PREACHED

ON THE SECOND DAY OF OCTOBER, 1836;

BEING THE DAY AFTER

THE PUBLIC FUNERAL

OF THE LATE

MADAME MALIBRAN DE BERIOT

IN THE

COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF MANCHESTER.

BY THE

REV. RICHARD PARKINSON, M. A.

FELLOW OF THE COLLEGIATE CHURCH.

MANCHESTER:

PRINTED AND SOLD BY T. SOWLER, 4, ST. ANN'S-SQUARE.

1836.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The following Sermon has been committed to the press in compliance with an application from the Sub-Committee of the Manchester Musical Festival, "that they might be permitted to publish it; the profits of such publication to be given to the family of the late Samuel Greenwood, a Chorister of the Collegiate Church." To a request from such a quarter, and founded on such motives, the Author could not hesitate at once to accede; and he has only to hope, that the benevolent object, which they propose to themselves in requesting its publication, may be fully attained.

It has been thought desirable to subjoin, by way of appendix, the Report of the Sub-Committee with regard to the closing scenes of the life of Madame Malibran De Beriot; as explanatory of some parts of the ensuing Discourse, and as a subject of permanent and melancholy interest to the town of Manchester.

SERMO N.

ISAIAH Xxiv. 8, 11.

THE MIRTH OF TABRETS CEASETH, THE NOISE OF THEM THAT REJOICE ENDETH. ALL JOY IS DARKENED, THE MIRTH OF THE LAND IS GONE.

"MAN that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay:" and well it is for the spiritual interests of man, that life should be at once so certain as to its brevity, and yet so uncertain as to the period of its termination; with enough of regularity in its. course to keep alive within the bosom the cheering and invigorating principle of hope, but still so full of calamities and vicissitudes as to check the too ready indulgence of self-confidence and presumption. Were any important change to take place in this benevolent arrangement of the all-wise Governor of the universe-were the probable duration of life rendered in any degree more certain or more uncertain than it is at pre