James Hervey

“ With a sickly appetite, we often loath what is wholesome, and hanker after our bane. Where imagination dreams of unmingled sweets, there experience frequently finds the bitterness of wo.
Here a small and plain stone is placed upon the ground; purchased, one would imagine, from the little fund, and formed by the hand of frugality itself.
I perceive, upon a closer inspection, that it covers the remains of a father; A religious father: snatched from his growing offspring, before they were settled in the world, or so much as their principles fixed by a thorough education. ”

“ What suitable returns of inflamed and adoring devotion, can we make to the Holy One of God, thus dying that we might live? dying in ignominy and anguish, that we might live for ever in the heights of joy, and sit for ever on thrones of glory. ”

“ Better, for the tender stranger, to be stopped in the porch, than to enter only to converse with affliction. Better to find a grave in the womb, than to be exposed to a hazardous world, without the guardian of its infantile years, without the faithful guide of its youth.
This monument is distinguished by its finer materials, and more delicate appendages. It seems to have taken its model from an affluent hand, directed by a generous heart, which thought it could never do enough for the deceased. It seems, also, to exhibit an emblematical picture of Sophronia's person and accomplishments. ”

“ I thank you, ye relics of founding titles, and magnificent names: ye have taught me more of the littleness of the world, than all the volumes of my library. Your nobility, arrayed in a winding sheet; your grandeur, mouldering in an urn: are the most indisputable proofs of the nothingness of created things. Never, surely, did Providence write this important point, in such legible characters, as in the ashes of My Lord, or on the corpse of His Grace.—Let others, if they please, pay their obfequious court to your wealthy sons ”

“ Nothing seemed wanting to consummate their bliss, but a hopeful progeny, rising around them; that they might see themselves multiplied in their little ones; see their mingled graces transfused into their offspring; and feel the glow of their affection augmented, by being reflected from their children. ”

“ When,—Oh! trust not in youth or strength, or in any thing mortal; for there is nothing certain, nothing to be depended on, beneath the unchangeable God;—Death, relentless death, is making him another kind of bed in the dust of the earth. ”

“ Art has done its all. The raging disease mocks the power of medicine. It hastens with resitsless impetousity, to execute its dreadful errand; to rend asunder the silver cord of life, and the more delicate tie of social attachment, and conjugal affection.
Those poor innocents, the children croud around the bed; drowned in tears, and almost frantic with grief, they sob out their little souls, and passionately cry, "Will he leave us? leave us in a helpless condition! leave us to an injurious world!" ”

“ Or, if the number of their years be cut off in the midst, you may commit their remains to the dust, with much the same comfortable expectations, and with infinitely more exalted views, than you send the survivors to places of genteel education. You may commit them to the dust with cheering hopes of receiving them again to your arms, inexpressibly improved in every noble and endearing accomplishment. ”

“ At the same time, let survivors, doomed to bear the heat and burden of the day, for their encouragement, reflect,—that it is more honourable to have entered the lists, and to have fought the good fight, before they come off conquerors. They who have born the cross, and submitted to afflictive providences, with a cheerful resignation, have girded up the loins of their mind, and performed their Master's will, with an honest and persevering fidelity;—these, having glorified their Redeemer on earth, will probably be as stars of the first magnitude in heaven. ”

“ The only remains of departed dignity are, the weather-beaten hatchment and the tattered escutcheon. I see no splended retinue surrounding this folitary dwelling. The lordly equipage hovers no longer about the lifeless master. He has no other attendant, than a dusty statue; which, while the regardless world is as gay as ever, the sculptor's hand has taught to weep.
Those who gloried in high born ancestors, and noble pedigree, here drop their lofty pretensions. They acknowledge kindred with creeping things, and quarter arms with the meanest reptiles. ”

“ It is not only placed in a more elevated situation than the rest, but earries a more splended & sumptuous air than ordinary. Swords and spears, murdering engines, and instruments of slaughter, adorn the stone with a formidable magnificence——It proves to be be the monument of a noble warrior. ”

“ It is owing to God's blessing on his seasonable charities, and prudent consolations, that I now live, and live in comfort."—Let a person, once ignorant and ungodly, lift up his eyes to heaven, and say within himself, as he walks over my bones, "Here are the last remains of that sincere friend, who watched for my soul. ”

“ If you really love the offspring of your own bodies; if your bowels yearn over those amiable pledges of conjugal endearment; spare no pains, give all diligence, I entreat you, to "bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." Then may you have joy in their life, or consolation in their death. If their span is prolonged, their unblameable and usetul conduct will be the staff of your age, and a balm for declining nature. ”

“ It was thy peculiar privilege, not to feel the slightest of those evils which oppress thy surviving kindred; which frequently fetch groans from the most manly fortitude, or most elevated faith; the arrows of calamity, barbed with anguish, are often fixed deep in our choicest comforts. The fiery darts of temptation, shot from the hand of hell, are always flying in showers around our integrity. ”

“ Nothing, nothing comes to pass through a blind and undiscerning fatality. If accidents happen, they happen according to the exact fore-knowledge, and conformable to the determinate counsels of eternal wisdom. ”

“ The soul, just going to abandon the tottering clay, collects all her force, and exerts her last efforts. The good man raises himself on his pillow; extends a kind hand to his servants, which is bathed in tears ”

“ He is greatly refreshed by his trust in the everlasting covenant, and his hope of approaching glory. Religion gives a dignity to distress. At each interval of ease, he comforts his very comforters; and suffers with all the majesty of wo. ”

“ Those who received vast revenues, and called whole lordships, their own, are here reduced to half a dozen feet of earth, or confined in a few sheets of lead. Rooms of state, and sumptuous furniture, are resigned for no other ornament than the shroud, for no other apartment than the darksome niche. ”

“ If their lamps were unfurnished with oil, how unfit must they be, in such decrepit circumstances, to go to the market and buy! For, besides a variety of disorders, arising from the unfeebled constitution, their corruptions must be surprisingly strengthened, by such a long course of irreligion. ”

“ In her, the lover weeps, the wife mourns, and all the mother yearns. To her, the loss is beyond measure aggravated, by months and years of delightful society, and exalted friendship.—Where alas! can she meet with such unsuspected fidelity, or repose such unreserved confidence? where find so discreet a counsellor, so improving an example, and a guardian fo sedulously attentive to the interests of herself, and her children—See! how she hangs over the languishing bed; most tenderly solicitous to prolong a life, important and valuable, far beyond her own ”