SERMON VI. DEATH. PSALM Xxiii. 4. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff comfort me. FEW men can think of the time, when they must "pass through the valley of the shadow of death," without feeling a degree of awe, perhaps of melancholy and of dread. And, certainly, there is something very solemn and striking, in the reflexion upon the change which will take place when we shall bid a last adieu to all our earthly connexions, all our earthly possessions, when the soul shall be sepa rated from the body, when the body shall return to the earth out of which it was taken, and the spirit shall go to God who gave it. A certain degree of dread of death is natural to man, and seems to have been implanted in us for wise and useful purposes. For, but for the dread of death men would often be too careless of the preservation of their life, especially at those times when they are visited by calamity, when oppressed by grievous bodily pains; and still more, when vexed by anguish of the spirit, by the bitterness of a wounded and troubled mind. Even under such circumstances, death can seldom be looked on without some degree of apprehension. But as death can not be avoided, but must at some time or other be encountered by every one of us, it is desirable that we should not be too much cast down, either by the contemplation, or by the actual approach of it, but should be able either to welcome it as a friend, or at least to meet it with fortitude and calmness. This we shall be enabled to do if we have reason to trust that we have made our peace with God, and may venture to look up to Him as our protector and our friend. We thus shall be able to imitate the faith and trust of the Psalmist, and exultingly, though humbly, to exclaim with him, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff comfort me." In order that this solemn subject may be the more deeply impressed upon our minds and memories, let us shortly consider what it is that men are afraid of in death, and what remedies for such fear are supplied by religion, to those, who humbly place their trust and their hope in God. And, first, there is, as I just now remarked, something very awful in the separation of soul and body; in the thought that our body, which now that it is warm and animated, we can hardly help looking upon as being our very self, will shortly after that separation become a lifeless, senseless clod, a foul mass of corruption and rottenness, and in a little while return again to the earth out of which it was originally created. But we should consider that there is nothing strange or uncommon in this. It is what we are all born to, what we are all led to expect and look forward to, as the sure and necessary term to which we are hastening. "Death passed upon all men;"-" It is appointed unto all men once to die." But if we consider by whom it was so appointed, if we reflect that this appointment was made by a |