Howl, fir tree, for the cedar is fallen.
Zechariah 11:2
"When in the forest there is heard the crash of a falling oak,
it is a sign that the woodman is abroad,
and every tree in the whole company may tremble
lest to-morrow the sharp edge of the axe should find it out.
We are all like trees marked for the axe,
and the fall of one should remind us that for every one,
whether great as the cedar, or humble as the fir,
the appointed hour is stealing on apace.
I trust we do not, by often hearing of death, become callous to it.
May we never be like the birds in the steeple,
which build their nests when the bells are tolling,
and sleep quietly when the solemn funeral peals are startling the air.
May we regard death
as the most weighty of all events,
and be sobered by its approach.
It ill behooves us to sport while our eternal destiny hangs on a thread."
Charles Spurgeon