now a quarter past eight o'clock-solemn probability! perhaps before a quarter past nine, the souls of some who have sat here to-night will have passed into eternity, having heard their last sermon. Unconverted sinner! in case it should be you, I, in the words of my text, exhort you, wicked and unrighteous soul, forsake your sins, and now turn unto the Lord who has said He will have mercy,' and to our God who has said 'He will abundantly pardon."" Immediately following which, a voice said, Sir, she is gone, she is dead; the poor woman is dead in the passage." Inquiry followed; it was Mrs. Unobserved by the preacher, she had left the place, reached the outside of the door, from whence her spirit fled; she was found dead. She had heard her last sermon.

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My reader, you must hear a last sermon; yes, whoever you are, preacher or hearer, parent or child, rich or poor, old or young, converted or unconverted, moral or depraved, learned or unlearned, a last sermon must be preached to you, a last sermon must be heard by you. And though many by their deportment while in the house of God, and by their loudly speaking lives out of the house of God, deny or seem to deny the fact, nevertheless the truth is a truth still, that you, my reader, must hear a last sermon. God grant that you may hear it for yourself, and not (as many do) for another.

Your next may be your last-I mean the one you anticipate next hearing; perhaps during this week, perhaps next sabbath. Solemn thought! perhaps it may be the one you are about to hear this morning, this afternoon, this evening. Are these assertions possibilities? then I beseech you, as you enter your place of worship, and take your seat, thinkPerhaps I have now come here, to hear my last sermon. And if you cannot positively say you will ever hear another, you must, however reluctantly, admit that your next may be your last,

Perhaps you have heard your last. Methinks I hear you exclaim, "What! me heard my last sermon! What, am I to hear no more sermons; see no more displayed the future glories of the blessed! hear no more thundered forth the horrors of the damned! what!" Reader, startle not thus, but in a state of sober-mindedness hear repeated, a probability not dependent on your either receiving or rejecting it, that perhaps you have heard your last sermon. But further, are you prepared to hear your last? I mean, is your soul in the waiting posture of one to whom his Lord has said, "I go to prepare a place for you, and when I have prepared you for that place I will come again, and take you to be with me; but as it is not meet (good or best) for you to know when I come, I say unto you, Watch, so that I come not upon you unawares."

My brother, my sister, is it so with thee? then "it is well." You are prepared to hear your last sermon, as by you it will be received as from the lips of your Lord, in the spirit of "Even so, come Lord Jesus."

Do you hear each as your last? Perhaps you say, "What, would you have me always thinking about death? would you have me always wretched and miserable?" Do you say so? I reply, you understand me not, and much less the religion of that book, the Bible, whose every way is pleasantness and cheerfulness, as opposed to lightsomeness and frivolity; and whose every path is peace, true peace, the peace of God, as opposed to the carnal false peace of nominal professors and men of the world. Are you walking in these ways? Are you the possessor of this peace? Then for you to hear each sermon as your last, will tend to increase your happy, happy state; may I not say blessed state? by impelling you unhesitatingly to receive the news of your glorious high calling, and urging you to an instant and unqualified obedience to all those duties which are by God inseparably connected with such a state. But do you not so hear, be careful that your last sermon be not preached to an unhearing ear. Finally, what use have you made of your last? It was a means of grace; all God's ordinances are designed as such. Believer! was it so to your soul? Then it was as another ripening ray of the harvest sun. You are more holy, humble, useful, happy; yes, happy, as being willing rather to be absent from the body, and present with your Lord. Sinner! unconverted sinner! I mean you who have never had the disposition to hate God and his saints, and love to sin and sinners, changed into one of love to God and his people, and hatred to Satan and his ways, (which is the simple meaning of being "regenerated," "born again," "converted," etc.) I ask you, what use have you made of your last sermon? Do you remain in the same state of soul enmity, ease, and contentment, as before hearing it? Then you have rejected God's mercy then and therein offered, you have despised God's wrath therein threatened by that man of God, whom you last heard preach a sermon. Suppose it to be your last: you are about to die; you will never see or hear him again, until you see and hear him (yes, the same man) at the dread day of judgment, when all things will be brought to your remembrance connected with your last sermon. The time, the place, the seat, the persons by whose side you sat-awful, overwhelmingly awful reflection, perhaps it may then be shown that you heard your last sermon in a pew by the side of a God-fearing partner, parent, child, or friend! The preacher, the text, the sermon, the expo sition, the application, the invitations, the threatenings; the

preacher's prayers, and perhaps the tears with which he implored you to be reconciled to God; your conviction, perhaps your tears, and your broken resolutions. Yes, reader, all these things will be brought to your remembrance at the day of judgment; and forget not, your disbelieving or ridiculing it will not make it the less certain; no, not one jot or tittle. And, solemn reality! unconverted reader, the knowledge of the contents of this address will be there; its writer will be there; and you-yes, you, its reader, will be there; to whom, if you are unconverted, and so die, the Judge, the Lord Jesus Christ will say, "Because I called, and ye refused; I stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof, I say unto you, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels; where the worm of remorse dieth not; where the fire of God's wrath is never quenched." See Prov. i. 24, 25; Matt. xxv. 41; Mark ix. 44.

Reader, dear reader, this solemn judgment and awful doom will of a certainty then be passed upon the unconverted; yes, it will take place then, but now is an accepted time. Now is a day, an hour, a moment of salvation. Now God says, “As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked,” Ezek. xxxiii. 11. Now He says, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." He is willing, by and through a cordial reception of the doings and sayings of the Lord Jesus Christ, to save you. Faith in him is the one and only way of salvation. Through him God can be the just and the justifier of the ungodly; therefore "Behold the Lamb of God;" look on him, and be ye saved from your sins, from the power of Satan, from the woes of hell, the inevitable consequences of a rejected last sermon.

SLIGO.

A SCRIPTURE reader, from the Irish Evangelical Society, writes to a friend :-"I am sure you will be highly gratified to know with what pleasure the tracts, called "The Way to be Healthy and Happy," which you were pleased to give me for distribution, were received by the Roman Catholics. As you are aware of Father Mathew's coming to Sligo, for the purpose of administering the temperance pledge, I would just mention, that many took the pledge from the excitement of the moment, without, in the least degree, considering the evil of intemperance as they ought. With many of these I afterwards conversed, and they expressed their sorrow for

having taken the pledge, as they saw no evil in taking a glass. I often wished that I had a tract written exclusively on the subject of the evil of intemperance, that I might distribute it among those with whom I daily come in contact. I met with nothing to answer my purpose, until I saw the tract mentioned above, in your house, with which you so kindly supplied me. A few days after I got them, I put some of them in my pocket, and went to the country. As I was going along the road, I met a man returning from the field in which he had been at work. Did you take a pledge?' said I. 'Yes,' said he. I then took out my tract, read page 10 to him, and gave him the tract, for which he thanked me. I went to another Roman Catholic family, and told them of my tract. The woman of the house said, that nine in that house took the pledge. A group gathered round me, and I read part of the tract to them; and, by the way, I spoke to them for half an hour, pointing them to Jesus as the sinner's friend. I had an attentive hearing, which very likely I should not have got were it not for the tract. I went to another Roman Catholic man, and gave him the tract. I went to this country about a fortnight afterwards, and was told that this man went to the neighbouring houses, reading the tract to them. When I was returning home on the first evening, the man to whom I gave the tract in the morning called after me, saying, 'That was a fine tract you gave me.' 'Did you read it?" said I. 'Yes,' was the answer, and I was delighted with it.' I travelled through a good part of the country, and in every place I visited, the teetotalers were delighted with the tract. What you gave me have been long since distributed, and many are inquiring for them, but I cannot supply them. If I had a thousand of them, I could distribute them among Roman Catholics and drunken Protestants."

I AM THAT I AM.

Suitable for the close of the Year.

WHEN Moses was ordered by God to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, he asked God what name he should mention him by to that people, in order to dispose them to obey him; and God answered, "I Am that I am," and bade him tell them, "I Am hath sent me unto you." He did not answer Moses, I am the Great, the Living, the True, the everlasting God. He did not say, I am the Almighty Creator, Preserver, and Governor of the whole world; but that "I Am that I am;" intimating that if Moses desired such a name of God, as might fully describe his nature as in itself, that is a thing impossible, there being no words to be found in any language whereby to express the glory of an

infinite Being, especially, so as that finite creatures should be able fully to conceive it. Yet, however, in these words, he is pleased to acquaint us what kind of thoughts he would have us entertain of him. Insomuch, that could we but rightly apprehend what is couched under, and intended by them, we should doubtless have as high and true conception of God as it is possible for creatures to have. Hence, therefore, when he speaks of himself with respect to his creatures, and more especially to his people. He saith, I Am. He doth not say, I am their light, their life, their guide, their strength, their God; but only, I Am. He sets, as it were, his hand to a blank, that his people may write under it what they please that is good for them. As if he should say, Are they weak? I am strength. Are they poor? I am riches. Are they in trouble? I am comfort. Are they sick? I am health. Are they dying? I am life. Have they nothing? I am all things. I am wisdom and power; I am justice and mercy; I am grace and goodness; I am glory, beauty, and holiness; I am whatsoever is suitable to their nature or convenient to them in their several conditions. Whatsoever is amiable in itself, or desirable unto them, that I am; whatsoever is pure and holy, whatsoever is great or pleasant, whatsoever is good and needful to make men happy, that I am. So that, in short, God here represents himself unto us as universal good, and leaves us to make the application of it to ourselves, according to our several wants, capacities, and desires, by saying only in general, I Am. There is, therefore, more solid joy and comfort, more real delight and satisfaction of mind in one single thought of God, rightly formed, than all the riches and honours and pleasures of this world, put them altogether, are able to afford.

Let us, then, call in all our scattered thoughts from all things here below, and raise them up, and unite them all to the great I Am, the most High God. But seeing we cannot think of God so highly as he is, let us think of him as highly as we can. And for that end let us get above ourselves, and above the world, and raise up our thoughts, higher and higher, and higher still; and when we have got them up as high as possibly we can, let us apprehend a Being infinitely higher than the highest of them, and then finding ourselves at a loss, amazed, and confounded, let us fall down in humble and hearty desires to be freed from these dark prisons, wherein we are now immured, that we may take our flight into eternity, and there, through the merits of our ever blessed Saviour, see this infinite Being face to face, and enjoy him for ever.

London: Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES and SONS, Duke-street, Lambeth.