shall come upon thee as one that runneth, and want as an armed man_." [Footnote 71] [Footnote 71: Proverbs xxiv. 30.] And what is to secure you from dying in such a state? Our Lord says, "_If the master of the house had known in what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken open_." [Footnote 72] [Footnote 72: Matt. xxiv. 43.] But he knew not, and so in the dead of night, when deep sleep falleth on man, the thief came. And so it is with death. It comes like a thief in the night. Death is almost always sudden. Sometimes it comes without any warning at all. A man is sent into eternity in a moment, without time to utter a prayer. Sometimes it comes after sickness, but sickness does not always prepare for death. The sick man says: "Oh, it is nothing; I shall soon be well." His friends say the same. If he gets worse the priest is sent for; he would like to receive the sacraments. But too often he has not yet looked Death in the face, he has not heard the dreadful truths he has to tell, he is much as he was in life, slothful and negligent. And after the priest is gone, when he is alone, at midnight, that comes to pass of which he has thought so little. {327} Death enters the room, and with his icy hand unlocks the prison of the body, whispering to the soul with awful voice, "Arise, and come to judgment." O my brethren, how dreadful, if at that hour you find yourself unready! If like the foolish virgins you are forced to cry: "Our lamps are gone out." "_Cursed is he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently_," [Footnote 73] saith the Holy Scripture. The work of the Lord is the work of our salvation. That is the work of our life, the work for which we are created, and he, who through negligence leaves this work undone, shall hear at the last that dreadful sentence: "Depart ye cursed." [Footnote 73: Jer. xlviii. 10.]