August 12

The living know that they shall die. - Ecclesiastes 9:5.

THIS is one of the most commonplace reflections ever uttered; and the plainest truths are often the most important, and at the same time the most neglected. Oh, it was a fine answer which the incomparable Judge Hale returned to a person who one day asked him why he attended a ministry so constantly and invariably, which could not inform him. “Oh,” said he, “I go not to be informed, but to be impressed.” And what is the language of the Saviour?-“If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” Yes, “the living know that they shall die.” Let us, then, consider the sources of this knowledge.

We derive it from the Scriptures. We read, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” “Man dieth and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?” “In Adam all die.” “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so that death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” But this is not one of those truths which depends entirely upon revelation. Revelation alone could have informed us of the origin, nature, and future consequences of death; but we could have learned the fact without it. For what says all history, for nearly six thousand years? Where now are the heroes that once triumphed, the philosophers that once taught, the kings that once governed? The fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live forever? “Comparatively,” says Solomon, “the earth abideth forever, but one generation passeth away, and another cometh;” empires rise and ‘fall, and flourish and fade.

Our world is little better than a large charnel-house. The very graves were once alive; we dig down through the remains of our ancestors in order to cover our contemporaries. And does not observation say the same? Do we not continually see man “going to his long home, and the mourners going about the streets”? Who has not been called more than once to mourn, and has frequently exclaimed, What a dying world! What dying children, what dying families, do we mourn! And who has not more than once sighed, Eternal Disposer of all things! “lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness”? Does not experience teach the same? Our very life is only the succession of dyings; every hour wears away a part of it; and as far as life is gone, so far are we already dead and buried.

Some have had very fierce attacks of mortality; and though they were able to withstand them, yet they were thus told, in language plain enough, that their “strength is not the strength of stones, nor their bones brass.” Those of us who have escaped these, do we not feel that while we survive we yet decay? While we are persuaded that we are mortal in destination, do we not feel that we are mortal also in state? Have we not the sentence of death in ourselves? Is not some pin taken out, or some cord loosed in the tabernacle? Old age bends down the man, as he walks along, towards the ground, as if it ordered him to survey the place towards which he is travelling. And the lengthened life is proof enough of the certainty of death; for what are dulness of hearing and dimness of sight, trembling of limbs, loss of appetite, chilliness of blood, and depression of spirits,-what are all these but the forerunners, the signals, the beginnings of death? But it seems entirely needless to enlarge on a truth which no one denies.

Every question besides this with regard to a fellow-creature is answered, only by peradventures. If we are asked, concerning an individual, Will he reach maturity? we say, He may. If asked, Will he become rich? we can only say, He may. Will he fill such and such an office? or will he form such a connection? He may. But if asked whether he will die, the reply will be, He must, without one moment’s hesitation or reserve. Oh, yes: “The living know that they shall die;” for “it is appointed unto men once to die, and after death the judgment.”