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Article AN ORATION ← Page 4 of 5 →
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An Oration
fully proves the justness of my observation . The hallowed earth is but newly laid over the remains of a noble lad y * , cut off in the morning of her da } r s . Blest with health , with youth , with beauty , riches , titles , beloved by all who knew her ; yet all these " blushing honours" could avail her nothing ; they quickly vanished , and " like tbe baseless fabric of a vision , left not a wreck behind . " So sudden , so unexpected was her fateso little thought she of her instant
dissolu-, tion , that she drew her last breath without a moment ' s time to say , " May Heaven receive my parting spirit . " An awful warning this 1 May it strike such forcible conviction on our minds of the uncertainty of all sublunary things , that we may stud } ' to live with innocence like hers , lest our fate may steal upon us equally sudden , and equally unlooked for .
To my Brethren who like myself have passed the middle period of life , allow me to say , that by having already spent thirty or forty years in this world , our chance of making a much longer residence in it is greatly diminished ; and even the longest life with which our hopes may flatter us will shortly come to an end . When we look forward to the . years to comethe space indeedin fail ' s eye
, , , seems almost immeasurable ; but when we look back on the same space already past , iiowdoes it appear contracted almost to nothing ? Happy if we can look back on something better than a total blank ! If we can discover , on a careful and impartial review , that the general
tenor of our conduct has been virtuous , our anxiety to live many more daj's should be less ; . but if we find nothing by which to mark our former years but scenes of guilt and folly , the time we have j-et to spend on earth may prove too short to expiate them , and we maybe called out of the world before the great business of life be finished , perhaps even before it be properly begun . It is , therefore , our indispensable duty to employ well that period which may yet be
granted to us , and not to waste in idleness those precious hours that Heaven has lent us for the noblest purposes , and of which we mustone day render a severe account . My Brethren who are farthest advanced in years , will not , I hope , be offended if they are reminded of their mortality by a Brother younger than themselves ; because it is by one who lias but lately
escaped from the gates of the grave , and exhibited in his own person a striking instance in how few hours the highest health and strength may be reduced to a state of the lowest debility . It has p leased Heaven , however , to spare me a little longer , in order to shew , pei haps , that in the hands of the Almighty alone are the issues of life and death ; and that not a single moment of our mortal
existence but the present can we call our own . This uncertainty of life is , indeed , of all reflections the most obvious , yet , though the most important , it is unhappily too often the most neglected . What a damp would come over our spirits , what agitations would
* The Countess of EglhUoun , ulio died at the age of twenty-one
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
An Oration
fully proves the justness of my observation . The hallowed earth is but newly laid over the remains of a noble lad y * , cut off in the morning of her da } r s . Blest with health , with youth , with beauty , riches , titles , beloved by all who knew her ; yet all these " blushing honours" could avail her nothing ; they quickly vanished , and " like tbe baseless fabric of a vision , left not a wreck behind . " So sudden , so unexpected was her fateso little thought she of her instant
dissolu-, tion , that she drew her last breath without a moment ' s time to say , " May Heaven receive my parting spirit . " An awful warning this 1 May it strike such forcible conviction on our minds of the uncertainty of all sublunary things , that we may stud } ' to live with innocence like hers , lest our fate may steal upon us equally sudden , and equally unlooked for .
To my Brethren who like myself have passed the middle period of life , allow me to say , that by having already spent thirty or forty years in this world , our chance of making a much longer residence in it is greatly diminished ; and even the longest life with which our hopes may flatter us will shortly come to an end . When we look forward to the . years to comethe space indeedin fail ' s eye
, , , seems almost immeasurable ; but when we look back on the same space already past , iiowdoes it appear contracted almost to nothing ? Happy if we can look back on something better than a total blank ! If we can discover , on a careful and impartial review , that the general
tenor of our conduct has been virtuous , our anxiety to live many more daj's should be less ; . but if we find nothing by which to mark our former years but scenes of guilt and folly , the time we have j-et to spend on earth may prove too short to expiate them , and we maybe called out of the world before the great business of life be finished , perhaps even before it be properly begun . It is , therefore , our indispensable duty to employ well that period which may yet be
granted to us , and not to waste in idleness those precious hours that Heaven has lent us for the noblest purposes , and of which we mustone day render a severe account . My Brethren who are farthest advanced in years , will not , I hope , be offended if they are reminded of their mortality by a Brother younger than themselves ; because it is by one who lias but lately
escaped from the gates of the grave , and exhibited in his own person a striking instance in how few hours the highest health and strength may be reduced to a state of the lowest debility . It has p leased Heaven , however , to spare me a little longer , in order to shew , pei haps , that in the hands of the Almighty alone are the issues of life and death ; and that not a single moment of our mortal
existence but the present can we call our own . This uncertainty of life is , indeed , of all reflections the most obvious , yet , though the most important , it is unhappily too often the most neglected . What a damp would come over our spirits , what agitations would
* The Countess of EglhUoun , ulio died at the age of twenty-one