summers and autumns all gone; the sights and sounds of earth passed away! Soon-very soon-shall we be in heaven. We shall see God, we shall behold Christ in His glory, we shall look upon the angels. Mothers will be searching for their children, and husbands and wives shall find each other; and all hands, parted in Christ, will be clasped again. It is like coming into port after an ocean voyage. The shining shore-line, how it grows on the waiting eye! The joy will be like that with which the Crusaders first saw Jerusalem.

But a little while and all these things will be real to us. Time will be ended. Then unbelievers will believe, and skeptics doubt no more. But it will be too late. Now is the accepted time. They will call for the rocks and mountains to fall upon them. What a change this will be! What an unveiling of the heart! What a disclosure in ourselves and others! All that is hidden shall be brought to light. Are we in sympathy with these things? Do we love to look forward to them, and long for the joy set before us?

The apostle says, in view of this: "Knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Let us, therefore, cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light."

"Wake out of sleep," says the apostle, as if we do not realize these things, and are as those on a train coming in. How this thought should stimulate exertion! We should no longer be dreaming, but doing. It should lead us to redeem the time, to make up for the misspent past; giving our best thoughts and care to things that are worthy, and not to trifles. What preparations should we make for the companionships and enjoyments of heaven! Put on the wedding garment of salvation. You are to see the King in it.

It should induce men to leave sin and worldliness, and live for the great life beyond. Those who have no hope, how the nearing eternity should lead them to accept salvation! This nearing salvation--what a comfort to those in sorrow and affliction ! What a world beyond opened to Bunyan in prison, and to all the weary and heavy-laden! If we could be shut up to thoughts of this nearing salvation, how soon should we be weaned from earth!

The sun grows large as it goes down, so ought the Christian's

character to round and brighten. How quietly it sets, elsewhere to rise and shine! So should the Christian's going be.

To reach heaven there is, for the believer, no gulf to cross. The path that leads out of life leads to the presence-chamber of our Lord. Since heaven is so near, death is not loss.

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A CHILD.

BY REV. WILLIAM VEENSCHOTEN, MINTZESHILL, N. Y.

FOR what purpose has this babe lived?

1. For God's sake. The universe seems, to some extent, a failure to carry out God's purpose; but not so the children. One third of the human race die in infancy-a demonstration of God's life-giving and saving power.

2. This babe has lived for its own sake.

This short life has already achieved success. 1. Consider Matt. xviii. 3; xix. 14; Mark x. 14; Luke xviii. 16. 2. A human being has begun to live. 3. Eternity, with all its glorious possibilities, has been entered.

3. This babe has lived for its parents' sake. 1. It has occasioned anxiety, care and pain: these they can easily forget. It has also exercised their graces this will be a lasting benefit. 2. The parents had a little one to love; a gift, around which their affections clustered, and for which God was praised. 3. The parents have a little one to mourn-an earthly blessing removed, the transient nature of these blessings demonstrated.

4. The parents shed bitter tears, but their hearts are softened by affliction. 1. Reminded of their Covenant God; His providence displayed to them and their child. 2. Reminded of evil in the world; that evil the cause of these sorrows, separation and death. 3. Reminded of the uncertainty of life and all earthly possessions. 4. Warned not to make anything an idol, nor any created thing a portion.

5. The parents' attention is directed to the other world. 1. The soul. The body in the grave, but not the soul; it has gone to God, who gave it. 2. The habitation of Christ and the blessed, our Father's house; all His children are gathering there.

6. The parents are reminded that their salvation is not infant salvation. Repentance, faith, and a new life are necessary, if they would be saved and join their child again.

7. The babe in heaven speaks to the parents on earth-tells them to prepare. Sin alone can form an impassable gulf between

the parents and the child. Become rid of sin.

PREPARATION FOR ETERNITY.

BY JUSTIN EDWARDS, D.D., BOSTON.

But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober and watch unt› prayer.-1 PEter iv. 7.

THIS warning naturally leads our minds to the end of the world, which, compared with eternity, may be said to be even now "at hand." But to you and to me the end is much nearer than this. For what is your life? A vapor, which appears and vanishes away. I shall, therefore,

I. ILLUSTRATE THIS TRUTH.

A thing is said to be at hand when it is so near that we may come upon it at any time. In this sense the end of all things is at hand. There is not a moment in which we are not exposed, without warning, to death. The merchant's plans may reach into the distant future, his ships may be in many seas; but in a moment the end comes. The mother may indulge countless hopes for her child, but a fall, a fever, may in an instant shatter them. No age, no condition, can keep off death.

US.

II. I SHALL POINT OUT THE DUTIES TO WHICH THE WARNING CALLS

Be ye sober, and watch unto prayer."

1. Be ye sober. This applies to the body and to the mind. Let your appetites, passions, affections, be governed by the Bible. Keep your eye on eternity and in its light measure the importance of the sorrows and joys of time. Even Christians are often cast down by frowns of the world or elated by its smiles. Let them remember for how short a time these endure. Be ye sober, and the joy unspeakable will be yours on earth, and eternal bliss in heaven.

Moreover your example will exert an influence for good which cannot be measured. The world is full of instances where the

humblest life has been the means of the grandest accomplishments. Not the amount but the kind of influence you exert is what tells.

2. Watch unto prayer. Prayer is the lever that moves the world. By it a person's influence may reach around the world and into the everlasting future. The prayers of Paul, of David, of Abraham, may still be the agents of unseen good to the world. One blessing a believer's prayer may certainly secure-his own eternal life.

DEATH IN THE MIDST OF LIFE.

BY JABEZ BURNS, D. D.

Her sun is gone down while it was yet day.-JEREMIAH XV. 9 THE Sun is well used to represent the life of a saint. note a few points in the resemblance.

I. THE SUN IN ITS SPLENDOR.

Let us

1. Its natural glory. The most glorious of the heavenly bodies, it well typifies moral excellence and spiritual glory. (See 2 Cor. iii. 18.)

2. Its constancy. The centre of the solar system, a million times larger than the earth, it stands forth as the most sublime of God's material works. How constantly, without interruption or decrease, it is fulfilling the purpose of its Creator! What destruction would result from irregularity in the exertion of its power! So with the Christian. (See. 1 Cor. iv. 9.)

3. Its influence. Of how much beauty and comfort are its rays the source! Without them life were impossible, and the earth a sterile, uninhabitable mass. Such is every spot where the Christian life is unknown. All the blessings of civilization flow from "Ye are the lights of the world," etc.

the Sun of Righteousness.

II. THE SETTING SUN.

1. The certainty of its setting. As certain is death.

2. The diversity in the time of its setting. We have the short day of winter, the long day of summer. But still more diverse is the period of life. How often does its sun go down while it is yet day! 3. The frequent beauty of its setting. "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."

4. The sun sets to shine upon another horizon.

DEATH-BED REPENTANCE.

BY THE MOST REV. JOHN MACHALE, D.D., ARCHBISHOP OF TUAM, IRELAND.

Because you have despised all my counsel, and neglected my reprehensions, I also will laugh in your destruction, and shall mock you when that shall come to you which you feared.—Proverbs i. 25, 26.

ST. AUGUSTINE remarks that of all the wiles of the adversary for vanquishing our innocence, there is none so frequent or so successful as that by which he persuades us to delay our conversion. The folly and presumption of one who puts off salvation in the hope of a death-bed conversion, are shown in the following considerations :

1. He devotes his life to the service of sin.

2. He hopes to deceive the omniscient God. The conversion he relies upon is a hollow, hypocritical one, since such must be any conversion which is the result, not of aversion for sin, but of the impossibility of enjoying it longer.

3. His passions gather strength with each gratification.

4. He may have no knowledge of approaching death. His death may be sudden. Or friends may deceive him to the very last with hopes of life.

5. He may become the victim of despair. This is the common fate of the wicked. As his mind is at last turned to his real condition, his sins rise like a mountain between him and God.

THE CHANGING AND THE CHANGELESS.

BY JABEZ BURNS, D. D.

The voice said, Cry, and he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field, etc.—ISAIAH xl. 6–8.

I. HUMAN FRAILTY.

What is more fragile than the grass or the flower of the field? Even if no blight from without destroy it, its existence is soon ended. And even this brief existence is often hastened by the