View well the monster in true light!

(Henry Law, "Comfort for Mourners")

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You witnessed DEATH accomplishing its work; irresistible; unrestrained; mocking all opposing means. It came and conquered. At its touch . . .
  the strength declined,
  the vital powers ebbed,
  the luster of the eye grew dim,
  the color faded,
  the senses laid aside their functions,
  the fluttering pulse stood still,
  animation was no more,
  the heart no longer moved,
  the spirit fled its tenement of clay.

Nothing remained, but . . .
  a stranded wreck,
  a tenantless abode,
  an empty casket,
  a deserted shell.

Death displayed its ruthlessness and might. It put forth its barbed sting and laughed resistance into nothingness. 

It is instructive now to ask, "How is death armed with this tremendous sway? What furbished, what supplied its weapons? What placed a helpless world beneath its conquering feet? Whence its commission to give the inhabitants of the palace and the hut alike, a banquet to devouring worms?"

Now ponder the enlightening reply:

SIN is the origin of death. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for all have sinned."

Learn that sin slew your friend, and all who ever died.

Sin locks earth's offspring in its foul embrace, and so consigns them to the arms of death.

Survey the lifeless frames from Abel to this hour. Huge is the pile! the whole is piled by sin! SIN . . .
  digs all graves,
  constructs all vaults,
  peoples each cemetery.

In all the tears which have bedewed the dying and the dead; in all the mourning which now racks your heart, and has made earth the home of sighs-behold the work of death through sin. You see it now in your own house. Oh! see it rightly, and you will largely gain.

Profit will not be small, if henceforth you hate sin with deadlier hate. View well the monster in true light-the enemy of God, the enemy of man.

Sin changed fair Eden into a wilderness of thorns, and blackened angels into fiends of Hell!

Never give truce to such a foe. Cry for the Spirit's help to drive it from each corner of your heart.

Unless you slay it, it will be your ruin.

Nail it to the Savior's cross!

It will fight hard, and struggle long; but cease not the encounter. Take courage. Play the man. The believer can do all things through Christ who strengthens him. Grace will expand, while, thus abhorring sin, you steel your heart in earnest opposition.