understanding, and undivided heart. You will serve Him, who hath the sole, the eternal right to rule over you, as Him who gave you being, who bought you with His blood, who comes, as this day, an almighty ally, to join you against the enemies of your soul; Him "whose service is the only perfect freedom," honor, happiness, of all his rational creatures; who is in Himself infinitely good and holy, infinitely great and glorious, and means nothing by His dominion over you, but to make you for ever, good, holy, great, and glorious, like Himself. Never forget then Whom it is you profess to serve, and how He is to be served, namely, "in spirit and in truth," with a warm, watchful, and resolute, spirit; and with truth agreeable to your professions, with fidelity conformable to your vows. you begin well, your work is half done, and the necessity of a sorrowful repentance, or the dreadful danger of sinning, and never repenting, may be happily prevented. It is better never to be ill, than to be cured, were the spiritual medicine ever so infallible; but alas! we know of no such medicines for a soul, far gone in the mortal disorder of sin, and perhaps, incapable of the application. "Remember, therefore,

If

your Creator, in the days of your youth, while the "evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when "thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them," and God too shall say, He hath m pleasure in them. Give your heart to God, while it s yet young and tender. Offer not your first-fruits to the devil, and think to put God off with the chaff and refuse of old age. "Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation. "Watch, for you know not atwhat hour your Master "cometh. Continue instant i prayer, for your suf"ficiency is of God, and of Hm only."

Choose now your way in Christ. There are two ways before you, one called the narrow way, and the other the broad. They set out, both of them, just from your feet, but go wider and wider from each other the further they advance, till it becomes a long and painful journey to pass over from the one to the other, in regard to the unhappy traveller, who may have entered into the wrong road at first, and proceeded in it, till his day is wearing towards an end. This broad way is smooth and easy. Its hedges are flowery and loaded with fruit, as fair to the eye, and as delicious to the palate, as that which hung on the tree in the midst of the garden of Eden. The air, richly perfumed, breathes in soft music on the ravished ear. Such is the broad road at the end next you; but further onward it grows narrow and craggy. You meet with thorns and

These decrease, and those

briars among the flowers. become more frequent. The air changes. The music is often intermixed with groans and yells. The passengers, enfeebled by surfeit and satiety; the pleasures, interrupted with drunkenness, broils, bloodshed, murder, remorse, and terror. You do not proceed much further before you come to a frightful pair of stairs, formed, for the greater part, of precipices, instead of steps, from which the travellers are thrown into a bottomless gulph, too shocking for the approach of description. Hear, therefore, ye youth, the voice of him who cries aloud, "go not in the broad way which "leadeth to destruction.'

No! "enter in at the strait gate," and take your journey upward in the narrow way, narrow only at first, to those who cane over from the broad, but from the beginning, pen and easy enough of en

trance'

trance to you, in whose yet untainted minds, goodness is not, altogether, unnatural. You are not yet swoln by habits of sin to so great a size, as to make your entrance very difficult. It is but of yesterday that you ceased to be one of those innocents, of whom Christ saith," of such is the kingdom of heaven." Pass in resolutely among the thorns and roses of this way, rather than among the roses and thorns of the other. Herein the higher you ascend, the air will grow clearer, the light stronger, and your prospects still larger and more beautiful. This world, with its trifling persons, and insignificant things, grows less and less to your eye, till you see it but as a dark and disagreeable lump of confusion; while the heavens open to you, and the things above, as you approach them, begin to look larger, and more illustrious to the eye of your faith, till you see them as they are in themselves, all lovely, all great, and glorious, such as the unregenerate eye hath not seen, the unregenerate ear hath not heard, the unregenerate heart hath not conceived, nor can conceive. On the other road, every pleasure enfeebles. Here every pain invigorates. There the travellers, forming themselves into a community of reprobates, help to hurry one another downward, and the great deceiver, redoubling their weight, encreases their power of plunging still deeper and deeper: but the faithful Christians on this road, joined in a communion of Saints, lend their hands to help one another upward, as often as this or that traveller grows weak, or the hill too steep for him to climb; while the Spirit of God spreads a table for his refreshment, and takes him to repose in His house. Here a conscious sense of virtue, here an ardent love of God, and a burning zeal for His VOL. III,

service,

service, shall inspire you with courage, and teach you even" to glory in tribulation," especially if brought upon you for your fidelity to so gracious a master. But move a little further up to the point of victory, where tribulations aud persecutions shall be left behind; where triumph and exultation shall begin; where you shall be crowned and surrounded with the natives of heaven, with saints, martyrs, angels, and archangels, through the loud hallelujahs of whom, you shall pass into the immediate presence of your God-your Father, your Saviour, your Comforter. You shall see Him; you shall hear Him say, "well done, thou "good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of "thy Lord."

way

"Enter ye, therefore, in at the strait gate,” and travel 66 in the narrow ye which leadeth to life." Think it not too much to encounter with some difficulties, and to struggle, patiently, for a short time, that you may live for ever in joy unutterable, and glory inconceivable. Remember, you must be a partaker of Christ's holiness, before you can be a partaker of His joy.

And now, my dear Children, whom I have, faithfully, labored to train up in the way that ye should go, "I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus "Christ, that He would grant unto you, accord❝ing to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened "with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being "rooted and grounded in love, may be able to com હૃદ prehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and "length, and depth, and height; and to know the

ἐσ

" love of Christ, which passeth knowlege, that ye may "be filled with all the fullness of God."

"Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding " abundantly, above all that we ask, or think, accord❝ing to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be "glory in the Church, by Christ Jesus, through all 66 ages, world without end. Amen."