That ends this strange eventful history, IS SECOND CHILDISHNESS, and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing! SECOND CHILDISHNESS. Last scene of all That ends this strange eventful history, IS SECOND CHILDISHNESS, and mere oblivion, WHAT is finite must have had a beginning, and will have a termination. This is the law which the God of nature hath imposed on all things beneath the sun. Inanimate objects, however firm in their texture, or fair in their appearance, are of transitory duration. Beings, rational and irrational, are subjected to the same revolution. They have their rise, their progress, their decline, and their extinction. The world, vast and ponderous, undergoes its destined changes, and will one day be consigned to destruction. THE HEAVENS shall pass away with a great noise, and the * I scarcely need remark, that the term sans is the French for without, and occurs in other parts of Shakspeare's writings. L elements shall melt with fervent heat; the EARTH also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned ир Stand still, refulgent orb of day, A Jewish hero cries! So shall at last an ANGEL say, A flame intenser than the sun TIME'S empty glass no more shall run, Then with immortal splendour bright Thou SUN of Nature, roll along, Of EVERLASTING DAY! BUTCHER The longevity of man has constituted a curious subject of speculation. But what has excited particular attention, is the duration of human life among the patriarchs of the antediluvian world. METHUSALEH lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years! For this great age various reasons are assigned. Some ascribe it to mere natural causes, such as temperance, wholesome nature of the fruits * See Two excellent Volumes of SERMONS, for the Use of Families, by the Rev. Edmund Butcher. Second Edition. A fair specimen of their contents will be found at the conclusion of this little work. on which they lived, to the exclusion of animal food, surface of the globe less solid and compact, genial nature of the air and seasons, &c. &c. But whether any one or all of these operated for the purpose, a good moral reason has been specified; for, says Denham: "Immediately after the creation, when the world was to be peopled by one man and one woman, the ordinary age was nine hundred years and upwards! After the flood, when there were three persons to stock the world, their age was cut shorter, and none of those patriarchs but Shem, arrived at five hundred years. In the second century, we find none that reached two hundred and forty;-in the third, none but Terah, that came to two hundred years; the world, at least a part of it, by that time, being so wellpeopled, that they had built cities, and were cantoned out into distant nations. By degrees, as the number of people increased, their longevity dwindled till it came down at length to seventy or eighty years, and there it stood, and has continued to stand ever since the time of Moses." It is also added, that the present ordinary term of life is the best medium for population, by which the world is neither thin nor overstocked. It is the appointment of Providence for the happiness of mankind. Wisely accelerated is our march towards the tomb. "A TOMB," remarks a popular writer, "has been justly said to be a monument situated on the |