ceedingly useful. What the metallic spring is in the watch, the year is in the grand chronometer, with this difference, that instead of arresting the motion of planets, and suns, which divide time, it arrests the flow of men's thoughts; not only arrests them, but turns them back. I say thoughts of men-I mean men who are not unhappily in the condition just named. Such a use of the year will not bear to be overlooked. No period is more favourable for a review of the past; and if men do not avail themselves of it, there is little likelihood that they will ever make such review, while one use of the year will be wholly lost. But they should take advantage of it. As the prudent merchant, or accountant, with day-book and ledger, as he examines his accounts, and strikes a balance, as he inventories his stock in trade, and sums up his outstanding dues, and discovers to himself what deficit there may be in his assets, or what balance in his favour; as he calculates the amount of his profits, total and nett, and so finds himself prepared to prosecute, with new interest and energy, or compelled to suspend, his present business, so should every man so is every man reminded, at the termination of each yearly period, then if ever-to open the day-book and the ledger of life, and strike the balance of his moral account, and see what may be his deficiency, or what amount, if any, in his favour; what profits he too can count upon; then to inventory his virtues, if he have any; to take account of his hopes and fears, and the ground of them, and see whether affluence or bankruptcy are before, so that he may at once determine whether to continue in or abandon his present line. Many inquiries will arise in the mind of one so examining the account between himself and the great proprietorfor himself is but a steward,-many inquiries as he makes his review. He will naturally ask himself, The life God has given me, how has it been spent? The moral and intellectual powers, with which he has endowed me, how have they been employed? The blessings which have been so profusely scattered all along my path through the world, what use have I made of them? Am I better and wiser for having lived another year? What advantage, what profit, have I gained from the varied dispensations of Providence toward me, during the year which is now closing? Have my days been filled with usefulness? Am I nearer God as the object of my affection, and nearer heaven, as the end and realization of my hopes? What says the review? Is the reader indisposed to make such use of the year? Or does he hold himself ready to take advantage of it, to look over the past? To do it is the part of wisdom. Nay "Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours, And how they might have borne more welcome news!" You have again reached the great dividing line. The voice of God summons you to cast your eye backward searchingly over its twelve months, and see what you have done, and what you have not done. Dare you look back? As these smaller circles have been rolling off, one after another, until they are lost in the circumference of the greater, and even the greater is nearly absorbed in the limits of a vaster still, has nothing transpired to fix your attention, even at a distance, it may be, from the event itself? The voice of God summons you to look and see. The voice of God in the year summons you to pause, as you cross the line, and examine the record of your doings and neglects. It calls you, imperatively, to look into the account of your proficiency or deficiencies. Dare you do it? You, O Christian, are thus summoned. Obey the summons ! Think how you have passed the year, whether in the devout, faithful discharge of your various duties, or the reverse! Whether in conscientious and constant attendance upon all the ordinances of the sanctuary, or otherwise! Your life, has it been consistent with your profession? Your charities, have they been proportioned to your means? Your zeal, has it been fervid enough? And your faith, has it been strong enough? And your self-denial, has it been great enough? And your piety, has it been active as it should be? Have you lost no opportunity to do good to others? Have you lost none to get good for yourself? Oh, look back over the year that has gone, and refresh yourself with the memory of the spiritual peace and enjoyment you have had, and encourage yourself in view of the attainments you have made; or humble yourself before God, for your indifference and thoughtlessness and neglect. And you too, my unconverted hearer, are summoned by the same voice to look over your moral account. Another year of impenitence has filled its circle. So many days have come and gone, in which God was forgotten by you. So many mornings have you risen without asking God to shield you against temptation, to keep you from sin. So many evenings have you retired without thanking God for his mercies, or imploring his forgiveness. for your faults. So many Sabbaths have come and been passed with no spiritual improvement. So many sermons you have heard; so many times you have witnessed the administration of Gospel ordinances; so many times you have been invited to come to the Saviour; so many times urged to reflect; so many times, in the name of God, commanded to repent; so many times you have been led to think of death, and the judgment, and eternity; and yet you are, as you are! Where will this indifference end? The year is gone! How many of its hours have been devoted to vanity? The year is gone! How entirely has it been consecrated to worldliness and sin? The year is gone. How many times, during its brief progress, have you refused to listen to the plain dictates of your own conscience! How many hopeful religious emotions. have been crushed in their beginning! How many times have you resisted the Holy Ghost! Where will this thoughtlessness and opposition to God end? Let not the doors of an eternal Past close upon you ere you have reflected solemnly; ere you reckon with yourself, and ask God's forgiveness, that the year has been no better employed. IV. Another use the last I shall mention-is TO AFFORD MEN A FAVOURABLE OPPORTUNITY TO BEGIN TO LEAD A NEW OR A BETTER LIFE, so to speak; to change their habits, if need be, and alter their course. They have such opportunities often, every day and every hour. But here is a grand division of time, in which this, for aught I know, may have been contemplated, as one of the moral results to be secured by it. Certainly, the commencement of a new year does invite men to form purposes of amendment; to make those resolutions, which, as acts of the will, necessarily precede virtuous conduct. I think no one can be insensible of the value of the year, considered in respect of this use of it. A new year has arrived. But for its commencement we shall be unprepared, except the last year shall have undergone the review we have spoken of, and unless we endeavour to anticipate that which is before us by our wise and virtuous determinations. And God I speak of this, because it is so natural for men about undertaking some new enterprise in business, or some new course of life, to undertake it at some new period of their existence. seems to have designed to favour this disposition, by his arrangements in the natural world. He has secured the recurrence of such periods in various ways. Among them, perhaps none are better adapted to the purpose than the yearly; coming as they do, often, and stimulating him to avail himself of them; yet not so often that one can let any one of them pass unimproved, without great detriment to his own interests; for you must have observed in general, that as men commence they pass through and close the year. Every one should take advantage of the introduction of another yearly period, to form purposes of amendment; to begin to carry them out as steadily as the sun rolls round and round upon his burning wheel. Every one should do this, trusting in God. The present year is, as yet, comparatively unstained and pure. Reader, may you keep it so! It is full of hours, and days, and weeks, and months. On the supposition that they may be yours, I would you might be prepared to use them aright. full of means of grace, and priceless privileges, and golden opportunities; I pray that you may have the heart to avail yourself of them. I could wish that you might be thoughtful, remembering that life is a probation and a trial. I could wish you might not be too eager for the world, remembering that a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesseth. I could wish you might not be too ambitious in pursuit of any earthly object whatever; for that is neither becoming nor wise. There is nothing It is on earth, which is of the earth, which has its commencement and end here, that should greatly excite your desires. "A soul immortal, spending all her fires, I could wish you less desirous to be rich or influential, for by and by, to you, as to the monarch, who, after almost superhuman conquests, commanded, with his dying breath, that his shroud should be borne aloft through his armies with the solemn message, "This is all that remains of Saladin the Great!" to you, as to him, and every other man, be he king or beggar, will come the consciousness that the things of earth have no permanence, that so far as our personal interest in them is concerned, Death will be "the be all and the end all" of them. Let the Christian be exhorted to consecrate the year, from its beginning to its end, to the service of God. Let the Christian be exhorted to cherish higher aims and holier purposes to lead a life at once more beautiful and more devout, more consistent and more useful. And let the unconverted be persuaded to lose no time in getting themselves in readiness to pass the present year in a manner widely differing from that in which the past year has gone. But I forget myself. My advice may be unneeded. You may not live the year. The new year commences; you may not see its close. Ere the hands shall have swept half round again upon the face of the great chronometer, the wheels of your being may have ceased to move; its pendulum vibrate aright no more; its dial have no more account with time. It is almost certain that we shall not all see the end of the year. Nay, it is absolutely certain that some of us will be in the dust. Long ere its close, the Angel of Death may be revealed to us, and we may hear the thunder of his wings, and behold that eye of fire which will throw mortal faintness upon the soul. In a few years, other forms will reside in these dwellings, and walk in these streets. Other faces will be seen in our places of business and labour. Other voices will be heard in these public assemblies. We shall be forgotten; and the tide of life will sweep on as rapidly as if none had ever sank beneath its flood. The sun will still roll through the sky, dividing the time, and measuring out the years of his own duration. The moon will be still fulfilling her appointment, and the seasons be hurrying to its close the term of each mortal's existence. But we shall lie stiff and cold under the heavy clod. Decay will hold us in its embrace, as a mother presses her dead babe to her bosom. And our spirits will be with God. After life's fitful fever, we shall sleep-well? Dear reader, ob, will it be well? H. S. C. THE SAFETY OF THE GOOD. THE Apostle Peter felt great assurance as to the safety of good men in this world. David felt the same; but not till after some painful distractions of envy, "when he saw the prosperity of the wicked." Others have had the same trial. Many a one has doubtless said with David, "Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning. This was too painful for me, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end. Thou hast set them in slippery places, thou castest them down to destruction." Here the conditions of the righteous. and the wicked in this world stand clearly distinguished. The one is in safe places, the other in slippery; and David would join with Peter in the confident appeal: "Who is he that will harm you, if you be followers of that which is good?" Such words refer not merely to the future. They do not signify exclusively that it shall go well with the righteous in the end. They assure him also of safety in the present. Not that he shall see no adversity, feel no occasional grief, suffer under no disease, have no trouble from the enmity of men; but that he shall suffer no harm. He shall be none the worse in his character or his prospects for anything that can befall him here. We speak of one who cherishes the heart of love for God and man, and who does only the works of love. 1. There is a provision in the human constitution for securing the peace of the good man. In himself he carries a good conscience, and that is a perpetual feast. Bad men, indeed, sometimes have little trouble of conscience, and the worst sometimes have the least. But a conscience seared as with a hot iron, puts a man into the most hopeless of all conditions on earth. This moral paralysis appears, in its milder forms, among those hearers of the Gospel who continue in unbelief, without self-reproach; who know they are sinners, but feel no sense of sin. There is no good in such repose. A good conscience does not give the repose of stupidity. It yields a lively satisfaction. It is a copious fountain of joy. The man whose heart is pure and whose deeds are right, approves himself. His conscious rectitude is an inward sunshine. No clouds can darken that. It is the light of God in his soul, shining from the face of Christ. It is the light of life. It shines through everything, and instead of being hidden by clouds, it makes all clouds shine. A Christian whose faith rules his soul, sincerely adoring Christ, loving his doctrine, desiring to bear his image and do his will, has always within him the spirit of peace. The peace of such a mind is beyond the reach of harm from any created power. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in |