THE VANITY OF THE WORLD.

A Sermon

BY THE LATE REV. JOHN SCOTT, M.A. OF Hull.

[Ir is not our custom to present our readers with Sermons, unless written on some special occasion-as, for example, on the death of some devoted Christian. We feel convinced, however, that we shall be consulting at once their inclination and profit by giving insertion to the following Sermon-which has been handed to us for the purpose, and which was written by a well-known Clergyman of our Church— some years since removed to his eternal rest. It was first preached in 1813, and bears marked reference to many events of surpassing interest at that period. But the general instruction it conveys is equally applicable at all times; and it seems well calculated to carry home useful lessons to the hearts and consciences of all in every age. It is scarcely necessary to remark, that the nature of the discourse is very different from what was usual with its revered Author—or, indeed, with any other of the Clergy of the Church. Though it would of course be unadvisable that such Sermons should frequently be preached, it may, perhaps, admit of a question whether judicious allusions to striking events passing around us might not be introduced more frequently with happy effect.-ED.]

ECCLESIASTES I. 2.

VANITY OF VANITIES, SAITH THE PREACHER, VANITY OF VANITIES : ALL IS VANITY.'

So "the Preacher" saith: but who regards him? He is thought to be delivering mere words of course: a sort of official language, which it is to be expected he should use, and nobody should attend to. Perhaps he is supposed not very sincerely to believe himself what he delivers to others or if credit is given him for sincerity, his sentiments are conceived to bear the tinge of disappointment, or of a mind in some degree turned towards melancholy or moroseness.

Let us hear then what facts say upon this subject. Solomon, guided by inspiration, thought it worth while to write a whole book upon it: let it not then be thought a misapplication of our time, if we employ a discourse upon it-even though that discourse may lead a little out of our ordinary line of pulpit discussion. I shall begin then with adducing several instances in proof of the extreme vanity of the world.

About 100 years ago, there lived in India (that country to which our attention is now so deservedly turned) a man of the name of Aurungzebe. His father swayed with great celebrity the sceptre of the Mogul Empire and he himself (a younger son) prematurely made his way to the throne by the deposition and imprisonment of his Father-the

defeat and death of two brothers, and the perpetual confinement of a third, whom he had made, in an unexampled manner, the tool of his artifice and ambition. He filled the throne which he had thus acquired, for half a century; he mounted it the year that our Oliver Cromwell died, and he held it till very near the accession of our George the first: and all this time he lived the scourge and terror of the extensive regions of India, as much as the Ruler of France has been for some years past, that of Europe. He was moreover a man of learning, and inflexible in his administration of justice. Here then was prosperity exalted and continued in no common degree. But now hear how this man was forced at length to feel concerning the world, and his own successes and uncontrolled power and long life in it. We have two curious letters of his preserved, written to his sons when he was ninety years of age. They are letters of business, but singularly intermixed with short reflections upon himself and his prospects, such as strikingly lay open the interior of his heart, and shew the miserable emptiness and desolation which reigned within. Old age (he says) is arrived: weakness subdues me, and strength has forsaken my members. I came a stranger into this world, and a stranger I depart. I know nothing of myself: what I am, and for what I am destined. The instant which passed in power'-observe he had lived ninety years, and reigned fifty-and now hear how he speaks of it- The instant which passed in power, hath left only sorrow behind it.' Again: My valuable time has been passed vainly life is not lasting; there is no vestige of departed breath, and all hopes from futurity are lost. I have a dread for my salvation.’ And again: Now I depart a stranger, and lament my own insignificance; what does it profit me? I carry with me the fruits of my sins and imperfections.. Wherever I look I see nothing but the Divinity. My back is bent with weakness, and my feet have lost the powers of motion. Nothing of me remains but skin and bone. I have committed numerous crimes, and know not with what torments I may be punished.'

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What an awful spectacle is here! An old man, an old monarch, an old sinner, yea, and an old philosopher and devotee, (for he bore these characters too, under the direction of Mahometan principles) going out of the world, and with no better reflections, no better prospects to solace him, than these !-"The wicked is driven away in his wickedness, but the righteous hath hope in his death." What a contrast is

here to the death-bed of a true Christian. Yet let it be remembered, that these dismal sentences are written by a man still at the head of his army, and in the camp: still capable of exercising his command :— that they are sentences introduced only in the pauses of letters, full of sage political counsels and orders to his sons!

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Young persons! The wise and inspired writer of this book of Ecclesiastes admonishes you, in the last chapters of it, by "remembering your Creator in the days of your youth," to remove sorrow from your heart, and to put away evil from your flesh." Now learn from the case I have brought before you, what he means. See the dreary, dismal, hopeless' sorrows' which a life of ungodliness and sin entails upon a man. Aurungzebe with all his power, with all his greatness, with all his conquests, with all his protracted length of life; was forced to feel at length that the world was vanity. Happy, happy for him, had he learned the lesson in time!

Observe too that sentence of his; wherever I look, I see nothing but the Divinity.' However he might have forgotten God all his days, he felt himself now surrounded with God-an unknown God- -an unpropitiated God—yet a God from whom he could not escape. Oh how fearful a thing to feel ourselves thus in the hands of the living God, without having found peace with him through Christ, when the hour for seeking his favour is past!

My dear friends, if you will not now acquaint yourselves with God, that you may be at peace, you will one day find yourselves in this situation. "Remember your Creator, therefore, now in the days of your youth, while the evil days come not."

But Aurungzebe was a conqueror-a leader of unprovoked offensive war-a wholesale butcher of his species, a man loaded with mighty crimes. He deserved, (perhaps you will say) thus to feel the misery which he had inflicted, and even to be " tormented before the time" with the fearful anticipations of his Maker's wrath. And though I would beg leave to decline all attempts to estimate the comparative guilt of different offenders against God: all presuming to denounce the vengeance of God upon individuals: and still more (if possible,) all triumphing in the inflictions of his wrath upon any yet I must so far join in your estimate of a professed conqueror, as to pray God to sink the very name and notion in everlasting detestation or oblivion— that, if it be his will, it may never more be heard of. But still it is not such a character alone that is made bitterly to feel the vanity of the world-the vanity of success even in the most splendid schemes.

Take another instance. Few men have been better entitled to fame than Columbus the discoverer of the American world. His was not the discovery of accident, but of previous reasoning and calculation: he found what he set out to seek; and his invincible perseverance, and his admirable address in the management of his desponding and mutinous companions demonstrate him a man of a superior order. Now hear how he was received when he returned home, and his success was known.

'The bells were rung,' (the historian tells us) the cannon fired; Columbus was received at landing with royal honours, and all the people, in solemn procession, accompanied him and his crew to church, where they returned thanks to Heaven.' During his journey through Spain to the royal residence, the people crowded from the adjacent country, following him everywhere with admiration and applause. When he approached, the King and Queen rose from their thrones to receive him, and commanded him to take his seat upon a chair, and give a circumstantial account of his voyage; which when he had finished, they both fell down upon their knees, and offered up solemn thanks to Almighty God for discoveries from which they hoped for so great advantages. Every mark of honour that gratitude and admiration could suggest was conferred upon Columbus. His fame flew throughout all countries, and the old world seemed almost convulsed with joy at the discovery of the new. What could the vainest or most ambitious mind have wished for beyond what this man (who was neither a vain nor an ambitious man in any extraordinary degree) had thus attained? But what was the event? Columbus had performed too great services to retain either the confidence of his sovereign, or the love of his fellow-subjects. An impostor carried off the honour of giving his name to the new world which Columbus had

discovered, and within a few years Columbus himself was sent home, through the machinations and calumnies of his enemies-a prisoner in chains! "For every right work, and every great work, a man is envied of his neighbour"-and seldom does he add by it to his own happiness. "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."

A like fate awaited nearly every one of those leaders, who with almost equal celebrity, but with so much less innocence, followed Columbus, and performed such prodigies in the conquest of the countries which he had discovered. The man who achieved what was the next great object of ambition in those times, by sailing round America into the Eastern seas (and gave his name to the straits through which he passed) lost his life in nearly the first islands at which he touched! But let us adduce a few examples nearer home. What an instance is our great Elizabeth. How melancholy the account given by the historian of her latter end! With the death of her favourite Essex, all Elizabeth's pleasures seemed to expire. She had fallen into a profound melancholy, which all the advantages of her high station, and all the glories of a prosperous reign, were unable to remove. After her discovery of the deception practised upon her, respecting Essex, by the Countess of Nottingham, she resigned herself to the dictates of fixed despair. She refused food and sustenance; she continued silent and gloomy; sighs and groans were the only vent she gave to her despondence, and she lay for ten days and nights upon the carpet. Perhaps the faculties of her mind were impaired by long and violent exercise; perhaps she reflected with remorse on some past actions of her life, or perceived but too strongly the decays of nature, and the approach of her dissolution. She saw her courtiers remit their assiduity to her, in order to pay court to James, the apparent successor. Such a concurrence of causes was more than sufficient to destroy the remains of her constitution, and her end now visibly approached.'

So the great Marlborough who, a hundred years ago, stood in the place which Wellington now occupies. At the close of his wars, he fell into neglect at court, was suspected and accused-obliged to resign all his employments, to leave his country, which he had raised to the highest pitch of renown, and reside abroad.

Again: look at that man whose gigantic power has been the astonishment and terror of all these parts of the world for several years past : who has risen from nothing to tread on the necks of kings, to overturn their thrones and raise up new ones at his pleasure: to stand, as he has, at least, stood the dictator of Europe. But a few months ago he seemed to himself about to put a finishing hand to his schemes, and establish his system uncontrolled over all the continent. To what a giddy height had he attained! The most extravagant ambition in its most insane reveries, could never at the outset of its career, have promised itself any such success. But has that man never at any moment any vexatious sense of the vanity of the world-of the vanity of success? None when he thinks of Spain-when he looks at Russia-when he turns to England?

When I composed this sermon, some months ago, I had to ask these questions; but now I must say much more. Never perhaps was there such a fall as that which he has experienced. Ah! he must now feel as Aurungzebe did-' that the moment which passed in power is gone,

and has left nothing but sorrow behind it.' And can he help feeling that he is beset on all sides by the Deity, whom he has disregarded, and must shortly give an account of himself to Him. My son-let not thine heart envy sinners; but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long. For surely there is an end, and thine expectation"-expectation derived from Him-" shall not be cut off."

But not only I say in such instances as these, where atrocious guilt goes hand in hand with splendid success, but in all cases it seems the determination of God to inscribe vanity on all earthly things. What extraordinary results, what ruin to him, what prosperity to us, and to the cause of European liberty and happiness, were not a few months ago anticipated from the extinction of our great adversary's army in the North. But comparatively little is, I fear, likely to be realized.* And to descend again from nations to individuals; we have seen the veteran General under whose prudent management the preservation of Russia was achieved, and who so well therefore deserved the gratitude of mankind-we have seen him sink silently into the grave before he could ever know what consequences should follow from his counsels and his successes. Had I preached on this subject a few weeks ago, I might safely have adduced that great commander, on whom our country is now looking with so much pride and triumph, as one who was not left without his lessons on the vanity of success. While all were gazing on him with admiration or envy, had he no painful feelings on this head when the fruits of a victorious campaign seemed lost before a single fortress, and that order was extorted from him concerning the state of his army which every Briton must have heard with heartfelt grief. But the present is a moment of triumph (though not unattended with qualifying circumstances) I participate the joy and hope which prevail, and by no means intend to damp them.

Take another instance which we all remember-that great minister of state, who so long wielded at his pleasure the energies of this mighty empire. Both friends and foes acknowledged his unrivalled powers, and felt that no resistance could be successfully opposed to him. Take all circumstances together, and I know no situation that a proud man, whose pride was under the control of judgment, could have chosen in preference to that which he so long and from such early age held amongst us. I pretend not to be a very competent judge of such matters, nor should I at all think this the place from which to deliver my judgment upon them. I own myself, however, inclined to think with those who regard him as the instrument by which God saved this country. Supposing it to have been so, then indeed we owe much to him-but for himself, so far as worldly rewards go, what a vanity did all prove. He never lived to witness the fruits of his labours in which we all now rejoice. He saw the evils, which it had been the labour of his life to oppose, prevailing over all our allies, and at length I believe died in great degree a martyr to the anguish he felt at beholding French despotism triumphing over the independence of Europe.

I will mention but one more instance. It has been said with some justice, that the age in which we live, seems to have been particularly

*It is scarcely necessary to observe, that some trifling alterations were made, by the Author in this Sermon, sometime after it was composed-to render it more suitable to facts then only gradually developing themselves, These the attentive reader will perceive and allow for.