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At the Regular Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Church in Brattle Square, in Boston, holden Tuesday evening, Dec. 3d, 1833:

VOTED, That this Committee, sensibly affected by the dispensation of Divine Providence in removing by death one of the younger members of the Society, return their thanks to the Reverend Professor PALFREY for the appropriate notice which he took of the melancholy event, in his Sermon delivered on Lord's day, December 1st,-and in the belief that his improvement of this distressing bereavement should be preserved for the benefit of the Society, do respectfully request of him a copy of his Sermon for the press. A true copy from the Records.

Attest-IVERS J. AUSTIN, Clerk.

SERMON.

JOHN XVII. 4.

I HAVE GLORIFIED THEE ON THE EARTH. I HAVE FINISHED THE WORK WHICH THOU GAVEST ME TO DO.

Of course, no other being upon earth can use this language, with a like fulness of meaning to what was conveyed in it by our Lord. The difference between its force, as employed by him and by others, must needs be two-fold. The work, appointed by his Father to be done by him, immeasurably exceeded in importance every work which is committed by the same universal Disposer to other hands; and he did his prescribed task thoroughly, while others, who the nearest approach him, at best leave some deficiency and imperfection in the accomplishment of theirs.But still the aim to be contemplated by each and every one of us,-the object for which God made us to live, and the object for which we should desire to live,—is exactly described in the same terms,-the finishing of the work, greater or less, which God has appointed to us respectively to do; and in that sense of the words in which they have close interest for us, we shall, in the divine estimation, be held to have finished that work which we have heartily desired, and strenuously endeavoured to accomplish, though not all

the results at which we had been aiming should prove to be achieved.

it

And then as to defective accomplishment of our prescribed task in life, it has not that connexion which may be hastily imagined to have, with a longer or shorter duration of life. By one whose years God has lengthened out, the work of a long life is the work appointed by him to be done. That of a short life, is the work which he has assigned to one recalled in childhood or in youth. If death separates a young friend from me, I may mourn his loss greatly on other accounts, but not because time has been denied him to complete his task. For his time was the very measure of his task. I cannot deplore him as having been privileged in this respect less than others. I cannot admit the idea of any life, in an exact way of speaking, being prematurely closed. Opportunity is the eternal limit of responsibleness. "She hath

done what she could," the language of our Lord's commendation of Mary, embodies the majestic spirit of the requisitions of his Gospel; and the fair form which I lay in the earth in the glory of its spring promise, is as ripe for heavenly honours, if the brief allotted season have been used as well,-as that which has come down to its resting-place bending under the venerable decrepitude of a hundred win

ters.

Having my reflections naturally directed to the subject, by an event of the week, which has made a great impression on the minds, and touched a deep chord in the hearts of not a few of us here present, young, and middle aged, and old,-I am going, my

friends, to present a few thoughts relating to the place of duty assigned by providence, in its universal distribution of reasonable and useful service, to young persons of the more retired sex;-the task which God their Maker sent them here to do;-the work, which God their Judge will look to them to finish before they proceed to those of maturer life, or are arrested, should such be their lot, on its threshold. I know, that happily the responsibilities and dignity of the season of youth are generally better estimated and more urgently pressed, in our times, than they have been used to being heretofore. But do there yet remain no lingering traces of that somewhat arrogant manly assumption, that, as to men are committed the most prominent trusts of society, the minds which are destined to that service are to be the great object of the philanthropist's and patriot's care? I care not to strike that balance, if I might. What concerns the individual for time and eternity, is, that his own work, whatever it be and of whatever relative consideration, be well performed; and what interests the whole is, not that one or another sphere of duty be ascertained to be of primary account, but that every sphere be well filled, each several relation conscientiously sustained; and sure I am that that, to which I invite your attention, is perceived at once to have a rank in the social system, which there is no need to resort to disparaging comparisons to establish or to set forth.

When we speak of the duties of any specified age or other condition, it is of course not any such general obligations that we mean to enforce,-belonging

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