bibe, in some measure, from all who are suffered to approach us-lessons which are derived from a much more efficacious source than formal precept -from familiar conversation and example. What we are taught, however wise, virtuous, and prudent, will have little effect on us, if it be contradicted by what we see ; in vain does a father instil into his son the purest principles of morality-in vain does he exhibit, in his own conduct, a pattern of the most perfect obedience to them, if his house and table be open to vicious inmates, and his children permitted to be spectators of their excesses. If a young person perceives that vice is no exclusion from the countenance and familiarity of those whom he has been accustomed to honour, it cannot but greatly diminish the abhorrence in which he has been taught to hold it. But though it is in the earliest periods of life, when the principles are unfixed and the mind open to every impression, that bad company is chiefly dangerous; there is no time in which it can be frequented with security. Many have begun the world with the greatest applause, have afforded to their anxious friends the fairest prospect of them—have even arrived at a mature period of manhood, without a material deviation from the path of virtue, and have then suddenly blasted all the hopes, which have been formed of them, by the fatal prevalence of bad company. Besides the tendency in man, already noticed, to imitate what he constantly sees, there is yet another cause of danger to the

morals, from profligate associates. It is the property of vice to endeavour to draw over to its party all who come within its influence :- the libertine, the drunkard, and all the other votaries of profligacy, have ever taken delight to render others as wicked as themselves; to compass this point, they spare no arguments, no solicitations: -the sons of virtue, I fear, are not half so anxious to make converts as the children of darkness to make apostates. Let not him, therefore, who has not sufficient self-denial to decline the society of the vicious, flatter himself that he shall have sufficient fortitude to withstand their temptations; more particularly when supported, as they always are, by the shafts of ridicule. If he preserves his integrity, his escape is miraculous; his temerity merits not that he should: for who does not deserve the fate he experiences, who unnecessarily exposes himself to a danger from whence little less than a miracle can rescue him without destruction? Let me not, however, be mistaken; I do not mean that any such inevitable hazard is incurred by our accidentally falling into the society of the profligate; or that, on account of the uneasiness we occasionally undergo in their company, we should therefore altogether avoid it; for if this were required of us, we must needs, as St. Paul observes, go out of the world; we must abstain from all intercourse with mankind whatever; and besides, there would be a want of charity in such extreme caution, for if the vicious.

were driven to herd with themselves, exclusively, all hope of their reformation would be done away. Vice, though sufficiently infectious, is not, I trust, by those at all well principled, to be imbibed at casual interviews; what I wish you to guard against is a fondness for the society of vice, whatever seducing attractions it may possess-and an intimacy, a close connection with the vicious; you may perform, with safety, the offices of civility and neighbourhood to them, but you are not to take them for intimates; if you do, be assured that you will one day, in the bitterness of your heart, lament it, when you attribute to them, as you justly may, one or all of these calamitiesthe ruin of your character-the injury done to your fortune-the interruption of your quiet— the depravation of your morals-or (which God forbid) the loss of your eternal salvation.

SERMON XLIV.

THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER.

LUKE VIII. 8.

And other fell upon good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundred fold.

THESE words are the conclusion of the parable of the sower who went out to sow his seed. The whole of it is thus related by St. Luke.-“ A sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it; and some fell upon a rock, and as soon as it was sprung up it withered away, because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. And other fell upon good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundred fold."

This parable was spoken by Jesus Christ to the people at large, and, at their request, explained afterwards to his disciples in private. The different ways in which the Gospel would be received at its first publication, is, perhaps, the chief object of it, but it certainly applies, very naturally

and exactly, to mankind in every subsequent period. By the word of God, is meant religion; and you have here the behaviour of four different sorts of persons, on having it proposed to them.

First, you have those, into whose heart any pious instruction falls, like seed sown by the way side; it makes perhaps none, or perhaps only a momentary impression; for as the birds instantly pick up the seed, so the devil comes immediately and removes the impression of the word of God, if any at all be made; and they who have heard it, profit nothing by it.

How many are there, who, on receiving any pious advice from their parents, their graver friends, or their minister, or perhaps on accidentally meeting with it in any good book, are filled with disbelief and contempt, ridicule it as the product of bigotry and superstition, or, if by chance it gain a momentary reception with them (as even with the most abandoned, so irresistible is truth, it sometimes will do) they suffer the great enemy of their salvation, the very next instant, to drive it from their minds. There are but too many of this first class, but they bear no proportion to those of the two next, which are described by our Saviour.

For, secondly, we have the seed sown on the rock, by which those are depictured who received religious instruction with joy; for a while believe; but, having no root, in time of temptation fall away.