, wither, and. finally die. Every thing around, about, and within us is calculated to prompt us to the important duty; "so to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." The setting sun closing his golden eye in the west—the faded leaf falling to the earth—the majestic river flowing on gradually until finally lost in the bosom of the ocean—the daily spectacle of "man going to his long home, and the mourners walking along the streets," all are so many monitors of Providence, reminding us of the solemn change we individually must shortly make. But notwithstanding the instructive lessons that pour in upon us from these and other sources, like the Israelites to whom the text primarily refers, the great majority of mankind will not be wise: more stupid than the ox, they