The narrow limit of the longest life is every day becoming narrower still. The story is told of an Italian state prisoner, who after some weeks' confinement became suddenly aware that his apartment was becoming smaller. He watched, and saw with horror, that a moveable iron wall was gradually encroaching on the space, and that as the movement came on, it must soon crush him to death, and he could calculate it to a day. But you have not that advantage. John Foster yet more appropriately resembles our time to a sealed reservoir, from which issues daily a certain small quantity of water, and when the reservoir is exhausted, we must perish of thirst; but we have no means of sounding it to ascertain how much it originally contained, nor whether there be enough remaining even for to-morrow.