immediate performance of that resolution. "arose, and came to his father."

"And he

First, His restoration to a better mind by means of consideration. "He came to himself."

With great propriety is this expression used; for a wicked man is beside himself. Madness, saith Solomon, is in the heart of the sinner. As madness is a disease of the rational powers, so is vice of the moral. Sin, in like manner, unhinges the whole frame of the moral being, tinges with its baleful colours every sentiment of the heart, and presents to view a spectacle more melancholy still,-a being, made after the image of God, sinking that image into the resemblance of a brute, or the character of a fiend. Mad, however, as such persons are, they are not always so. Sin cannot always keep its ground. The evil principle has its hour of weakness and decline. There is no man uniformly wicked. The exertion is too strong to last for ever. Nature does not afford strength and spirits sufficient to keep a man always in energy. The most abandoned have fits and starts of soberness and recollection. There are lucid intervals in the life of every person. At such a time is the crisis of a man's character. At such a time the prodigal son came to his right mind. At once the spell was broken and the enchantment dissolved. He is amazed, he is confounded to find himself degraded from the rational character; cast down to the herd of inferior animals making one at the feast where the vilest of brutes were his associates and companions. Then the false colours with which fancy had gilded his life, vanish away. The flattering ideas which imagination and passion presented to his mind, disappear in a moment. Disenchanted from the delusions of the great deceiver, what he esteemed to be the garden of Eden, he finds to be a desolate wilderness. Then he came to himself."

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You know that when a man recovers from a fit of lunacy, and is restored to his reason, the mind annihilates the lurid interval, forgets the events of such a

state like a dream, and resumes the train of ideas it had pursued in its sound state. Thus, the penitent in the parable, awaking as from a dream, recovering as from a delirium, transports himself into the time past, his former life recurs to his mind, his father's house rises to view, he recals the first of his days before he went astray. Happy days of early innocence and early piety, before remorse had embittered his hours, or vice corrupted his heart! Happy days! when the morning arose in peace, and the evening went down in innocence; when no action of the past day disturbed his slumbers by night; when no reflection on the riots of the night threw a cloud over the succeeding day; when he was at peace with his own heart; when conscience was on his side; when reflection was a friend; when memory presented only welcome images to the mind; when, under the wings of paternal care, he was blessed in his going out and coming in when his father's eye met his with appro→ bation and delight.

Having viewed the picture, he compares it with his present situation. Sad contrast! By his own folly, a vagabond in a foreign land; banished from all that he valued and held dear; cut off from the joys of his better days; languishing out life under the most abject form of misery; pining under poverty; sunk into servitude; feeding swine, and himself desiring to partake with them in their husks; miserable without, but more miserable within ; a spirit wounded by remorse, a heart torn by reflection on itself, an accusing conscience, which told him that he merited his fate, and which held up to him his past life, in its blackest colours of folly and guilt. Astonished at himself, startled at his own image, which, in its true colours, he had never seen before, he was ashamed of his conduct, and came to a better mind. Such were the effects of consideration, and such will ever be the effects of consideration to those who duly exercise it. Why does the sinner go forward in the error of his ways? Because he does not consider. "Hear

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"O heavens! give ear, O earth! the ox knoweth his "owner, and the ass his master's crib; but my people do not consider." Consider your ways, is the voice which God addresses to mankind in every age; and unless you consider, the calls of the gospel and the offers of grace are made to no purpose. The world which is to come has no existence to you but what you give it yourselves; the eternity that is before you, the happiness of heaven, and the pains of hell, are no more than dreams, unless you realize them to yourselves, unless you give them their full force, by bringing them home to the heart. When a man reviews the error of his ways, nothing is wanting to a further reformation but reflection and thought. Think, and the work is done. "I considered my ways,' saith the Psalmist. What was the consequence?" I "turned my feet unto thy testimonies."

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The second step in the return of the prodigal, is ingenuous sorrow for sin, accompanied with faith in the Divine mercy. "Father, I have sinned against hea

"ven, and before thee."

We are formed by the Author of our being to feel contrition, for the offences we commit. This pungent sense of infirmities, this penitential sorrow for errors and defects, is a beauty in the nature of man. It is an indication that the sense of excellence exists in its full vigour, and the mark of a nature that is not only improvable, but that also is making improvements. When a man seriously considers that the tenor of his life has been irregular and disorderly; that much of his time has been misemployed, and great part of it spent altogether in vain; that he has walked in a vain show, unprofitable to himself or others, an idler upon the earth, a cumberer of the ground; that by his negligence and perversion of his powers he has been lost to the world which is to come, has married the beauty of his immortal spirit, and stopt short in the race which conducts to glory, honour, and immortality; when he further considers that his offences have extended to his fellow-men, that by his conduct he has

been the cause of misery to others, has disturbed the peace of society, done an injury to the innocent,such reflections in a heart that is not altogether callous, will awaken contrition and sorrow.

This penitential sorrow will be increased when he considers against whom he has offended; that he has sinned against infinite goodness, and saving mercy, and tender love; that he has resisted the efforts of that arm that was lifted up to save him; that he has rebelled against the God who made, and the Saviour who redeemed him. This is one of the characteristics of true repentance. The penitent does not mourn for his sins as being ruinous to himself, so much as for their being offensive to God. The returning prodigal, in the address he makes to his Father, dwells not upon the misery he had brought upon himself, upon the ruin to his character, his fortune, and his expectations in life. "I have sinned against Heaven, and in "thy sight." What grieves me most is, that I have offended thee; that I have sinned against goodness unspeakable; against that goodness to which I am indebted for the care of my infant years; against that goodness to which I owe my preservation; against him who visited me while I was flying from his presence; who supported my powers while they were employed against him. It is my Benefactor whom I have offended; it is my best Friend that I have injured; it is my Father himself against whom I have risen in arms.

This sorrow for sin is accompanied with faith in the Divine mercy. To wicked men, labouring under the agonies of a guilty mind, the Deity appears an object of terror. They figure to themselves an angry tyrant with his thunder in his hand delighting to punish and destroy. Like Adam when he had sinned, they are afraid, and flee from the presence of the Lord. But from the mind of the penitent these terrors vanish, and God appears, not as a cruel and malignant power, but as the best of beings, the Father of mercies, and the Friend of men, as a God in Christ reconciling the

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world unto himself. Encouraged by these declara, tions, the penitent trusts to the Divine goodness, and flies for refuge to the hope set before him. It is the wicked man only that despairs. Horrors of conscience and, forebodings of wrath affright and overwhelm the sons of reprobation. Such horrors felt Cain and Judas Iscariot. But the penitent never despairs. He sinks indeed in his own eyes, and throws himself prostrate on the ground, but stili throws himself at the footstool of mercy, not without the faith and the hope that he will be taken into favour. The language of his soul is," Though I am cast out of thy sight, yet will I look again to thy holy temple. I will arise and go to my Father, for though I have offended him, he is a Father still. He now sits upon a throne of mercy, and holds a sceptre of gracc. At thy tribunal, former offenders have been forgiven, and former sinners have been taken into favour. To thy ears the cry of the penitent has never ascended in vain. Thou art ever nigh to all who call upon thee in sincerity of heart. When we tend to thee, at the first step of our return, thou stretchest out thy hand to receive us." So different is that repentance which is unto life from the sorrow of the world which worketh death. Different as the look of melancholy upon the face of the virtuous mourner, is from the unkindly glow which burns. the cheek of shame : different as the tender tears which a good man sheds for his friends, are from those bitter drops which fall from the malefactor at the place of execution.

The third step is a resolution to return to a sense of duty. "I will arise."

Without determined purposes of amendment, con◄ trition is unavailing and ineffectual. The Deity is not delighted with the sufferings of man. Sorrow for sin is so far pleasing, as it softens the heart and makes it better. It is the resolution of amendment, the purposes pointed to reformation, that make the broken heart and the contrite spirit an acceptable sacrifice; such is the nature of true repentance; it flows not so