vantages, in possessing which, the departed was distinguished from excellence exhibited in her, which all of you may emulate. She was thus prized, and is thus mourned, because she was a good child; a good sister; a good friend, in one sense to those who were privileged by her intimacy, and in another, to all whom she could serve; and she was all these, because she was a good christian. It was the loveliness of the spirit of the Gospel of Jesus, which shone out in her life, and is a halo around her blessed memory. Because she could say, "I fear the Lord from my youth," therefore it now remains to be said of her, with such a strong conviction of extraordinary appropriateness in the words, that she

any of you, but simply to christian

"Ne'er knew joy, but friendship might divide,

Nor gave her parents pain, but when she died."

You, too, my young friends, desire to make the happiness of those to whom you are dear while you live, and to leave them consolation when you die, if, in the reversal of what we call the order of nature, they should come to need such a resource. There is one way, in which you can accomplish that wish. It is by walking in that path of religious wisdom, which is for yourselves too, the only path of pleasantness and peace. It is by cultivating that fear of God, which to the youngest is the simple beginning of wisdom, and to the oldest, its consummation and crown, as the truly wise uniformly own.

Parents! it cannot be but that, reflecting on our relation, we sometimes think of the need, which, in

one or the other form, we must sooner or later experience; either the need, summoned to resign the objects of our love, of some support under that bereavement, or else,-leaving them ourselves to the chances of the world-of an assurance that their lives, when we are no longer near to guide them, will be worthy and happy lives. That consolation or security, whichever the need may prove, it belongs to us to be even now providing; and-true in our exertions to the greatness of the object, we are able, with God's blessing, richly to provide it. The provision will cost pains, but it will reward them. Rear up our children "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,"―teach them in all things to "remember their Creator in the days of their youth,"-and then we shall find availing comforts present with us after the bitter moment when we have closed their eyes, or shall commend them without anxiety to the blessing of him, whom we have served together, in the last prayer which breaks the silence of our own chamber of death.

The young persons of this congregation, who mourn a greatly valued associate, in that excellent office of religious instruction to which I have referred, and others who have sympathized with her in the persuasion, that happiness is to be found in christian duty, true honor in christian usefulness, perceive themselves to be addressed with a peculiarly touching notice of the necessity of that religious preparation for life or death, at which they are aiming; and they feel with peculiar sensibility the attractiveness of that eminent example of the religious character in

youth, which, lately before them in active and happy life, they are henceforward to contemplate only in respectful memory. Those of you, my friends, who have communed with the departed, in counsels, prayers, and efforts for the building up of Christ's kingdom in those minds of which he himself said, "of such is the kingdom of heaven," grateful, as 1 am sure you are, for the privileges of that communion, and for those of its influences upon yourselves, which no separation from one another, of those whom it has united, can destroy, will own yourselves to be strongly called on, by this sad proof of the insecurity of earthly hopes, to secure seasonably and amply that better part, which never can be taken away from you. And all, I trust, who have been growing up together here from infancy, till they have come to step upon the threshold of active life, will be prompted to ask themselves the question, whether, while some have, through these all-important years, been walking" in wisdom, redeeming the time," the same is to be said of them; whether the influences, under which the services of this place of their united devotions, combined with other agencies in the providence and grace of God, should have brought them, have been and are in action on their hearts. Has your

course, too, let me be permitted to inquire of each young hearer, whose steps here have been side by side with the departed,-has your course too been such, in these precious years, as to entitle you in some degree, to the testimony of conscience, that you have finished the work given you thus far to do? You have had the same time, which has been so profitably

used. Have you, too, been mindful to employ it well? If so, greatly happy are you in the enjoyment of that reflection. If not, happy are you, that your day and means of grace are not yet withdrawn; and be conjured not to delay an hour to put them to the indispensable uses of repentance for the past, and resolutions of a new life for the future.

Citizens of this community! greatly blessed are you, rich cause have you for gratitude to God, that you live and bring up your children where the sense of the worth of youthful excellence, and the standard of youthful character, are so high; where truly estimable qualities in the young are what above all things attract esteem and consideration, and the loss of one eminently their possessor, is feelingly owned to be a public calamity. Such sentiments are not more honorable to their object, than auspicious to the best good of those who entertain them. Assuredly, my friends, there is no care by which you can more promote the common good, than by endeavours to maintain this sense of character among the young, as far as it is already correct and high, and to advance it to a still further justness and elevation.

"I have finished the work thou hast given me to do." Yes! in one sense the work is finished. Morning will rise and evening gather its shadows over that new made grave, but the one will not disturb, and the other will not compose the peaceful sleeper. Evening will no longer send her from the happy fireside to the quiet slumbers of an unburdened conscience. Morning will not call her back to the tasks of filial, sisterly, and Christian love. But how

speak we of the work of a good life being finished? She of whom we have used the words, now looks back upon what we call death, and knows it to be only, to use the language of a kindred spirit, "an incident in life." Earth has no mounds to confine the soul. The sentence is, that "the dust shall return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it." The spirit has already gone to higher, more unembarrassed, more intense, more joyful life. The voice, which, on the wings of its soul-harmony, has so often lifted our devotions here to the sphere to which it seemed to belong, is already, we trust, lending its rich and volumed sweetness to swell the anthem of the redeemed "I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me;-Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord. Yea, saith the spirit, for they rest from their labors, and their works do follow them." They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb, who is in the midst of the throne, shall lead them unto living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."