observation will lead us to acknowledge the justness of this melancholy view of human life. If we look over this congregation, or any. other assembled for a similar purpose; if we take a larger survey, and view the community in which we live, how few comparatively do we see whose heads are crowned with the frost of seventy winters. We behold only a few here and there moving along the shore of time, as relics of days gone by; and their fewness are as monuments bearing our text as an inscription, to be read and seriously pondered by every beholder. The silent but significant language of their whitened locks and furrowed cheeks, to the present generation, is, "Brethren, the time is short."—It is true that we have reached our three-score years and ten, but this point in human existence, the great majority of our race never attain. The large circle of those with whom we passed the blithesome hours of youth, have long since shot the awful
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