DISCOURSE.

PSALMS xii. 1.

"Help, Lord! for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men."

IT is a grave experience which society is called to undergo, by the separation or decease of its useful or eminent members. The circumstances under which their separation takes place, too, are often sad and afflictive.

Sometimes they fall suddenly, on the open field, sword in hand, while the interests of their country are under their shields; and still oftener do they waste away in their studious retreats, ere the ink is dry upon their pens. But even then, at all times, it is consoling to feel they have lived long enough to make an impression, and that the impress of their spirits cannot die. Worth wears the signet of immortality. It is a legacy which the possessor is sure to transmit.

Were it otherwise, indeed,- - were it true that, by the death of the wise, the honorable, or the good, we lose at once the influence or the effect of their virtues, - were it possible that, as their bodies disappear, we part with all impressions of their intellect, — then our mourning for them might well be that of sackcloth and ashes. But, blessed be God, it is not so. The memory of the just is ever sanctified and secure. The virtues of the departed live, and are enjoyed, like odors that remain after the vase which contained them is broken or buried.

The force of a good example germinates and bears fruit in the bosom of survivors. The spirits of the living embalm those of the departed, while they look forward to meet again in the resurrection, as flowers wait for the morning sun. It is true, also, that the virtues of the departed are seldom so distinctly seen as through the medium of that softening shade which bereavement draws athwart our vision. The starry firmament sparkles most in the midnight of winter. It is pardonable even if the light of those we mourn is magnified or refracted through our tears. It often is so.

Our afflictions, by the blessing of God, are like a mirage. They uplift the image of those vessels that are below the horizon and have sailed out of sight.

These consolations may well enter into the bosom of this church, whose worshippers have been so often visited of late by the angel of death. The records of mortality, my friends, have been unusually frequent among you. Nor is the admonition of your physical frailty confined to those who occupy the floor of your sanctuary. The unsparing arrow of disease often reaches him who stands at the altar, even while he administers to others the lesson of life's uncertainty. The voice which has so often spoken to you from this place the word of warning and of consolation, and which would better speak it now, is impaired and sadly broken by the heavy hand of sickness and debility. God help it here to resume, ere long, his oracles. For those lips, my prayer is mingled with your own, that the "coal of fire" may retouch them.

There is nothing which more forcibly affects one than to come thus, after an interval of absence, and see the changes which time and death

are making in a congregation. To you these alterations may seem less remarkable, as you see the vacant places occupied by new comers, and are familiarized to the presence of sons where the fathers used to be. But to me these changes come with a peculiar impressiveness. I look around and see the veil of mourning over faces that were wont to smile. I miss the forms of some who received, even later than I did, the waters of baptism from that fount.

"Our fathers, too, where are they?" The honored ones, whose dignity once adorned the place of prayer? Truly "the places that once knew them shall know them no more;" and, among the many whose absence or decease not only this church but the community is called to lament, there is one whose mourning family have this day had our prayers, and whose eulogy ought to come from other lips. If it seem like arrogance in me to undertake it, I can only say the feeling was strong within me that some one ought to; and, with you, I mourn the fact that he who ought to could not. Let my respect for the deceased justify the attempt. I would run the risk of his praises being poorly said,