anxious to bind itself to its God; that love of God, which proceeds from the conviction that he first loved us. God had revealed himself to Jacob as a pardoning God, passing by the iniquity of his penitent, confiding servant, and the effect of this manifestation of undeserved mercy and love, was to unite the heart of that servant to his God for ever.

My brethren, we have endeavoured to apply the spiritual lesson taught by Jacob's pillar, more especially to you who have passed through trouble, or sickness and sorrow; to you, then, we would also desire to apply Jacob's vow.

Did your hour of trouble, your chamber of sorrow, your bed of sickness, witness no vows? Have you never, in adversity, said, "If the Lord will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on ;" or in sickness, If the Lord will raise me up again; or, in spiritual despondency, If the Lord will keep me in this way, that I may come to my Father's house— the house with many mansions, "then shall the Lord be my God?" And were not your petitions heard, and the solicited blessing vouchsafed, and the hour of spiritual despondency, or of natural terror and alarm, permitted to pass away? How, then, have these vows been kept? Have they been "as a morning cloud, and as the early dew?"

When the terror of the grave departed, did the resolutions of sickness depart with it? and are you now eagerly seeking the giddy bustle of the world, to brush away the few lingering remains of broken vows, and frustrated intentions? Suffer, then, the present example to act as a solemn memento to your conscience; believe that the God of all your mercies, who answered your prayers, has also registered your vows, and now grieves over the neglect of them; he, of whom you once said, "Then shall the Lord be my God," sees with a parent's feeling that you have forgotten him, and sends this message of love to your soul, still willing to recall his wandering child, still desirous of bringing you to himself. Remember those hours of affliction and of weakness; remember what you would then have felt, could you have been assured that you should have been in this place, in your accustomed health, today. Twenty years after Jacob had vowed, God expressly reminded him of that vow. He is now mercifully doing the same to you! O let it not be in vain! Let the solemn season which is before you be employed in regaining the vantage ground upon which, by the mercy of God, you once stood; retrace your steps, recall the feelings and the resolutions of these long past hours; dedicate yourself

anew to the service of God; come once more to the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness, and devote "yourself, your soul and body," to the glory of your Redeemer. Then, indeed, shall the Lord be your God, equally present to bless and comfort you in health and sickness, in sorrow and in joy, in time and in eternity! Then shall you find, even while on earth, that "peace of God which passeth all understanding ;" and when you have departed hence, "an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom and joy of your Lord." But if you still turn a deaf ear to him that speaketh from heaven; if you still forget what God has done for you, and neglect what you have promised him, we would solemnly charge it upon your conscience, that this is not the last time that you shall think of your wasted resolutions and of your broken vows. You shall be reminded of them upon another day! in another place! by another speaker!

LECTURE III.

GENESIS XXIX. 20.

"And Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her."

At the close of the last Lecture, we left Jacob at Bethel, where the Almighty had vouchsafed him so encouraging a vision, and where he had dedicated himself to the service of God by so remarkable a vow.

Many a weary day's journey still lay between him and the place of his destination, and much of uncertainty, and danger, and fatigue, overhung his solitary path; yet such was the influence of the blessed assurances of the divine presence and protection which he received on that first night of his pilgrimage, that he proceeded on his journey the following morning with feelings of alacrity and joy, to which he had long been a stranger.

The 29th chapter, at which we resume the history, commences by saying, "Then Jacob went on his journey." The marginal reading is, " He lift

up his feet," that being the more literal translation, and intending to convey the cheerfulness of heart to which we have alluded. The Jewish commentary upon the verse says, "His heart lifted up his feet;" very expressive of the buoyancy and lightheartedness with which he recommenced his travels. We may learn how widely the remainder of this long and wearisome journey differed from the first day's march, by the brevity with which the inspired historian recounts it; the four hundred miles are despatched in a single verse; for we read, "Then Jacob went on his journey, and came into the land of the people of the East."

You, my Christian brethren, who were able to sympathize in our last Lecture with this poor traveller, in the outset of his solitary pilgrimage; who have known, by painful experience, what it is to lie down with a heart ill at peace with God; who have been perplexed with many an anxious doubt and fear; and, perhaps, have carried about with you, for months and years together, a spirit weighed down by a sense of sin, a heart which alone knew its own bitterness: but who have now received the same assurances which Jacob did of forgiveness, of consolation, and support, and, by the mercy of God, have been led to that gracious