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This title would suggest to many, terrible ideas of an awful physical calamity, such as has taken place in mines, or in actual burials ere life was extinct. But there are other senses in which men are buried alive.

I. IN AN UNFORTUNATE SENSE.

1. For want of opportunities of mental development. The human mind is like seed in the vegetable kingdom. It contains life and unbounded possibilities of increase, but unless it finds suitable soil, shower and warmth, the vital principle is buried alive, buried in the shell. And so it is too often with thousands of men. There are multitudes possessing brilliant natural capacities — mute Miltons and Shakespeares — but buried for lack of opportunity. Hence, let us rejoice at the growing determination that our children shall be educated, however poor they may be, and thus shall possess the means of stimulating life and growth.

2. Through the infirmities of age. Their day is past. They once were prominent and well known, but now are "forgotten as dead men out of mind."

3. Through the envy of their contemporaries. This, perhaps, is the meaning of the psalmist's words. Malice bespreads a thick cloud over a name which once has shone brightly. Now many are thus kept in the background.

II. IN A CRIMINAL SENSE. "To be carnally minded is death."

III. IN A VIRTUOUS SENSE. "We are buried with Him by baptism into death." Not the baptism of water, of course, but the baptism of that holy fire that burns up all carnalities. What is buried here? Not the mind, but the old man with its lusts. "Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ," etc. This is a virtuous burying alive. It means being dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto righteousness.

IV. CONCLUSION. In which of these senses are you buried alive? Some of you may say that it is in the first sense. It may be so; ask God to guide you into a fit sphere. Or it may be by the infirmities of age. You cannot do what you once did and what you wish to do. But God accepts the will for the deed. He values service by its motive. But some of you are buried alive in the criminal sense. You are dead in the grave of depravity. "Arise from the dead and Christ," etc. And others of you are so in the virtuous sense — dead to sin. You can say, God forbid that I should glory save... the world is crucified to me and I to the world.

(D. Thomas, D. D.)

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KJV: I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.

WEB: I am forgotten from their hearts like a dead man. I am like broken pottery.