which if not avoided, all is lost. There is one moment, and one only, in which we shall gain all or lose all — one moment sure to come, but when, God only knows — our one single last moment— our death. God has said to each of us: " Remember, man, that thou art dust and into dust thou shalt return/' and our own experience proves there is no exception, for death knocks with impartial hand at the peasant's cot and at the palace gates of kings. Of what shall we die? When^ where, shall we die? Oh, what matters it! The real question is, how shall we die? How shall we die? As a man lives, so shall he die. It is appointed unto man once to die and after death the judgment, but the issue of that supreme moment and trial — whether happiness or misery eternal — rests with us. And oh! remember and remember, and again, I say remember, that a man can die but once, and that a bad death is therefore an irreparable misfortune.
Brethren, we will meditate to-night on death. Not death in the abstract, but death as it actually is — in the dying. We will consider a good death, and the life that led to it; and again, a bad death and the life that led to that; and finally we will consider which life more closely resembles our own and hence which death is likely to be ours.
Brethren, the servant of God to the side of whose death-bed I invite you this evening is in simplicity and innocence a mere child and all but a child in years. She is and always has been a delicate little soul, of great beauty of face and form, but far greater of mind
