barks of an innumerable convoy, will reach the
advanced and helpless age of a hundred and five years.

Two things are very obvious,--the uncertainty as to the hour of death in
individuals, but the regularity and constancy of the circumstances which
influence the duration of human life in the aggregate. It is a matter of
certainty that the _average_ life of all persons born in this country
extends to about forty-five years. This has been proved by a very large
number of observations of human life and its duration.

Equally extensive observations have been made as to the average number
of persons of various ages who die yearly. It is always the number of
the experiments which gives the law of the probability. It is on such
observations that the actuary founds his estimates of the mortality that
exists at any given period of life. The actuary tells you that he has
been guided by the Laws of Mortality. Now the results must be very
regular, to justify the actuary in speaking of Mortality as governed by
Laws. And yet it is so.

Indeed, there would seem to be no such thing as chance in the world. Man
lives and dies in conformity to a law. A sparrow falls to the ground in
obedience to a law. Nay, there are matters in the ordinary transactions
of life, such as one might suppose were the mere result of chance, which
are ascertained to be of remarkable accuracy when taken in the mass. For
instance, the number of letters put in the post-office without an
address; the number of letters wrongly directed; the number containing
money; the number unstamped; continue nearly the same, in relation to
the number of letters posted, from one year to another.

Now it is the business of man to understand the laws of health, and to
provide against their consequences,--as, for instance, in the matter of
sickness, accident, and premature death. We cannot escape the
consequences of transgression of the natural laws, though we may have
meant well. We must have done well. The Creator does not alter His laws
to accommodate them to our ignorance. He has furnished us with
intelligence, so that we may understand them and act upon them:
otherwise we must suffer the consequences in inevitable pain and sorrow.

We often hear the cry raised, "Will nobody help us?" It is a spiritless,
hopeless cry. It is sometimes a cry of revolting meanness, especially
when it issues from those who with a little self-denial, sobriety, and
thrift, might easily help thems