nate man. Very well. His years roll on. Time, which is gradually covering his head with grey, serves only to make his heart harder and more selfish. His life is beginning to draw to its decline. Days of occasional illness and feebleness come. He is fretful and morose. He has no enjoyments, except such as are afforded by the body, and are dependent on bodily health: and when this fails him, what has he left but wretchedness? At length his last hour comes: numerous expectant friends and relatives gather round the dying rich man's bed. But can they warm or cheer him? Or can they accompany him into eternity? No! he most travel that road alone. His riches can avail him nothing now: he cannot bribe the Angel of death. Neither riches nor rank count anything in that trying hour.[1] He dies. And soon he wakes up in the eternal world, and looks about him.[2] Where are his possessions now? He has left them all behind; being only material and earthly riches, he could not take them with him. He stands shivering in his mental rags, as the cold blasts from the eternal caverns blow upon him. Where are his sources of enjoyment now? He has none. He has never been accustomed to look within for enjoyment: but now he has only a within to look to. In a purely spiritual world, there can be neither scenes nor treasures, except those of the mind itself, and such as are derivations from the mind. There, consequently, there can be no
- ↑ "The death-bed," said Daniel Webster, "brings every human being to his individuality: one may live as a magistrate, a conqueror, or a king,—but he must die as a man."
- ↑ "The rich man died and was buried: and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments" (Luke xvi. 19—31).
