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Unhappy they who meet it but to tremble and despair! Then it is that man learns wisdom, when too late; then it is that every thing will forsake him, but his virtues or his crimes. To him the world is past; dignities, honours, pleasure, glory!— past like the cloud of the morning!-nor could all that the great globe inherits, afford him, at that tremendous hour, as much consolation, as the recollection of having given but one cup of cold water to a child of wretchedness, in the name of Christ Jesus!

XVI. THE INFLUENCE OF SATAN.-Dr. Chalmers.

It would appear, from the records of inspiration, that, on the one hand, the Spirit of God is employed in making, for the truths of Christianity, a way into the human heart, with all the power of an effectual demonstration; that, on the other, there is a spirit now abroad, which worketh in the children of disobedience: that, on the one hand, the Holy Ghost is calling men out of darkness into the marvellous light of the Gospel; and that, on the other hand, he who is styled the god of this world, is blinding their hearts, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should enter into them: that they who are under the dominion of the one, are said to have overcome, because greater is he that is in them, than he that is in the world; and that they who are under the dominion of the other, are said to be the children of the devil, and to be under his snare, and to be taken captive by him at his will. How these respective powers do operate, is one question. The fact of their operation, is another. We abstain from the former. We attach ourselves to the latter, and gather from it, that the prince of darkness still walketh abroad amongst us; that he is still working his insidious policy, if not with the vigorous inspirations of hope, at least with the frantic energies of despair; that, while the overtures of reconciliation are made to circulate through the world, he is playing all his devices to deafen and to extinguish the impression of them; or, in other words, while a process of invitation and of argument has emanated from heaven, for reclaiming men to their loyalty, the process is resisted at all its points, by one who is putting forth his every expedient, and wielding a mysterious ascendency, to

seduce and to enthral them.

To an infidel ear, all this carries the sound of something wild and visionary along with it. But, though only known through the medium of revelation, after it is known, who can

fail to recognise its harmony with the great lineaments of human experience? Whence the might, and whence the mystery of that spell, which so blinds and so infatuates us to the world? What prompts us so to embark the whole strength of our eagerness and of our desires, in pursuit of interests, which, we know, a few little years will bring to utter annihilation? Who is it that imparts to them all the charm and all the colour of an unfading durability? Who is it that throws such an air of stability over these earthly tabernacles, as makes them look, to the fascinated eye of man, like resting-places for eternity? Who is it that so pictures out the objects of sense, and so magnifies the range of their future enjoyment, and so dazzles the fond and deceived imagination, that, in looking onward through our earthly career, it appears like the vista, or the perspective, of innumerable ages? He who is called the god of this world. He who can dress the idleness of its waking dreams in the garb of reality. He who can pour a seducing brilliancy over the panorama of its fleeting pleasures, and its vain anticipations. He who can turn it into an instrument of deceitfulness; and make it wield such an absolute ascendency over all the affections, that man—become the poor slave of its idolatries and its charms-puts the authority of conscience, and the warnings of the word of God, and the offered instigations of the Spirit of God, and all the lessons of calculation, and all the wisdom even of his own sound and sober experience, away from him.

But this wondrous contest will come to a close. Some will return to their loyalty, and others will keep by their rebellion; and, in the day of the winding up of the drama of this world's history, there will be made manifest, to the myriads of the various orders of creation, both the mercy and vindicated majesty of the Eternal. Oh! on that day, how vain will the presumption of the infidel astronomy appear, when the affairs of men come to be examined, in the presence of an innumerable company; and beings of loftiest nature are seen to crowd around the judgment-seat; and the Saviour shall appear in our sky, with a celestial retinue, who have come with him from afar, to witness all his doings, and to take a deep and solemn interest in all his dispensations; and the destiny of our species, whom the Infidel would thus detach, in solitary insignificance, from the universe altogether, shall be found to merge and to mingle with higher destinies;-the good, to spend their eternity with angels-the bad, to spend their eternity with devils;-the former, to be re-admitted into the

universal family of God's obedient worshippers-the latter, to share in the everlasting pain and ignominy of the defeated hosts of the rebellious; the people of this planet to be implicated, throughout the whole train of their never-ending history, with the higher ranks, and the more extended tribes of Intelligence.

XVII. GOD IS LOVE.-Richard Watson.

WHERE shall we go for manifestations of the tenderness, the sympathy, the benignity of God? The Philosopher of this world leads us to nature, its benevolent final causes, and kind contrivances to increase the sum of animal happiness; and there he stops with half his demonstration! But the Apostle leads us to the Gift bestowed by the Father for the recovery of man's intellectual and moral nature, and to the cross endured by the Son on this high behalf. Go to the heavens, which canopy man with grandeur, cheer his steps with successive light, and mark his festivals by their chronology; go to the atmosphere, which invigorates his spirits, and is to him the breath of life; go to the smiling fields, decked with verdure for his eye, and covered with fruits for his sustenance; go to every scene which spreads beauty before his gaze, which is made harmoniously vocal to his ear, which fills and delights the imagination by its glow or by its greatness: we travel with you, we admire with you, we feel and enjoy with you, we adore with you, but we stay not with you. We hasten onwards in search of a demonstration more convincing that "God is love;" and we rest not till we press into the strange, the mournful, the joyful scenes of Calvary; and amidst the throng of invisible and astonished angels, weeping disciples, and the mocking multitude, under the arch of the darkened heaven, and with earth trembling beneath our feet, we gaze upon the meek, the resigned, but fainting Safferer; and exclaim, "Herein is love," herein, and no-where else, is it so affectingly, so unequivocally demonstrated," not that we loved God, but that God loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

XVIII.—THE EFFECTS OF EVIL EXAMPLE.-O'Keefe. LAMENTABLE as are the consequences of evil example in this life, the full extent of the injury cannot be ascertained, until the light of futurity begins to dawn. Ascend in spirit to

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the many mansions, where myriads of celestial beings sit enthroned before the great and living God. Crowned with surpassing glory and bathed in eternal bliss, they are filled with the plenty of their Father's house; they drink of the torrent of delight, which springs fast by the throne of the Eternal; and, rapt in the contemplation of boundless excellence, they enjoy all the felicity of which our nature is susceptible. Of this destined happiness, the giver of evil example deprives his victim. But the injury is not confined to the mere deprivation of happiness; he further brings down on his miserable victim a horrible damnation. Think on that dark prison whose smoke ascends for ever and ever; where human guilt is paying to rigorous retribution its eternal debt—where misery appears in every shape that can appal the firmestwhere the unsparing hand of Justice is lifted up for ever! Approach and speak to the victims of evil example.-No mortal voice could preach like those hollow tones of deep despair that load the accursed atmosphere of "hell." Ask that young man what direful causes concurred to plunge him in the dread abyss? He will tell you of the companions of his youth, who drew him into guilt, and gave his young mind the fatal bias; he will tell you, that they met him in the morning of his days, when life was young and hope unbroken, and the chalice of guilty pleasure untasted-when youthful confidence saw in every face a friend, and youthful spirits tinged, with the richest colourings of fancy, the boundless prospect that stretched before him.

They met him, whilst his body was yet a living sacrifice offered to his God at morning and evening time; his heart a throne of living light, where Jesus loved to dwell; and his spirit a cloudless heaven, chequered by no dark shade of vice or crime. They met him in an evil hour, and led him to those scenes, where crowd, in full assemblage, all the seductions of vice, and all the blandishments that can soften and seduce where the wicked combine, and the profligate associate where bloated intemperance and sickly dissipation riot in what is called "the festive chair," pouring out from wanton and profane lips offences against decency, and blasphemy against God-where rude and boisterous merriment, born in sin, and bred in folly and ignorance, ridicule the discipline of virtue and the sanctity of religion. There did he learn by degrees to join in the senseless cry raised against all that should be dear to man in time and eternity. His course was a short one-he brought down ruin on his circumstances,

infamy on his character, decay on his constitution, anger and sorrow and shame on the grey hairs of a father, destruction and final perdition on himself. He was hurried away, while he slept in imagined security. Before the thought of eternity seriously took possession of his mind, he found himself sinking through its darkest depths; and, ere he had time to call on the name of the living God, he was standing in horror before his awful tribunal. There is no bosom so locked up against the entrance of humanity, as not to feel for thy sorrows, child of high and disappointed hopes!-no heart so hardened, as not to mourn over the stranded wreck of thy virtues and thy happiness, that lies so dark, so shattered, and so lonely, on the shores of eternal exile. If tears could ease thy torture, all who knew thy once kind and compassionate spirit would shed them for thee; if prayer and sacrifice could avail, the Church, that mourns thee lost, would make her altars blaze before her God with the burnt-offerings of Calvary-But thou art lost; lost to thyself, to thy friends, to thy God! and lost for ever! Stretched on thy burning bed, thou art a beacon of fire to warn others from the rocks where all thy hopes are shipwrecked, to make them fly the associates whose converse is corruption,-whose company is dishonour, -whose example is death and final perdition.

XIX.-HUMAN AND DIVINE JUSTICE.-Sherlock.

"UNTO whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required" is a general rule, the equity of which is so apparent to common sense, that it admits of no dispute, and calls for no explanation. A single mite offered by a poor widow, is a present fit for the King of Heaven, which, from the hand of a rich man, would hardly be a decent charity to a poor widow. And thus in all instances to which the rule is applicable.

But plain as this general maxim is, the weakness and wickedness of men have almost totally excluded it from human judicatures. For as it is in every one's power to pretend ignorance of a law, or some other inability, in excuse for crime, so, if the excuse were as easily admitted as it could be pleaded, a door would be opened to all kinds of licentiousness; and that fear of punishment would be taken off, which is so necessary a restraint upon the depraved inclinations of men. And since the wisest and ablest judges cannot discern (some few cases perhaps excepted) between real and affected ignorance; or so distinguish between the powers and abilities of

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