vice, folly and irreligion, they merit that name in a pre-eminent degree. Still, O transgressor, let me not deceive you. Do not imagine that a feeble impulse, a passionless seeking,' will accomplish your spiritual renovation. Believe the word of him who cannot lie. Reforming is no amusement, no sport of a vacant hour. You find your criminal habits almost impossible to be removed. You find them stick to you like the poisoned garment, the envenomed robe, of ancient story. At first, in your earlier years of transgression, you are sensible of your criminality; but the more familiar, the more habitual, your delinquencies become, the less guilty you feel, the less aware that the eye of the All-seeing is upon you, the less impressed with the conviction, that you are perpetrating your own destruction.

Yes, I repeat the fearful fact; the transition from folly to wisdom, from indifference to engagedness, from the fatal security of unbelief and sin to the saving power of faith and holiness,-such a transition requires effort, the strong effort of body and soul. The words of the Saviour imply the necessity of such effort. To the path of Christian wisdom you must strive to be admitted; and when you are admitted, you must strive to advance. It is a life-long struggle; a struggle to overcome evil and to promote the cause of goodness, to cling for support,-not to earth or ocean, not to your farm or merchandise, not to your trade or profession, not to your domestic employments, not to any temporal pursuit or emolument whatsoever, but, like the sinking mariner, to cling to the rock,-to cling to the Rock of ages, and trample under foot the power of sin. But do not tremble, do not be disheartened. The word of

Omnipotence is pledged to support the cause of righteousness. Would you embrace the doctrines of the gospel? Would you attain to the promise of the strait gate? Only be true to yourself. Only be true to your own convictions. With what view did your Master impress the command of the text? Was it because himself, was it because the Father who sent him, would be affected by your giving glory to God-by your trial, your powerful exertion, your perseverance to the end? Oh no. The cause was immeasurably distant from these. Your own individual advantage was his earnest desire, the elevation of your principles, the ennobling of your character, the production of your purest enjoyment. The cause of heaven and the cause of human happiness are the same cause.

If therefore, in conclusion, these views be accurate, which I have been unfolding,-views of the striver, the seeker, and the reprobate, views of heavenly promise and awful warning,-you know your state, and perceive the course it requires you to pursue. The reprobate must reform, or perish amid his crimes. The seeker must do more than seek; he must strive, or perish in his timidity and irresolution. vance, in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the full size of the stature of Christ; that is, he must attain to the perfection of a Christian.

The striver must ad

Thus you perceive, my hearers, that, disguise the truth from your consciences as you will, the alternative is of importance altogether unimaginable, whether you will follow or forsake your divine exemplar ;-whether you will strive to enter in at the strait gate, and become

naturalized in his empire; whether you will remain unadmitted, as so many have hitherto done, the wavering friends, the inanimate defenders, the dreaming seekers of the kingdom; or whether you will wander away with the many to the kingdom of darkness, to the wide gate and broad way of the destroyer;-in one word, whether you are saved in heaven or lost in hell.

One word more is all I deem it needful to add. Though imprisoned by sin, you are as yet, I trust, ' prisoners of hope.' How much you may cherish of reasonable expectation, is known to God alone; but no one, I trust, has sunk beyond the reach of human hope. What, then, do you mean to do? Do you mean to perish? Then I need not designate your course. You will continue to linger and hesitate, to hesitate and linger from season to season. Too insincere or irresolute to be saved, and yet shuddering at the thought of being lost, you will sit down inactive and slumbering outside of the gate. This is the way to seek to enter in and to perish in the misery of disappointment, perish in the ruin of baseless and infatuated hope.

On the other hand, do you mean to secure salvation? O then awake this hour. Now commence the work. This moment arise from the dead. Strive for admittance to your Master's kingdom. Do not seek merely, but use the energy which the Almighty has given you, and supplicate for more. If 'from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force', discover yourselves the same impassioned ardor. Strong in the might of the Most High, seize the gate in the name of the Son of God; and if to your first effort, even if to

your repeated effort, it refuse to yield, imitate Samson at midnight grasping the gates of Gaza; lift it triumphant before you, or dash all obstruction to the ground, and enter in to the joy of your Lord. This is striving to enter; and, blessed be God! this is entering the Christian kingdom. Behold, for all who thus strive, for all who thus enter, is prepared a crown of glory,-. a crown which will grow greener and greener in the ages of eternity. Amen.

SERMON VII

BY REV. JONATHAn farr,

OF HARVARD, MASS.

DORCAS.

ACTS IX. 36.

THIS WOMAN WAS FULL OF GOOD WORKS AND ALMSDEEDS WHICH SHE DID,

But it may not be improper to give here a more particular account of this woman, so distinguished for her active benevolence. When such persons are mentioned, we naturally feel a desire to know all that can be known of them. We wish to have their name, their place, their profession; and to learn what kind of

charities they bestowed. And the sacred penman, though his history of her is short, has still given us a faithful account of these particulars. She resided at Joppa; in the Syriac language, then in some use among the Jews, her name was Tabitha, but in Greek it was Dorcas. She was a disciple of Christ, that is, she was a Christian. She was liberal, or charitable. She was full of good works and almsdeeds which she did.' She was so from principle; she was so from habit. She was kind to the poor. She was industrious; she made the coats and garments with her own hands. She sickened and died; and weeping friends gathered around her. They sent for an Apos