sons!

folly! what perversion of words, and of times and sea-O man, man! whether thou wilt hear, or whether thou wilt forbear, I will again repeat "that madness is in thine heart while thou livest in thy natural and unrenewed state; for thou callest evil good and good evil; thou puttest bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter;" and the end of these things is declared to be death; not the

“ μάλα μακρὸν ἀτέρμονα, νήγρετον, ἔπνον,”

"The long, the endless sleep,

From which no mortal wakes,"

of ancient or modern sceptics, but an eternal seclusion from that river of life, the streams whereof make glad the city of God—an eternal seclusion from the kingdom of that gracious Saviour, in whose presence there is a fulness of joy, and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore. It is an eternal death to all the blessings of that rest which remains for the people of God; and it is an eternal life to endure the gnawings of that worm which never dies, and of that flame which shall not be quenched.-Reader! be not curious to know the exact nature of that worm and of that fire; but let me entreat thee to flee from their torment, by making God thy father, and Christ thy brother and thy friend, to succour thee in the day of adversity and revelation of the righteous judgments of God. Art thou one of those gay and thoughtless beings who are rushing forth through all the mazes and beguiling paths of a world that lies in wickedness?-Art thou flying from scene to scene, from one pursuit to another, still dissatisfied with

the past, and still deceiving thyself with hopes and ex. pectations from the future? O let me entreat thee to pause one moment, and consider thy latter end-let me beseech thee to cease thy present fruitless race, nor once more enquire of the thoughtless sons of voluptuousness and dissipation, "Who will show me any good?" Be assured theirs is not the path which conducts to it, nor are they the people who can show thee the way-they live for time, and not for eternity; they are lovers of sinful pleasure more than lovers of God. Infidels in heart, and unholy in practice, their heathen precept is now, as in the days of St. Paul, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." They would stifle the remonstrances, and silence the voice of conscience as unwelcome intruders on their polluted hours. For them to reflect is to be miserable. From the days of classic yore to the present moment, the language of their heart has been the same-the same have been the desires of their mind;

"Vivamus, mea Lesbia atque amemus

Soles occidere et redire possunt:

Nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux,
Nox est perpetua una dormienda."

"Come, my Lesbia, live and play,

Suns may set and suns may rise;
Soon as sets our passing day,

Endless night must close our eyes."

But shall not God be avenged on such people as these? Yea, verily, "he that shall come will come, and will not tarry;" and when he does come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that

believe, he will execute judgment, and take awful vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of his Son. As yet they harden themselves in transgression, and are willingly ignorant and studiously forgetful of death and judgment, of heaven and hell. Yet it is but a little while, and they shall know, to their eternal confusion, that man is born for eternity, and that "God hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the secrets of all hearts by Jesus Christ." Be then entreated, my reader, and come out and separate thyself from these men, lest thou perish in their sins. Seek happiness in the smiles of thy Maker-lay up a treasure in heaven, and press forward to the enjoyment of an eternal inheritance among the saints in light-cultivate such sentiments, and seek such friends as will stand by thy couch, when the world and its advocates forsake thee; which will bear thee up and support thy soul, when trouble and sickness, when pain and death, shall shake and dissolve thine earthly frame. Surely were I to put the question, "Art thou happy ?"-were I to enquire whether the evenings of thy past days saw thee from time to time lay down thy head well satisfied with the fruits and pleasures of the past hours?-whether thy mornings witnessed thy conscience approve each week and month, as it viewed them in the retrospect? thou wouldst reply, No.-Nor is it improbable but jaded, disappointed, and soured in all thy past pursuits, thou wouldst add, "So far from having enjoyed happiness in times past, or possessing it now, I begin to despair of ever being so; fate has ordained man to be wretched, has cast my lot as a son of disappointment,

and the child of sorrow." God, my reader, has ordained that wretchedness shall, even in this life, be the concomitant of sin, (at least where the conscience is not become wholly callous and reprobate,) and that the ungodly shall be like the troubled sea, whose restless waters cast up mire and dirt. This is all that has been ordained, unless it be that those who seek the Lord shall find him, and those who forsake him he will cast off for ever. O that these additional reasons may have their proper effect in stirring thee up to seek first the kingdom. of God and his righteousness, for then all other things will be added unto thee!

But I am to draw the contrast between the week spent at Elba, and the last one just passed in my parish. Let me then proceed to state, that although no diversified ranges of hill and valley beautified our fields-no mantling woods, no splendid palaces, no maritime views, added their charms to enliven the scenery around us, but on the contrary, that all was cheerless, cold, and unpicturesque to the traveller on the morning of Christmas-day, yet, under all these disadvantages, it was a season not without its comforts, its real enjoyments to myself and to many of my poor neighbours; although literally

The icicles hung from the eaves of each cot,
And the streams were hard bound by the frost."

On the morning of that day the first salute from our bleached and weather-beaten steeple, was not the peal of one set of drunken ringers, inviting others, first to the belfry, and thence to the ale-house, but it was the sober

and cheerful notice for divine worship, reminding us of our duty and privilege to say to each other, "Come, let us go up to the house of the Lord, he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his statutes."-It was between the hours of ten and eleven that I formerly entered the harbour of Porto Ferrajo, and lost sight of a confused and turbulent world of waters; and between the same hours I entered this venerable house of prayer, and for a season lost sight of the more confused and restless world of men who know not God. Unlike the splendid and semi-pagan churches of Italy and its adjacent islands and countries, our humble and ancient building had nothing in its decorations or in its accommodations to invite the lounger or the artist to enter its walls; nor were our congregation of that sort as to draw those among us whose desire was to see and be seen; in short, it might reasonably be considered as formed of those who really came to worship God.

It was my solemn and distinguished lot to stand up as an ambassador of Christ, and to declare to these people the blessings which, as on that day, were communicated to the world when the angels sang, "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will towards men" to declare the offices and work of the Saviour, as predicted in the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah, and three first verses to show, that "the Spirit of the Lord God was upon Christ Jesus," because the Lord Jehovah had anointed him to preach good tidings to the meek, that he had sent him to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound-to proclaim the acceptable year