120

THE CHRISTIAN A PILGRIM UPON EARTH.

a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return."b The aged patriarch, Jacob, said, “The days of the years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years few and evil have the days of the years of my life been." Of him, and those who lived much longer than he, it is said, that they "confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth; they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly wherefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city."

"'d

Cherish the views these holy men professed. You, if a Christian indeed, are but a traveller here. Childhood and youth, said Solomon, are vanity, and so are manhood and declining age. They are all parts of the same little journey, of which some may, and others must, be near its close. Infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, and age, succeed each other so rapidly, that many scarcely reflect they are in one, before they find themselves advanced to another. Trifling do fifteen, twenty, thirty years appear to those who can look backward on them, and equally trifling would seventy, eighty, or an hundred seem when gone for ever. A poor man, who had spent more than seventy years on earth, once observed to me, that his time seemed but like two or three weeks. Yes, life is a pilgrimage, and short is the passage from the cradle to the tomb some find it a longer, some a shorter, but all a short and hasty journey. It is hasty, though its haste be unperceived. A traveller in a packet, driven by steam and tide down the smooth surface of the Thames, may indulge the illusion that all he sees on shore, the trees, the spires, the villages, are in rapid motion, hurrying away; but it is he who moves, and all on shore is still. Thus, even when least sensible of the speed with which you go, are you advancing with sure and rapid haste to the eternal world. Think when you lie down, think when you rise up, think when you walk, and think when you rest, I am but a traveller here. Amid the cares of life, remember these are but the cares of a journey; amid its pleasures, these are but the comforts of an inn. This world is not my world; for I am but a traveller here. Would you deepen the impression,

§ 2. Think of those who are gone. The great and noble, who once turned the world upside down-what are they? where

(b) Job xvi. 22.

(c) Gen. xlvii. 9.

(d) Heb. xi. 13-15.

are they now? Those who abounded in riches, or revelled in pleasures-where are they? and what is theirs? The moment that they breathed their last, riches, pleasures, pomps, and honours, vanished all. "Those lying vanities of life; that ever-tempting, ever-cheating train," what are they to those whose journey to eternity is finished? Their life is ended; that valued life is valued no longer. What one day they would not have resigned for the world, the next is snatched from them, and they are consigned over to the dark and dusty grave. What is then to them the value of all they once most loved and prized? And what, O my soul! will soon be the value to thee, of all that is now most dear below? It is but a moment since they were warm with life, gay with hopes and pleasures, or perplexed with plans and cares, and now all these are finished for ever. Then they were like me, and soon must I follow them, and be on an equality once

more.

§ 3. Think of the living: look at the multitudes that crowd a populous town, or busy city; and when evening comes, consider that all the nunibers you have seen in the day, in forty or fifty years, a very few perhaps a little more, but the most part a great deal less, will have left this world for ever, and be for ever fixed in another. All their business brought to an eternal close. All their transient griefs and joys eternally ended. No longer traversing the streets, hurried with cares, and distracted with business; no longer concerned about the varying changes and commotions of the world, about the nations that rise or that fall; but silent in the dust. Think, that could you revisit those now crowded streets when one hundred years are passed, if no new generation arose, you would find them entirely deserted; not a single passenger in them, nor an inhabitant in the houses; but the streets, where a blade of grass is never seen, then covered with it; the houses falling into ruin; many of them already in the dust; the birds of the desert building their nests in the deserted rooms ; and foxes, half hid with grass and nettles, peeping through the shattered windows. The houses of divine worship all forsaken; every preacher gone from his pulpit; every crowded congregation vanished and forgotten in the dust and all as silent as the midst of an Arabian desert, or as the

M

122

REFLECTIONS ON THE VAIN AND

chambers of the grave. O, act as a stranger and pilgrim while in so vain a world!

§ 4. Or view the subject, by indulging pensive reflection on the transient nature of all the most endeared sublunary ties. Think with yourself, Could I rise from the tomb when the year two thousand comes, and look around on the world I shall then have so long forsaken, what a scene of desolation would it present to me! Not those only whom I saw go before me, but all I left would have followed me. Could I approach their now cheerful hearths, I should miss them there; walk their gardens or their fields, I should not find them there; go to their tombs, and even there would not one wretched trace be found, nor even a stone remain, to tell that they had ever been. Had not others arisen, the silence of death, for ever undisturbed, would reign around their habitations, and the desolation of the grave. Then could I walk where once with them I walked, review the scenes that once I knew, rest on the spot where once with them I sat, or climb the hills we climbed.-Alas, dear companions! whither have you fled? The silent stars that we often together beheld, still would shine, still have continued shining, but shine upon to me a solitary world. And do we think this world our own? Oh, vain deceiving world! Oh, trifling, cheated possessors! cannot the dying generations of six thousand years, all swept away, impress the heart with the feeling, that we have no continuing city here?

§ 5. When you mark the silence of midnight; when all around you is as calm" as if the general pulse of life stood still;" let that solemn stillness, that impressive gloom, lead you to contemplate the period, when all the noise and tumult and business, that have harassed the world for almost six thousand years, shall have ended for ever. A deeper silence will then fill the universe. Creation will lie dead. The world no longer existing. No stars glittering in an extended sky, but their blaze extinguished for ever. Oh, could your spirit then wander from its eternal dwelling, to witness this scene, how impressive would be the stillness! how deep the gloom that would overspread the space once occupied by this busy, agitated world, when this world is vanished for ever! Here, might such a wanderer think, here once revolved a world;

TRANSIENT NATURE OF THIS WORLD.

123

a world, on which I travelled through the span of mortal life; a world, through many thousand years filled with successive generations or busy multitudes, that were perplexed with its cares, as if its cares were eternal, and delighted with its joys, as if its joys would never end.-How has it vanished! How have its short-lived multitudes departed! Their business over, their little pleasures finished, their hasty sorrows ended! Their doom pronounced, their endless dwelling fixed, and their once gay, distracting, perplexing world-lost! vanished! gone for ever! O, vain world, that so soon must be no more! that so soon must give place to eternal solitude and stillness, where all is multitude and bustle now! How vain are the honours, the wealth, and estates of such a world! Its wealth cannot long enrich; its applause cannot long exalt. Let its admirers tell us of honours and fame, that will last as long as the sun shall shine or the world endure.-Alas, contemptible honours! that will endure for so contemptible a span !-The sun is but a lamp, that lights our pathway to an endless world. The earth is but the road, prepared for pilgrims to travel over, till in the eternal abodes of grief or bliss, they reach an endless home. The joy that fades, is below the eager pursuit of an immortal creature. The crown that will perish in the last general fire; the garland of honour that must wither in that blaze; are not worthy of one anxious thought from a creature destined to everlasting scenes. Those things which are not seen are eternal; they will not deceive you. What you now see, you must soon see no more; but, what you soon will see, you must see for ever. It is but as a moment, as an inch of time; or as the darting of an arrow, or as the falling of a star, or as the twinkling of an eye, or as the glancing of a thought; -nay, compared with eternity, it is but as something less than even these; less than a moment, shorter than an inch, swifter than an arrow or a falling star, quicker than the twinkling of an eye or the glancing of thought, before all, which you now behold, shall pass away from you as a dream when one awaketh, and give place to those eternal scenes. Then, farewell earth! farewell sun, moon, and stars! farewell a busy or an idle, a sad or a pleasurable, world! but, no farewells are known beyond the grave; to the scenes which will then open upon you you will never bid adieu. Start forward, then, my fellow-pilgrim; start forward, in your thoughts, to everlasting

124

THE SOLEMNITY OF ETERNITY,

scenes, and roam among the immeasurable ages that lie beyond the judgment-day. How the world recedes as you advance. It sinks to a speck—to a mote—to nothing. How six thousand years, or six thousand ages, dwindle as you sail down the tide of eternity;-they sink to an hour-to a moment—to the twinkling of an eye-to nothingness itself. O, remember, that on that awful tide you must shortly sail, when the world is nothing to you. Strive to love it no more than you will do, when myriads of ages after its destruction you look back upon it. Value its honours as you will value them then, and prize its pleasures as then you will prize them; and let the prospect of those amazing scenes strike deeper on your heart the salutary thought-I am but a traveller here.

66

§ 6. Above all, let the full prospect of eternity deepen the impression: let but the solemn idea of eternity dwell in your mind, and life must then appear a journey or a dream. You would not think yourself at home, if, having travelled to the other end of the island, you passed an hour in a cottage there; but, with much more propriety might it be said, that you were not on a journey then, than it can be said that life is not a journey. That hour would bear some proportion to an age; but ages multiplied by ages bear none to eternity. The moment in which we breathe diminishes, in some degree, ten thousand years; but ten thousand times ten thousand diminish not eternity. Suppose," says a writer of the seventeenth century,* *"that the vast ocean were distilled drop by drop, but, so slowly, that a thousand years should pass between every drop, how many millions of years would be required to empty it! Suppose that this great world, in its full compass, from one pole to another, and from the top of the firmament to the bottom, were to be filled with the smallest sand, but, so slowly, that every thousand years only a single grain should be added, how many millions would pass away before it were filled! If the immense superficies of the heavens, wherein are innumerable stars, were to be filled with figures of numbers, the least vacant space, and every figure signified a million, what created mind could tell their number, much less their value! Having these thoughts, I reply, the sea will be emptied drop by drop, the universe filled grain by grain, the numbers written in the heavens will come to an end; and

Bates.