Warning Words

It was an ancient custom to put an hourglass into the coffins of the dead as an emblem of time run out. "I stopped," says a writer of the last century, "in Clerkenwell churchyard to see a grave-digger at work. He had dug pretty deep, and was come to a coffin which was quite rotten. In clearing away the rotten pieces of wood, the grave-digger found an hourglass close to the left side of the skull, with sand in it, the wood of which was so rotten that it broke when he took hold of it."

A strange custom this, to notify to the dead that their time was at an end! Oh, what profit could such a warning be, coming thus too late? It is to the living that we would present the hour-glass. It is the living that we would warn of the swift rush of time. Moments and years, with what speed do they hurry away. O time, time, time, how soon will it be done! Men and brethren, look at that hour-glass, emptying itself, grain by grain, with such unstaying eagerness. Living men, you ,will soon be with the dead, and where will you be and what is your hope?—H. Bonar