EXTRACT

FROM A SERMON OF REV. CHARLES LOWELL, PREACHED ON THE SABBATH AFTER THE DEATH OF MR. ELIOT;

From Job xiv. 19. Thou destroyest the hope of man. First published in the Christian Disciple, for December, 1813.

***THE hopes of others rest on their friends; perhaps on their children. We are prompted by instinct to love, to cherish, and to provide for our children. It is the dictate of nature. It is the voice of God. When a child is given us, we receive it with thankfulness. It is a precious gift. It may be a source of pure satisfaction to us. We cannot lift the veil of futurity and read its fate, but we hope the best. We consecrate it to God in baptism. We watch its opening mind. As its powers unfold, if our own hearts are impressed with a sense of religious obligation, we sow the seeds of piety. We embody our instructions in our example. We mingle the welfare of our child with our own in our prayers. We endeavour to bring it up for God and for heaven. But we labor in vain and spend our strength for nought. Our child despiseth instruc

tion, and hateth reproof; or, he goes forth into the world, is assailed by temptation, and becomes the victim of vice. In the midst of his sins he is snatched from the world, and summoned to the tribunal of God. Like Aaron, we may hold our peace, yet our agony is great, our anguish is bitter, for our hopes are destroyed;-ah, how completely, how fatally destroyed!

But, on the contrary, our child may requite our care, anxiety, and labor, by his filial piety. He may be affectionate and docile. He may listen to our instructions, heed our admonitions, receive and improve the lessons of virtue. We behold him with inexpressible delight, consecrating his early affections to God. We furnish him with the means of improvement, and he diligently employs them. As he advances in life our heart cleaves to him more strongly. No man can describe the feelings of a parent towards an affectionate and dutiful child. No man but a parent can conceive them. We imagine we behold the dawn of a bright and lasting day. We anticipate the eminence he will reach, the good he will do, the happiness he will enjoy in the world. He is to be the staff of our age, to support and to guide our declining footsteps; and when we are gone, he is to shed lustre on our memory, to add dignity to our family and name.

But suddenly our fair prospect is obscured.

Disease arrests him, induced perhaps by his honorable exertions to render himself respectable and useful in life. With undescribable anguish we witness his decline. The rose fades from his cheek. The eyes lose their lustre, or assume a brightness which is unnatural, and which fills a parent's heart with fearful forebodings. The strength decays. We can no longer hide from ourselves the painful truth. We had hoped that he would watch over us in our last moments, and pay the mournful tribute of affection at our tomb. But the scene is reversed. We must watch over him. We must smooth his dying pillow. We must close his eyes in darkness and death. The heart knoweth its own bitterness. We feel as Job felt when he said, "Thou destroyest the hope of man."

Blessed be God for the hope of immortality! Our hopes do not perish in the grave. By the eye of faith, we penetrate beyond it. We lift the curtain of eternity, and behold our child alive and happy. We behold him still advancing in knowledge and virtue. We behold him filling an important sphere, devoting his talents and his acquisitions to valuable purposes; perhaps employed in doing good. It was not a vain thing then, that we labored for his benefit. It was not a vain thing, that his mind was stored with knowledge, and his heart impressed with piety. He

scene.

was the better qualified for the duties of a higher He was the better prepared for heaven. "He pleased God, and was beloved of Him; so that, living among sinners, he was translated. Yea, speedily was he taken away, lest wickedness should alter his understanding, or deceit beguile his soul.-For his soul pleased the Lord, therefore hasted he to take him away."

Of this nature are the consolations which the blessed gospel, revealing to us a Saviour, who died for our sins, and rose again for our justification, enables us to possess ourselves, and to offer to afflicted parents under the loss of a pious child.

Of this nature are the consolations we can offer to those parents, who, during the past week, have been deprived of a child, whose talents, whose learning, uncommon for his years, whose amiable character, and ardent piety, had excited the fondest and most sanguine hope and expectation.

It is not my practice, as you know, on ordinary occasions to eulogize the dead. Often would my heart prompt me to dwell, in this place, on the character of departed worth, to hold up its most striking features to your view, and to urge your imitation. But I am forbidden. It would be imprudent; it might often be unjust to discriminate. When however a young man is removed who was not only a member of my church, but

a fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ, I feel myself more at liberty to indulge my feelings, and to bear my public testimony to his excellence.

The young man whom I now commemorate, I rejoice to say it, was one of ourselves. Here he was presented at the baptismal font; here he made his own profession; and here, on the day of his introduction to the sacred desk, he appeared as a public advocate for christianity, and exhibited, in a most striking and impressive manner, its reasonableness and its value.

When he was about to enter on the study of theology, I had a long conversation with him, on the nature of the profession, on its labors and cares, its encouragements and hopes. He opened his heart to me; he exhibited the motives which prompted his decision. They were of the purest and most exalted kind. His subsequent conduct, his intense application to his studies, his diligent cultivation of christian graces, and the exhibition he gave of his improvement, confirmed my belief of his sincerity. You have heard him preach, and you cannot forget the simplicity of his manner, the chasteness and elegance of his style, the soundness and clearness of his reasoning, and the fervency of his devotion. But you knew not half his worth. To his near friends it belongs to dwell on the remembrance