ather for my food, and for
antidotes against my faintings. He has held me up, and I have kept
myself from mine iniquities. Yea, my steps hath He strengthened in the
way." Now, while he was thus in discourse his countenance changed, his
strong man bowed down under him, and after he had said, "Take me, for I
come to Thee," he ceased to be seen of them. Fore-fancy, if you have the
face, an end like that for yourself.

This, then, is how Christian and Hopeful and Christiana and Old Honest
and all the rest did in the swelling river. But the important point is,
HOW WILL YOU DO? Have you ever fore-fancied how you will do? Have you
ever, among all your many imaginings, imagined yourself on your deathbed?
Have you ever thought you heard the doctor whisper, "To-night"? Have you
ever lain low in your bed and listened to the death-rattle in your own
throat? And have you still listened to the awful silence in the house
after all was over? Have you ever shot in imagination the dreadful gulf
that stands fixed between life and death, and between time and eternity?
Have you ever tried to get a glimpse beforehand of your own place where
you will be an hour after your death, when they are putting the grave-
clothes on your still warm body, and when they are measuring your corpse
for your coffin? Where will you be by that time? Have you any idea? Can
you fancy it? Did you ever try? And if not, why not? "My lord," wrote
Jeremy Taylor to the Earl of Carbery, when sending him the first copy of
the _Holy Dying_,--"My lord, it is a great art to die well, and that art
is to be learnt by men in health; for he that prepares not for death
before his last sickness is like him that begins to study philosophy when
he is going to dispute publicly in the faculty. The precepts of dying
well must be part of the studies of them that live in health, because in
other notices an imperfect study may be supplied by a frequent exercise
and a renewed experience; but here, if we practise imperfectly once, we
shall never recover the error, for we die but once; and therefore it is
necessary that our skill be more exact since it cannot be mended by
another trial." How wise, then, how far-seeing, how practical, and how
urgent is the prophet's challenge and demand. "How wilt thou do in the
swelling of Jordan?"

1. Well, then, let us be practical before we close, and let us descend
to particulars. Let us take the prophet's question and run it throug