energies and destroy the usefulness of man as habits of vice. When the Israelites sinned against Jehovah, "the hearts of the people melted and became as water." This idea is forcibly exhibited in the writings of Moses. "Upon them that are left alive of you, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when no man pursueth." The history of such unprincipled despots as Herod and Nero illustrate the fact. On the contrary, virtue produces an intrepidity beyond what was ever felt by the arm of the warriour. It is this which makes men swifter than eagles, stronger than lions. A heathen could say of a man, righteous and tenacious of honourable purposes, that not the ardour of citizens commanding injustice, not the features of a pressing tyrant, can affect him. Were the world, shattered into pieces, to fall, its fragments would strike him undismayed. The volume of inspiration abounds with examples of this moral courage. Moses led out the oppressed Israelites from Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the King. To the request offered to Nehemiah to secrete himself from the plots of his adversaries, he replied, "Should such a man as I flee, and who is there that being as I am would go into the temple to save his

life. I will not go in"!" In the Lord," said David, "put I my trust, how say ye to my soul, flee as a bird to your mountain."

Instead of confirming this sentiment by selections from Ancient History, I will refer you to one circumstance in our own. A body of wiser and more virtuous men were never collected than those which composed our first Congress. They were raised up by Heaven for the especial purpose of emancipating the colonies; but their panoply was their rectitude. Mailed in this, they could smile at the menaces of indignant royalty-at the stratagems of disappointed politicians at the clangour of furious arms—at the prospect of an opening grave. See the Committee, of whom Mr. JEFFERSON and Mr. ADAMS were prominent members, present to their fellow patriots, the immortal instrument which determined the independence of these States. On every countenance sit calmness, dignity, decision, courage; because every bosom is under the sway of moral pre-eminence. Look at the boldness of the signatures, fac-similes of which are spread through our Union and through the world. If in one instance paralysis forbade the dash, that the love of country would have given, it should be remembered that the rock is unshaken, though the aspen tremble on its side.

But, there is a power that will shake us all.

"The most amiable career of human deportment must be succeeded by death." We all dwell in tabernacles of clay, and our foundation is in the dust. "All flesh is grass and all the goodliness of man is as the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it." Our present joys and afflictions, together with our occupations and projects, will shortly be terminated. The season for imparting blessings to society, for cautioning by our instructions, and animating by our example, must cease. The intercourse of the purest friendships must be interrupted; the body must become the victim of corruption, and the spirit ascend to the God who gave it. Where are the patriarchs, the statesmen, the philosophers, the poets, the warriours, in whose train myriads have fought, and have fallen? Where the millions on millions, that have preceeded us in the procession of time? The Earth saith they are in me! the Sea saith they are in me!—

Our monthly bills of mortality instruct us that we are inhabitants of a dying world, and the diseases to which our systems are incessantly exposed, premonish us of their ultimate demolition. The solemn decree of Heaven against offending man, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return," will suffer no reverse until the trumpet shall sound and the

dead shall be raised."

Yet a little while and the

eye shall lose its brilliancy and the ear its capacity of welcoming the varieties of sound; "the keepers of the house shall tremble and the strong men bow themselves;" "because man goeth unto his long home and the mourners go about the streets."--Immortality on earth is sought in vain. It is, indeed, totally inconsistent with the economy of things around us. The wise man and the foolish man, the child and the sire, the weak and the powerful, the timid and the daring, will alike be prostrated by the arrows of death. In this sense, we may employ the language of Solomon, "All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good and clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not; as is the good, so is the sinner, and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath."

Could talents the most splendid, patriotism the most pure, the most sage experience and the most impassioned solicitude for their country's welfare, have presented an obstructive to the advance of death, Mr. ADAMS and Mr. JEFFERSON had not died.

In general, men die because of the irruptions of disease, the special visitations of Heaven, the desolations of ambition, or the increase of years. Sometimes, however, the dissolution of man is marked

with circumstances of peculiar interest! In some cases, death approaches with the slowness of vegetable decay; in others, with the suddenness of the lightning's flash. Sometimes dying is as excruciating as suspension on the rack; sometimes easy as the softest slumbers of infancy. But our text refers more peculiarly to coincidence of period. "In their death, they were not divided." The blood of the father and the son, on the same day, and in the same conflict, irrigated the same hapless mountain. Yet correspondencies of this character are by no means uncommon. Disasters may be expected to be mutual, where dangers are so. But, in the circumstances of the decease of Mr. JEFFERSON and Mr. ADAMS, our whole nation discovers a concurrence at which she stands astonished. She weeps, she adores-fain would she interpret, but she knows not how. rises, and borrowing her language from the skies, exclaims, "Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name.'

She

Nations have gratified themselves in fixing on synchronous events. The Macedonians regarded it as something singular and impressive, that Alexander the Great should have been born, on the very night that the magnificent temple of Ephesus was