them like the lamentations of the theatre; you will have played your part well, in their view; and all the holiness, and all the majesty, and all the terrors of the gospel will produce no effect upon them.

Indeed, my brethren, it is impossible to preserve, in the midst of worldly scenes, the seriousness becoming our ministry. Success in our labors, therefore, depends on our leading retired lives, and our not frequenting the company of the children of this world. By associating with such we shall accustom people to see us without respect and without attention. It is difficult to be always on our guard against ourselves; and the malignity of mankind will cause the smallest weakness which may escape us to be considered as a crime. There is nothing but loss for us in a familiar intercourse with men of the world; if we do not lose all regard for religion, we shall at least degrade our characters; if the world does not become our idol, we shall at least become its sport and contempt; if we do not imitate its manners and vices, we shall at least render our labors and our virtues useless.

These consequences of a worldly life may make you tremble; but they are inevitable; an intercourse with the world sooner or later leads to them. And besides, do you consider as nothing the stumbling block which, by such a life, you will throw in the way of your fellow men, and the grief which you will occasion to good people? What! Shall you be continually seen in the midst of the pleasures and vanities of the world, and will the world, in favor of you alone, not take offence at this? And will you not, by such conduct, greatly afflict your brethren who are faithful, and all those who are friends to the cause of truth and righteousness?

But our functions themselves, you will say, necessarily draw us into an intercourse with men of the world. True, but we shall rarely be there when we are there only on this account. When we have no

ment.

object but to conduct souls to Christ, we shall show ourselves only to point out to them the way. The moment they have found it, and can do without us, we shall conceal ourselves, become eclipsed, and enter again into the darkness and safety of retireLike that star which conducted the Magi to Christ, and which was a type of pastors; it showed itself as far as Bethlehem, whither it was to conduct ,,those Sages of the East; but the moment they found, acknowledged, and adored the infant Saviour, "it disappeared, became eclipsed, and entered again into the clouds of the firmament; its ministry was "finished, and its appearance ceased with its minis try.

Therefore, my brethren, as you are now about to enter upon the public duties of the ministry, be on your guard against a taste for the world and its concerns. If you still cherish this fatal taste, be certain that this is a leaven which, if not destroyed, will one day corrupt the whole lump; and which will occasion your ruin. If this taste is so powerful that you despair of ever subjecting it to a sense of duty, take the world for your portion, before a holy engagement shall oblige you to separate from it for ever. Do not add to the dangers of a worldly life the crime of appearing there with a sacred character, which ought wholly to remove you from it; its seductions will be dangerous, even if the calling to which you may devote yourselves should make it your duty to appear there; judge then of the safety which you can promise yourselves, if you associate with the world in opposition to the commands of God, and against the rules of the holy profession which you have chosen. Amen.

Sermon IV.*

ON DEATH.

BY J. B. MASSILLON.

LUKE VII. 12.

Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.

W

AS Death ever accompanied with more affecting circumstances? It is an only son;-the only successor to the name, the titles, the fortune of his ancestors, whom death takes from a widowed and disconsolate mother. It ravishes him from her in the flower of his age, and just at his entrance on the active scenes of life; at a time when, escaped from the accidents to which infancy and childhood are peculiarly exposed, and arrived to that first degree of strength and reason at which manhood begins, he

* A translation of this Sermon has already appeared in the English language, in a selection from Massillon's Sermons, published some time since in England, and reprinted in America. The translation here inserted was however made before that was published, and how far the language of this corresponds with that, the Translator knows not, as he never read that. It is here published on account of its peculiar excellency, and of its connection with the following Sermon of Bourdaloue on the same general subject.

appeared less liable to the sudden arrests of death; and at a time when maternal tenderness was suffered to rest, in a degree, from those anxious fears which the uncertain progress of childhood and youth produces. The neighbors, in a crowd, run to mingle their tears with those of this afflicted mother; anxious for her happiness, they endeavored to lessen her grief, and to console her by repeating those vague and common observations, to which deep sorrow never listens; with her they surround the mournful coffin; and by their presence and mourning habits endeavor to honor the dead. The funeral parade exhibits to them a melancholy spectacle; but does it instruct their hearts? They are affected, their pity is excited; but are they, in consequence of this sight, less attached to life? And will not the remembrance of this death perish from their minds, when the funeral rites cease to affect their senses?

With similar examples before us, my brethren, we every day manifest the same thoughtless dispositions. The emotions which an unexpected death excites in our hearts are but temporary; as if the consequences of death were but of short continuance. We make many vain reflections upon the inconstancy of human affairs; but the object which affected us having once disappeared, the heart again becomes tranquil, and finds itself the same. Our projects, our cares, our earthly attachments are not less strong, than if we were laying schemes for an eternal continuance in life; and when we come from viewing a mournful spectacle where we have perhaps seen birth, youth, titles, and renown, all vanish suddenly, and lose themselves for ever in the grave, we enter again into the world, more engaged, more earnest than ever in the pursuit of those vain objects of whose nothingness and vanity we have just seen a most striking proof.

Let us now enquire into the reasons of an error so truly deplorable. Whence comes it that men reflect so little upon death; and that the thought of it

makes such transient impressions upon them? These are the reasons: The uncertainty of death flatters us, and drives the recollection of it from our minds : The certainty of death affrightens us, and obliges us to turn from beholding the sad image: What there is uncertain in death lulls us to sleep and encourages us: What there is terrible and certain in it makes us dread to think upon the subject. What I now propose is to combat the dangerous security of the one, and the unjust fears of the other. Death is uncertain; you are therefore inconsiderate in not reflecting upon it, and in suffering yourselves to be surprised by its approach: Death is certain; you are therefore foolish in fearing to think upon it, and you ought never to drive its image from the mind. Contemplate upon death, because you know not at what hour this event will happen: Contemplate upon death, because you know you must certainly die.— This is the subject of the present discourse.

I. The first step which man takes in life is also the first towards the grave; as soon as his eyes are opened on the light, the sentence of death is pronounced against him; and as if it were a crime for him to live, that he once lives is sufficient to subject him to death. This was not the original destiny of man; the author of his being at first animated his clay with the breath of immortality; he put into man a germ of life which the revolution of times and years could never have weakened or extinguished. His work was concerted with so much order that it might have bid defiance to the lapse of ages; and nothing foreign from itself could ever have destroyed it, or altered its harmony. Sin alone withered this divine germ, disturbed this happy order, armed all creatures against man, and Adam became mortal as soon as he became a sinner. "By sin," says the Apostle, " death entered into the world."