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This place of our sojourn, this earth, has many things tending to beguile us out of reflection, to lull us into unconcern. But it has some things fitted to awaken us to thought and apprehension. This should, in all reason, be the effect of such circumstances, and facts, as force on our attention the contrast between the duration of the earth itself and that of our abode on it. There are many things to illustrate this comparison, and force our thoughts upon it. History itself; — why is history, but because the generations of men are gone? We want to know something of them, and to converse with them, as a former world of men. And history tells us of one generation, and of another, that has passed away, leaving not a living "rack behind." It is obviously suggested here, that we have another illustration of the text in places of interment, that have been such for ages. The earliest of the generations that have terminated their earthly existence, are gone beyond memory or tradition. In greater number there are dates of a later generation, still far gone in the past. And so you come down, at last, to the recent grave and tomb. But not only the abodes of the dead, — those of the living also, may yield illustration of the contrast, those of them which were built in a former age; or, take them collectively, in a village, town, or city. How many successions of the inhabitants, since it became a populous city! Would it be an extravagant conjecture that seven or eight times as many persons have died in it, as are at this hour living in it? But think, now, of the whole population having been so many times changed! It requires thought; because the change, being gradual, is at no one time presented in its full magnitude. Were it in the nature of things that there should be, at one grand sweep, the removal of so vast a number, repeated at the average period of an age of man, the event, and the succession of such events, would have an overwhelming awfulness. But what is in effect equal to this takes place, and but feebly excites attention. There may be many things incidentally suggesting themselves to reflecting minds that will strongly enforce the consideration of the brevity of life as contrasted with the permanence of the scene in which it is passed. Reflections of this character may occur under occasional and transient states of feeling, — excited at one time by objects that would not excite them at another. But we should think it must have happened to many, or to most men, to have this reflection excited at the view of some object or other, — "How much longer this has been — or shall be — than I — or any now living man." There are, as we said, occasional states of feeling in which the reflection, so suggested, comes with vivid impression. And it were well to cultivate that reflective habitude through which the mind should he susceptible of instructive and solemn suggestions and impressions from any and all objects. To a mind so habituated, the transiency of life, the "passing away of the generations," will be forcibly suggested by the view of such things as mountains, massive rocks, ancient trees, the never-tiring, never-ending, action of the sea, and the solid structures of human labour. Well may such objects make an impression of contrast with man, when we find them in Scripture taken as emblems to represent the unchangeableness and eternity of God. And we may observe, it is the manifest intention of the Divine Spirit, as shown in the sacred writings, that we should be taught to find emblems, in the world we are placed in, to enforce solemn instructions upon us. The reflection may include the ideas of all the various personal qualities — states of mind and character, — and condition altogether, of this unknown long succession. "Depravity has been here, in how many forms! Misery, of how many kinds and degrees! Visions of anticipation — deeply pondered schemes — fluctuations of hope and fear — thoughtlessness and consideration — practical atheism and devout sentiment! All this has passed away — and here is the object still, to which all this was, once, present!" And then to think there is yet to come more of all this, to be present to it — after we shall see it no more. What a train of sinners yet, but also, we trust, of saints, are to reside, or pass and repass, within sight of that pile of rocks. In a solitary and contemplative state of the mind, the permanent objects give the impression as if they rejected and scorned all connection with our transitory existence — as ii we were accounted but as shadows passing over them. They strike the thoughtful beholder with a character of gloomy and sublime dissociation and estrangement from him. It is true that the altering effect of time is visible on many of the objects thus contrasted with us by their permanence. But the extreme slowness of that alteration serves to display again that contrast, and to enforce the instruction. For example, the gradual decay of some mighty, ancient structure, — or of some magnificent cedar or oak, — the working away of the very rocks on the seacoast. The effect has been wrought, but so slowly and imperceptibly that no man can say that he has seen its progress. The man that has looked on the objects in his childhood can hardly, in his most advanced age, say that he perceives any difference. But then let him turn and look at his fellow-mortals, such of them as remain alive! He can recall the image of the childhood of even the oldest of them. The great general instruction from all this is, — how little hold — how little absolute occupancy we have of this world. When all the scene is evidently fixed to remain, we are under the compulsion to go. We have nothing to do with it, but as passing from it. The generation "comes" but to "pass away," seeing another following it closely under the same destination. Men may strive to cling — to seize a firm possession — to make good their establishment — resolve and vow that the world shall be theirs. But it disowns them, — stands aloof; — it will stay, but they must go. It signifies to us, that equally to all it will yield one matter of permanence — just one, and no more, and that is — a grave. If that enduring possession of the earth will content us, that is secure. In all other senses of possession it will eject us. Men, in their earnest adhesion to it, may raise mighty works of enduring stability — towers, palaces, strongly built houses, as if they absolutely would connect themselves with the world's own prolonged duration. Well! they may do so; and the earth will retain these, but will expel them. But should not the final lesson be, that the only essential good that can be gained from the world is that which can be carried away from it? Alas! that mere sojourners doom themselves to depart in utter deprivation — when their inquisitive glance over the scene should be after any good that may go with them, — something that is not fixed in the soil, the rocks, or the walls. Let us look on the earth in the spirit of this inquiry, "What has the bounteous Creator placed here? — what has the glorious Redeemer left here, that I may, by His grace, seize and take with me, and find it invaluable in another world?" It will then be delightful to look back, with the reflection, "I could not stay on that earth. I saw but a little while its enduring objects, — its grand solidities, — I saw them but to be admonished that I should remove. I have left them maintaining their unchanging aspects; but in my passage I descried, by the aid of the Divine Spirit, something better than all that they signified to me was no possession for me — I seized the pearl of great price, and have brought it away."

(J. Foster.)

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KJV: One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

WEB: One generation goes, and another generation comes; but the earth remains forever.