Then again, a man, when he has improved himself, is better able to improve those who are brought into contact with him.  He has more power.  His sphere of vision is enlarged.  He sees more clearly the defects in the condition of others that might be remedied.  He can lend a more active helping hand to raise them.  He has done his duty by himself, and can with more authority urge upon others the necessity of doing the like duty to themselves.  How can a man be a social elevator, who is himself walking in the mire of self-indulgence?  How can he teach sobriety or cleanliness, if he be himself drunken or foul?  “Physician, heal thyself,” is the answer of his neighbours.

The sum and substance of our remarks is this:  In all the individual reforms or improvements that we desire, we must begin with ourselves.  We must exhibit our gospel in our own life.  We must teach by our own example.  If we would have others elevated, we must elevate ourselves.  Each man can exhibit the results in his own person.  He can begin with self-respect.

The uncertainty of life is a strong inducement to provide against the evil day.  To do this is a moral and social, as well as a religious duty.  “He that provideth not for his own, and especially for those of his own household, hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”

The uncertainty of life is proverbially true.  The strongest and healthiest man may be stricken down in a moment, by accident or disease.  If we take human life in the mass, we cannot fail to recognize the uncertainty of life as much as we do the certainty of death.

There is a striking passage in Addison’s “Vision of Mirza,” in which life is pictured as a passage over a bridge of about a hundred arches.  A black cloud hangs over each end of the bridge.  At the entrance to it there are hidden pitfalls very thickly set, through which throngs disappear, so soon as they have placed their feet upon the bridge.  They grow thinner towards the centre; they gradually disappear; until at length only a few persons reach the further side, and these also having dropped through the pitfalls, the bridge at its further extremity becomes entirely clear.  The description of Addison corresponds with the results of the observations made as to the duration of human life.

Thus, of a hundred thousand persons born in this country, it has been ascertained that a fourth of them die before they have reached their fifth year; and one-half before they have reached their fiftieth year.  One thousand one hundred will reach their ninetieth year.  Sixteen will live to a hundred.  And only two persons out of the hundred thousand—­like the last 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.