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I. DEATH DISORGANIZES AND DESTROYS OUR CORPOREAL FRAME. The words of the text merely announce the execution of the original sentence, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

II. DEATH PUTS AN END TO ALL WORLDLY DISTINCTIONS. Sometimes, indeed, they may appear to remain. One man is honoured with a splendid and imposing burial. Another has a blazoned monument erected over him. A third may have historians to record his name, and poets to sing his praise. And in contrast to all these, a fourth may be laid in the base earth, and have not even a stone to tell where he lies, and fade from the remembrance, almost as soon as he passes from the sight of that world, in which he did little more than toil, and weep, and suffer. But let your eye penetrate through those showy forms which custom, or affection, or vanity has thrown over the graves of departed mortals, and behold how the mightiest and the meanest lie side by side in one common undistinguished ruin. Receive, then, and practise the lesson which all this inculcates. It speaks to you who occupy distinguished situations in the world; and it says, Behold the nothingness of earthly grandeur, and power, and riches. Though elevated in station, be humble in spirit. The same fact speaks to you who are moving in the humble walks of life; to you it says, Why repine that you are not invested with the insignia of worldly greatness?

III. DEATH TERMINATES ALL LABOUR AND ALL PLEASURE UNDER THE SUN. "There is no work, nor wisdom, nor device, in the grave;" and "as the tree falleth, so must it lie." Let no good action be unnecessarily delayed, or carelessly performed.

IV. DEATH DISSOLVES THE DEAREST AND TENDEREST TIES.

V. DEATH BLASTS THE FAIREST PROSPECTS OF INDIVIDUALS, OF FAMILIES, AND OF NATIONS. He teaches us to put no confidence in our own life, or in that of any of the sons or daughters of men. He teaches us to recollect how feeble are all our efforts, and how short-sighted are all our best-laid schemes, and how perishable are all our most sanguine hopes.

VI. DEATH INTRODUCES US TO JUDGMENT AND TO ETERNITY. This is the most important view which we can take of it.

(A. Thomson, D.D.)

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KJV: Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.

WEB: You hide your face: they are troubled; you take away their breath: they die, and return to the dust.