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<'Llf£ A TALE THAT IS TOLD, 
 
 I A SERMON 
 
 PREACHED IN ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C, SUNDAY, JULY 14, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 DEATH OF ZACHARY TAYLOR, 
 
 LATE PRESIDENT 
 
 Of 
 
 THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 H 
 n 
 
 BY REV. C. M. BUTLER, D. D., | J 
 
 Rector of Trinity Church, Washington, D. C, and Chaplain of the Senate of the U. S. 
 
 i 
 
 33ul)lis|)eli bg jtlequcst. 
 
 I! 
 
 WASHINGTON: \ \ 
 
 C. ALEXANDER, PRINTER, il 
 
 1850. I i 
 
LIFE A TALE THAT IS TOLD. 
 
 A SERMON ^- r TT 
 
 7 <ry 
 
 PREACHED IN ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C, SUNDAY, JULY 14, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 DEATH OF ZACHARY TAYLOR, 
 
 K. LATE PRESIDENT 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 BY REV, C. M. BUTLER, D. D., 
 
 Rector of Trinity Church, Washington, D. C, and Chaplain of the Senate of the tJ. S. 
 
 PublisijcO i)» Hcqucst. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 C. ALEXANDER, PRINTER, 
 1850. 
 
Washington, July 19, 1850. 
 Reverend and Dear Sir : 
 
 The Vestry of St. John's Church respectfully request that you will furnish them with 
 a copy (for tlie press) of the Sermon on the death of the late President, Zachary Tay- 
 lor, preached by you in that Church on Sunday, the 14th instant. 
 We are, with great respect, 
 
 Your obedient servants, 
 
 W. BRANFORD SHUBRICK, 
 CHAS. WM. SKINNER, 
 JOS. SMITH, 
 CHARLES ABERT, 
 S. M. McKEAN, 
 RICHARD S. CHEW. 
 Rev. C. M. Butler, D. D., 
 
 Rector of Trinity Church, Washington, D. C. 
 
 Washington, July 19, 1850. 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 I cheerfully comply with your gratifying request, to furnish a cojiy of the Sermon de- 
 livered in St. John's Church on Sunday last, and am, 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 C. M. BUTLER. 
 Com. Wi\i. B. Shubrick, &c., &c., 
 
 Vesli-y of St. John's Church, Washington, D. C. 
 

A SEEMON. 
 
 Wc spend our years as a tale that is lokl. "—Psalm 90, 9 verse. 
 
 The psalm from which these words are taken is full of beautiful 
 and affecting illustrations of the frailty and brevity of the life of man, 
 jn contrast with the eternity and stability of God. A thousand years 
 are, in the sight of God, as yesterday when it is passed. Our life is 
 as a flood — a rapid mountain torrent — raging and rushing, but soon 
 spent. It is even as a sleep, in which, insensible to the realities around 
 us, we are busy with the shifting unrealities of a dream. It is as grass 
 that flourisheth in the morning; but is cut down, dried up, and 
 withered in the evening. It is like a tale, to listen to which a group 
 gathers around the story-teller of the east. For a few moments the 
 narrative occupies and interests the spectators ; the incidents rapidly 
 succeed each ether; the plot gathers ; the catastrophe is announced; 
 the voice of the narrator is hushed ; the crow^l disperse ; the tale is 
 told: even thus we spend our years! 
 
 1. Life is like a tale that is told in the intensity of its interest. 
 There is nothing so interesting and thrilling as the true history of the 
 human soul. A great German writer has remarked " that the real iimer 
 history of the humblest man, is a more momentous and thrilling thing 
 than the external history of the greatest. " I have no doubt that the 
 history of the heart and mind, the struggles, temptations, fears, joys and 
 agonies, of the humblest soldier, who fell at Waterloo, if w^e 
 could get at the story in all its fullness, would more profoundly move 
 us than the most glowing and vivid description of the charging 
 and shouting squadrons, the thunder of the artillery, and the wailings 
 of the wounded and dying thousands. The tale of real or fictitious 
 life which moves us most, is that which most fully developes and most 
 truthfully displays the workings of human passion and affection. — 
 Every man's life, then, whatever may be his position, is like a tale 
 that is told in the wonderfully interesting character of its incidents. 
 The truth of his story is stranger than the fiction of many a wild ro- 
 mance. The Lears and the Othellos, and the Macbeths, the men and 
 women of Shakspeare, of Scott, and other masters, thrill the world's 
 
heart most, only because they come nearest to being true copies of the 
 men and women who are about you. If you could look into the naked 
 hearts of those who are sitting near you this morning, and read the 
 true tale that their years tell, you would be tempted to throw aside 
 the works of the masters of human passion, and call them tame and 
 bungling. 
 
 And the life of every man has this intensity of interest from 
 circumstances which give to tales constructed by human art and im- 
 agination their power to excite and please. The Epic, the Drama, 
 and the Romance select the crises, the hour, and the place, into which 
 are crowded those grand and decisive incidents, for which a long 
 series of events has prepared, and on which momentous consequences 
 depend. The life of man here below is the crisis, the turning point of 
 an eternal destiny. Oh ! there is no tale so truly thrilling as that of a 
 human soul, on probation for eternity ; no "gorgeous tragedy comes 
 sweeping by" with such a train of momentous incidents and august 
 characters. An immortal soul comes on the stage of being, in a con- 
 demned and polluted state. Its ordinary limit of mortal life is three- 
 score years and ten; and at any period short of that, it is liable to be 
 cut off suddenly, and in an instant. Then it is to commence an 
 eternity of intense and growing bliss, or an eternity of sharp and in- 
 creasing wo. Now in this little life, so short, so uncertain, it is to be 
 determined what shall be the destiny of the soul. Mighty actors and 
 transcendent scenes are connected with this true, ever-repeated story of 
 the human soul and its destiny. For its salvation the Son of God 
 becomes incarnate; for its recovery into purity and peace, the Spirit of 
 God visits it with heavenly power. That it may be saved, it has been 
 set all around with the agencies and influences of grace which are 
 even appealing to it and plying it, and striving to win it away from 
 wo. And all providential dispensations are arranged for this object; 
 all that the human spirit does and suffers has a bearing on the grand 
 and ultimate result. What momentous interest should invest every 
 incident and experience which bears on that great catastrophe. Oh ! 
 there is no tale of wonder, of stirring incident, of momentous issues, of 
 fearful catastrophes, like this! Angels listen to each new tale of 
 man's life and fate with absorbed and unabated interest. If it issue in 
 the recovery of the lost soul, then there is joy over it amid the 
 angels of God. Let it be told how it may — with the inspired and 
 seraphic earnestness of St. Paul ; with the gorgeous eloquence of Mil- 
 
ton; with the vivid intensity and realization of Bunyan; or with the 
 feeble lips and stammering tongue of the humblest minister of Jesus, it 
 is a tale second in intensity of interest to none ever told in the history 
 of God's universe, the story of that which transpires in the fleeting years 
 " rounded by a dream " which make up the mortal life of every man. 
 2. Our life is like a tale that is told in its vicissitudes and changes. 
 Separate from what may be called the caprices of fortune, the very 
 law of our being bears us on into the midst of ever new and shifting 
 scenes. We ourselves are changing; and all things around us change. 
 We are one thing in childhood, another in youth, another in maturity, 
 and another still in advancing years. The story of our life hurries -on 
 through incessant changes. Now it is childhood with us ; and that is 
 the period when, to the most vivid enjoyment of the present, there 
 is added the most ardent and confident, because not yet disappointed, 
 hope of the future. The scenes which surround our childhood are all 
 beautiful to us because bathed in the glorifying light of the morning. 
 It seems that but an hour they were with us — those young compan- 
 ions, that pleasant home, those playmate brothers and sisters, those 
 wanderings in the wood, those sailings on the little brook, the river, 
 or the sea, those enterprises and inventions, and supposed romantic ad- 
 ventures, in carrying on of which there was an amount and intensity 
 and vehemence of interest, which the hackneyed statesman might in 
 vain wish he could feel in the fate of States. Ah! they were with us 
 but an hour ! Then the scene of our life-story- shifted, and our hearts 
 were agitated with alternations of passion, hope, grief, and joy; and 
 we were moving in the midst of scenes which promised much, but gave 
 little; whose "pleasures did not please;" whose joys were too tu- 
 multuous to give real satisfaction, and whose capabilities and expe- 
 riencies of suffering were manifold and acute. Then, after the fitful 
 fever of youth had abated, we betook ourselves to the real business, as 
 we supposed it to be, of life. And now, with many, the period of old age 
 approaches, when the sad spirit, left of most of its old associates and 
 associations, goes back and wanders among the graves of the past, 
 and writes on them tender epitaphs, and hangs over them the faded 
 wreaths of affection, which they are no longer permitted to bind 
 on living brows. Yes, our life passes in the midst of strange and ra- 
 pid vicissitudes. At one period we are prosperous and happy, sur- 
 rounded by parents, children, and friends. At another we are strip- 
 ped and destitute, distant from the homes of our youth, lonely, and 
 
8 
 
 uncared for. We are wearied of perpetual change. We would feign 
 pause for a time where w^e are, even though it be not in the place of 
 
 of our preference. 
 
 Restless time, wlio ne'er abiilest : 
 Driver, who life's cliariot guidest 
 O'er (lark hills, and vales that smile, 
 Let me, let me breatlie awhile ! 
 Whither dost thou hasten ? say ! 
 Driver, but an instant stay ! 
 
 Swifter tlian the lightning flies 
 All things vanish from my eyes: 
 All that rose so brightly o'er me, 
 Like pale mist wreaths fade before me j 
 Every spot my glance can find, 
 Tliy impatience leaves behind. 
 
 Yesterday thy wild steeds flew 
 O'er a spot where roses grew; 
 Tliese I sought to gather btindly, 
 But thou hurriedst on unkindly ; 
 The buds by tliy wild wheels were torn. 
 And I grasped the naked tliorn. 
 
 Driver, turn thee quickly back, 
 On the self-same beaten track : 
 
 I, of late so muck neglected, 
 Lost, forgot, condemned, rejected — 
 That I still each scene would trace, 
 Slacken thy bewildering pace ! 
 
 To the grave ! ah, only there, 
 Through the storms that rend the air, 
 Doth thy rugged pathway tend. 
 There all pain and sorrow end; 
 Tliere repose's goal is won: — 
 Driver ! speed, in God's name, on i 
 
 3. "Our life is like a tale that is told," in the fact that we can 
 gather up the history of the past into a compass which shall scarcely 
 exceed the period allotted for the telling of a tale. A story which oc- 
 cupies but an hour in the recital, will cover over a period of years. 
 Even such is the story of our life. Very little of it remains with us. 
 All that even w^e consider to be important could be told before this 
 day's sun should set. Whole days and weeks of it are lost to the 
 memory — days and weeks filled with activity, with emotion, with the 
 reception and the conveyance of influences which are even yet oper- 
 ating on our own character, or that of others. If we have kept no written 
 record of the days that are past, or if no circumstances of peculiar in- 
 terest have impressed them upon the memory, we might in vain endeav- 
 or to talk with many of the hours and days and weeks of our former 
 
life, and ask them what report they bore to heaven. Looking back 
 upon the long perspective of the past, times and incidents which 
 were indeed wide apart, seem to touch and mingle into one. This is, 
 ho doubt, is the reason why life seems so stfangely brief in the retrospect. 
 This it is whi<ih makes our life appear to have been unprofitable and 
 Vain. This it is that makes us sadly ask, if God has made all men for 
 nought. This it is which vindicates the sacred writers from the charge 
 of exaggeration and extravagance when they say of life, that it is even, 
 ■as a sleep, as a flying post, as a rushing torrent, as a morning flower, 
 as a tale that is told. 
 
 This is a view of the present state of existence which is, to a 
 thoughtful mind, very sad and solemn. We can carry foward with 
 us so little of the wealth of experience, of wisdom, and of enjoyment, 
 which we gather in our onward progress through the world! — 
 Something indeed we ■carry with us ; but more we leave, and are 
 •compelled to leave behind. How many acquisitions we must drop 
 by the way ! How many lessons of wisdom do we fail to bear with 
 us ! With how many sweet hours of peaceful happiness must we 
 |)art forever ! Like armies that are compelled to leave much of their 
 spoil behind them that they may move forward, we are under the ne- 
 "cessity of dropping and burying and bidding adieu to many precious 
 things that we would feign bear with us, that we may advance on the 
 march, and be about the pressing business of life. If we could se- 
 lect and carry forward ttith us all the best spoils and treasures and 
 happiness of the past, and leave behind all that impedes our 
 ttiovement, then it seems that ours w^ould be a triumphal march, and 
 that we should pass forward in conquest over all obstacles — " terrible 
 as an army with banners. " But alas ! it seems to be the sad condi- 
 tion of our mortal state, that We cannot bear forward wath us and per- 
 petuate the pleasurable experiences of life. If we do carry with 
 us vivid memoirs of departed joys, the experience of all the world 
 attests that they are mournful, though fascinating to the heart. The 
 most that the true interpreters of the human heart have dared to say of 
 them, is they are pleasant and mournful to the soul. But while we 
 cannot reproduce the joys of the past, and in the attempt do but con- 
 vert them, for the most part, into present sorrows, we cannot avoid 
 taking with us the bitter and painful experiences of life. The regret- 
 ful memory of duty neglected — how often it reappears ! The reproach 
 of conscience for wrong committed — how frequently it is repeated ! The 
 2 
 
10 
 
 sorrows of bereavement — how mournfully are they lived over and over 
 attain. Yes, we leave behind us most of the treasures and the spoils 
 of our life-march ; but we must carry with us the baggage and the 
 burden ! Now when, in our retrospect of life, all the past seems to 
 consist of a few incidents and eras, and when those chapters that re- 
 main to the memory consist chiefly of painful passages, the pleasant 
 having been expunged, or having become painful because no more 
 to be repeated, we are compelled to exclaim with the Psalmist, " we 
 spend our years as it were a tale, ' a sorrowful tale,' that is told. " 
 4. Our life is like a tale that is told in the uncertainty of its ca- 
 tastrophe. While a story is in progress, we know not whether its 
 termination will be sad or joyful. I deny not that in the prescience 
 and the determination of God, the catastrophe is foreseen and fore- 
 fixed; for, in the language of Sir Thomas Brown — "to his eter- 
 nity, which is indivisible and all together, the last trump is already sound- 
 ed, the reprobates in flames, and the blessed in Abraham's bosom." But 
 that is a range of truth which is above us — "far above, out of sight;" 
 with which we have practically, as responsible probationers for eternity, 
 little, if any thing, to do. The range of truth with which we have to 
 do, is that revealed system of grace and salvation, which calls on all 
 men to repent, believe, and live; which proffers grace to all who ask it 
 and look for it in the way of God's promise and appointment; which 
 charges home on every man, under this system, the guilt and the fault 
 of his perdition, if he be not saved. Looking at man, then, under 
 this remedial system, we say that the catastrophe of his life-story is 
 yet uncertain and undetermined. We have to do and to act upon 
 that system of revealed dispensations in which, even when Christians, 
 we are warned to abide in the love of Christ, and "to beware lest there 
 be in any of us an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living 
 God ; " asystem under whichall are bidden to " work out salvation with 
 fear and trembling;" and in, which, even St. Paul expressed a dread, lest, 
 heshouldbea "castaway." Undersuchasystem,then, wemaysay that 
 the catastrophe ofeachman's life is yet in suspense. Oh ! what athrilling 
 interest does it impart to the life of every man, however tame its in- 
 cidents, when we know that it is to issue in an eternal blessedness or 
 wo ! The record of your mere human affections and passions, hopes 
 and fears, delights and sorrows, vicissitudes and incidents, would con- 
 stitute a story of affecting interest. But when all these are mixed up 
 with, and enter into and constitute a portion of a tale of an immortal 
 
11 
 
 destiny; when with them, there is God's truth before your mind, and 
 God's grace at your conscience and your heart ; when heaven and hell 
 are set before you for your choice and decision ; and while you are 
 defering that choice, death is seen to dog your unconscious foot-steps, 
 and to be preparing to strike the blow that shall determine a ca- 
 tastrophe of unending wretchedness — Oh ! how unspeakably painful 
 is then the interest with which the issue of such a state of things is 
 contemplated by those who see and would avert the coming doom ! 
 Your life is not the poor thing of tame events which you make 
 it or regard it. It is a history of immortal interests which is 
 written fast as it transpires, on the tablets of eternity, and read with 
 wonder by the angels. 1 appeal to your inmost, smothered, silenced 
 consciousness to confess that it is so ! I invoke those thoughts of 
 death, those fears of judgment, those sighings of the heart for better 
 things, those fettered energies, which are ever crying out in the soul, 
 " give us room and freedom ; " those secret unpremeditated and vague 
 impressions, that you have powers which do not find fit fields for their 
 exertions, affections which do not, in all their gropings, rest on the 
 objects for which they were bestowed ; that lonely feeling which no 
 human affections can remove, and which would tell you, if you 
 would hear, that it arises from the fact that you are cut off from God : 
 I invoke these impressions and experiencies of your soul, as wit- 
 nesses to yourselves, that while you are endeavoring to amuse your- 
 selves with the frivilous story of your daily outside life, there is trans- 
 piring in your spirit a history more momentous than that of an Empire. 
 My friends and brethren: A thrilling and heroic tale has just been 
 told among you — a noble life has closed ! It was a story stirring 
 with incident, beautiful with soft and tender affections, glorious with 
 triumph and success. It presents the loved and honored actor, now 
 in the domestic circle, now in the tented field, now in the chair of 
 State, now on the bed of agony and death, but everywhere and always 
 the upright, the kind, the firm, the gentle, the warm, the hearty man 
 whose life has won, and whose death has rent, a nation's heart. To 
 this congregation, familiar with his public carreer, and witnesses 
 of the daily beauty of his life, I need not dimly sketch the history 
 and the traits of character of the late President of the United States, 
 which are now upon every lip, and are pictured with a peculiarly 
 vivid distinctness upon yoiir memories and hearts, The task has beej) 
 
12 
 
 elsewhere and well performed. Nor will I strive to give expression to 
 that deep grief which, strongest here, where he best was known, is 
 no where weak, and which, on this day, devoted to the commemora- 
 tion of his death in every city and hamlet of the land, palpitates in the 
 hearts, and trembles upon the lips of millions. No burning words of 
 preacher or of poet could give fit utterance to the mighty woe ! Nor 
 may I intrude upon the sacred privacy of that late bright and happy, 
 but now desolate and stricken home, where " out of the strong came 
 forth sweetness,'^ where the departed exemplified those dear charities of 
 life which make greatness greater, and the want of which no great- 
 ness can supply — I may not intrude into that sorrowing group except 
 to convey to them, from your pastor and from you, their n"iore immediate 
 associates and friends, the respectful and affectionate sympathy which 
 has invoked upon their hearts the best gifts of that Spirit whose 
 name is Comforter. If your prayers and the prayers of a nation had 
 availed, our Father had not died ! 
 
 Leaving these more personal considerations to other speaker's and 
 other occasions, let me gather up a few of the impressive lessons 
 which this dispensation so emphatically teaches — lessons which may 
 be applied to us and by us, whatever may be our position and circum- 
 stances in life. 
 
 1. We are taught by the career and character of our departed 
 President, that those qualities which win wide and permanent admiration 
 and regard are moral qualities. Men, often deceived, love one who is 
 ever true; often injured, they love one who is ever just; often treated 
 with selfish cruelty, they love one who is ever generous, affectionate, 
 and magnanimous. They long, after repeated disappointments y to find 
 these qualities in the world. They learn to value them as those 
 which are in themselves noblest, and those on which their 
 own happiness, and the happiness of all most depend. Often when 
 they suppose themselves to have found these qualities, they are de- 
 ceived. Now, when they find the man in whom these traits appear; 
 when these and kindred virtues are developed in their highest forms, 
 and have been put to the severest tests, over and over again, and never 
 have been found wanting, there springs up in all who know him who 
 is thus proved, a true esteem, a joyful confidence, a high regard, an 
 enthusiastic affection. It is such comfort to human hearts to rest 
 upon something which will not, and which we are sure will not 
 
• 13 
 
 give way! "When men have reached this assurance with regard to 
 an individual, they go forth crying out, with deUght to their friends 
 and neighbors, "we have found him ! we have found him;" they gather 
 about him with generous confidence and devotion ; in an hour of peril 
 and of battle they lift him upon their shields and hail him chief; and 
 in the hour of victory, they rejoice to pour in upon him the full 
 and rapturous enthusiasms of their nature. Let us all remember, that, 
 whether our sphere be large or small, it is these moral qualities alone 
 which will win for us, in it, permanent and true regard. 
 
 2. Nor less emphatically does the carreer of the illustrious deceased 
 teach us wherein lies true power. I suppose that it will be granted, 
 without disparagement to any, that in no one living great man in this 
 land, was there garnered up more of what, in this country we caW poiver, 
 than in that modest, kindly, unpretending man whose vacant seat in 
 the house of God to-day tells you that you shall see his face no more.* 
 It shows that power depends on character more than on intellectual 
 ability. The deceased possessed, indeed, a discriminating and a solid 
 understanding; but not therein was the hiding of his power. "Knowl- 
 edge," it is said, "is power." It were more accurate, it seems to me, 
 to say that it is the fit and consummate instrument of power. It is 
 the furbished sword fitted for the work; but the power which gives it 
 poiver, is in the strong arm that wields it. It is not, then, knowledge 
 or intellectual ability alone which constitutes power; but it is that 
 which lies back of it and uses it— -that purity of purpose, that single- 
 ness of aim, that steadiness of principle, that true heartedness of feel- 
 ing, that iron energy of will — all that, in short, which constitutes 
 character, and which uses knowledge and ability for noble purposes — 
 it is here that powder sits throned. It is not enough for us merely to 
 hear good words and see great deeds, to assure us that they are the 
 doings and utterances of power; we want to see what kind of a man 
 is behind them, before we can determine whether there is real power 
 in the things done or uttered. The same words and deeds have not 
 the same power, and indeed are not the same, by whomsoever and 
 howsoever they are done or spoken, but are great and glorious in pro- 
 portion to the true greatness and glory of the speaker or the doer. Yes, 
 let us remember that in character is power; and noi in mere mental abil- 
 ity and acquisition. The lesser knowledge and the humbler mind are 
 more powerful when worked by a true heart and a will resolute for the 
 *The pew of the late President was clothed in mourning and was unoccupied. 
 
14 • 
 
 right, than are splendid powers and vast attainments under the guidance 
 of an irresolute, weak, corrupt, and capricious character. It is this that 
 makes David's sling mightier than Goliath's spear! 
 
 3. And let us learn from this dispensation and the feelings and inci- 
 dents which have accompanied it, a lesson of hope in reference to the 
 public weal. Surely this sad dispensation has been marked by inci- 
 dents and feelings which should inspire us with new hopes for the 
 union and peace of our beloved land. The quiet transfer of the vast 
 power of the Executive without murmur, remonstrance, or excitement, 
 is evidence that we love our Constitution and our laws. The fraternal 
 feelings awakened by this visitation in the representatives of every 
 portion of this vast Republic, prove that at heart, however local in- 
 terests may temporarily alienate our affections, we love one another. 
 Over the grave of our departed Father, the man of the Union, the nation 
 has been made to feel that it indeed is one. There has been no dis- 
 position on the part of Israel to say angrily to Judah, "we have ten 
 parts in the king, and we have more right in David than ye." All 
 have felt that they had in him an equal part and an equal right; and 
 that he must never belong to less or to any other, than that one broad 
 and undivided Republic, which now together pays him the tribute of 
 their united gratitude and sorrow. It was of old a custom to connect 
 solemn oaths and compacts with the offering up of a sacrifice. And 
 yesterday, when this illustrious victim was laid, as it were upon the 
 altar, and the States, by their representatives, gathered around it, and 
 a glow of fraternal feeling pervaded all the assemblage, I could not re- 
 frain from saying to myself, "the sacrifice is prepared; the hearts of 
 the parties to a renewed solemn national covenant are now all eager 
 and ready; in their silent spirits, the oath of new allegiance and 
 fraternal love is breathed; and the Union shall be secured ! God 
 grant it may be so ; for civilization, liberty, prosperity, peace, reli- 
 gion, and the hopes of coming millions hang trembling on the issue !" 
 
 4. And more important than all, this event teaches us the fact of 
 our mortality in the most emphatic and affecting terms. The lessons 
 of our mortality are written on life's every page, and we must read 
 them, or close our eyes. But when a great man falls, the lesson is 
 written in blazoned capitals, and hung up before our eyes, and the 
 world's, and its glare forces us to see and read it. Let us then pre- 
 pare for that life beyond the present, which God, in his mercy, has pro- 
 
15 
 
 vided for the penitent and believing and obedient. If we are in Christ, 
 we may be ready for the hour of death and the day of judgment- 
 Are you yet young? Is your "hfe a tale" that is just begun? Oh, 
 ennoble all its incidents, and give to its progress a healthful and happy 
 character, by connecting with it now, and weaving into it, as the per- 
 vading element of its power and beauty, the name of your Savior ! Are 
 you more advanced in life? Has the story of your existence become 
 complicated and tedious with petty incidents and common-place events; 
 and do you, with listless indifference, turn page after page of the life- 
 tale on which frivolity, unrest, and inanity are written? Be assured it will 
 be so even to the end, if there be not introduced upon it a name of 
 power — the name of your Savior. Then the narrative which crept 
 shall soar! Then the scene of your being, the object of your life, the 
 end towards which you tend, will all become glorified and changed. Is 
 old age upon you? Is the story of your life almost ended? Are the last 
 w^ords of it falling on the ear of your friends and of the world? Have 
 the characters which figured in its earlier or later chapters, dropped off 
 one by one — the playmates of your childhood, the parents of your 
 youth, the children of your maturity, the actors with you in the stirring 
 scenes of middle life — have they departed, and left you to totter off the 
 stage desolate and alone ? Ah ! what is there then left for you, but to 
 close up the story of your mortal life with the experience of a Savior's 
 love? Though that life may have been honorable and useful in the world's 
 regard ; though it may have been glorious with the triumph of intel- 
 lect and ambition ; though it may be such a tale as thrills a nation's 
 heart with rapture, and such as after times may eagerly peruse, yet as 
 the history of an immortal, it may be but a tale of sorrow and of wo, 
 if its concluding sentences end not with the names of our God and 
 Savior !