duct;-for if I have, in any part of my life, become the slave of vices and disorderly propensities, I must carry with me through life, even after I have seen the error of my ways, that darkened spirit, which continually reminds me, that I am not of the number of those who have never fallen;-and many fears, and doubts, and weaknesses, and misgivings, will also, from such sin, form part of my nature, which would not have entered into it, if, throughout my whole course, I had devoted myself to the "commandments of God."

On the other hand, if I have done well,-my good deeds may, for a time, not only escape from my view, but be apparently crushed by the illwill, or envy,—or malice,—or injustice of my fellow-men; but still none of all these things will ultimately prevail against them ;-and when envy,and opposition, and malice,-and injustice,―and all the disturbing causes which they have generated, have ceased to operate, or have spent their power,the secret vigour which preserves that which is good in immortal life, will be seen resuming its power, and my good deeds will appear in all their natural lustre,—or rather with all the additional glory of the blessings they have produced.

Nature and Providence, in all their arrangements, are thus favourable to that which is good,—and, under their fostering and cherishing care,-the seeds that have been scattered, however seemingly buried for a time, will ultimately come to maturity.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF ALL OUR

CONDUCT IN

THIS LIFE FOLLOW US INTO ETERNITY.

The process of reasoning by which we arrive at this conclusion is simple and complete.

-

We have already seen, that our conduct in any early part of our present existence, has a perceptible and growing, though sometimes an apparently interrupted influence,-on those future portions of our history in which our powers have attained more mature strength, and our relations to surrounding objects are more completely evolved;-so that it may safely be asserted, that the whole of our conduct during the previous stages of our earthly being contributes to determine its character during the last periods of our connexion with time.

But time itself is but a portion of eternity;—that portion of the Divine kingdom with which we have already had a direct connexion is but a fragment

of that universal scheme which embraces all worlds, and extends throughout all duration;-and if, consequently, our conduct during any portion of our present being has uniformly been found to have extended its influence to its succeeding portions,― the inference is inevitable and obvious,-that our whole conduct in this world must have an influence on our condition in those greater periods of our existence which are to be evolved amidst arrangements, of which what we now see is but a part,—and in relation to which it is, like the different portions of our past life, but a preparation for something future and more mature.

The argument, in one word, may be thus put:All the portions of our present life have a relation to each other,—and we cannot avoid concluding, that our whole conduct in this life, being but a portion of a greater and more extensive course of being, must, by the same law, have an influence on our condition, during those greater portions of the same career, on which we are hereafter to enter.

This is an inference derived directly from observation of the plan of Providence,-in so far as we have already had opportunities of observing it ;—and the conclusion to which it leads us is as worthy of

being relied on, as any that we are capable of drawing from our present limited view of the Divine plans to their more complete manifestations.

This idea, however, implies or suggests another that seems to follow from the same train of thought with irresistible evidence. Our present conduct will no doubt have an influence on those portions of our being which are to be evolved in eternity; but that influence will also be far more perfect and enduring than the corresponding influence which the previous portions of our conduct in time have had on those that have succeeded them. On earth, though the influence of our previous conduct has continued to affect our whole lives, and perhaps with increasing power, still that influence has been but imperfectly realized, and many interruptions seem to us to be put, by the apparently imperfect arrangements of time, to the complete manifestation of the ways of God, in giving to either our good or our bad actions their full operation. But, in the more august and completely-evolved disposition of causes in the eternal state, we cannot avoid believing that our conduct in this life will be found to have developed its full and continually-increasing tendencies,—and that even those portions of our secret modes of act

ing and feeling, from which all external and more conspicuous actions have flowed, will thus be seen giving to our character and station their appropriate aspects; and a far more perfect manifestation will thus be made of the actual springs of our conduct, than in our present state we are capable of conceiving, or could venture to anticipate.-Even in time, the course of events often forces a man to see his own character, and the operation of its latent propensities, in very different lights from those in which he viewed it at an earlier period of his history ;—and he is astonished to find what secret things are brought to light, and how different a being he ultimately finds himself to be, from what he had imagined, while the more hidden tendencies of his whole man were concealed from him by the imperfect evolution of his powers and character;-and there is nothing forced in the supposition, that even he who had supposed himself to have attained the most perfect acquaintance with his own character on earth, will eventually find himself placed amidst arrangements, and made the inheritor of a destiny completely unlike that which his own limited views would have suggested to him as the probable result of his peculiar or relative worth.