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Excerpt from A Sermon Preached in the Church in Brattle Square, December 1, 1833, the Lord's Day After the Decease of Miss. Elizabeth Bond
And then as to defective accomplishment of our prescribed task in life, it has not that connexion which it may be hastily imagined to have, with a longer or shorter duration of life. By one whose years God has lengthened out, the work of a long life is the work appointed by him to be done. That of a short life, is the work which he has assigned to one recalled in childhood or in youth. If death separates a young friend from me, I may mourn his loss greatly on other accounts, but not because time has been denied him to complete his task. For his time was the very measure of his task. I cannot deplore him as having been privileged in this respect less than others. I cannot admit the idea of any life, in an exact way of speaking, being prematurely closed. Opportunity is the eternal limit of responsibleness. She hath done what she could, the language of our Lord's commendation of Mary, embodies the majestic spir it of the requisitions of his Gospel; and the fair form which I lay in the earth in the glory of its spring promise, is as ripe for heavenly honours, if the brief allotted season have been used as well, - as that which has come down to its resting-place bending under the venerable decrepitude of a hundred win ters.
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