MEDITATION XXX.

IN VIEW OF A BATTLE.

May 24, 1758.

In a few days we shall be contending with the foe. Death will fasten his cold hands on many of us, and numbers shall be dropping into an unknown, an awful, an endless eternity!

Though this is an event that will certainly take place, yet we are all thoughtless and secure, merry and unconcerned—as if it were of no importance to die, and enter into an invisible eternal world. Ask us all, one by one, if we think that we shall die in battle? and all of us to a man, have the fond hopes that we shall escape without a wound. But it would be more realistic, if each of us were saying, 'Perhaps it may be I—who shall be slain!' Though my station be not so dangerous as that of some, yet, in my situation, some now and then are killed, and I rejoice that when I am in danger, I dare not trust to the ship for my defense—but your divine protection, which is better to me than a thousand bulwarks. Let me neither build on false hopes of life, nor be filled with slavish fears of death—but be prepared for all events. In the mean time, I plead that our fleets may be defended, our foes defeated, an honorable peace concluded, and an end put to the effusion of human blood. And I also plead, that you will put a covering on my head in the day of battle, that I may praise your power, and sing aloud of your mercy in the morning.