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destined to another and an immortal existence; then are you to give an account at a future judgment for the deeds done in the body; then have you a treasure to secure, of a moral nature transcendently more valuable than all earthly things; then is there a kingdom of moral excellence, destined to survive all time, all these material worlds, all changes, in which the ETERNAL GOD will forever unfold his perfections to those that love him, and feast their growing minds with joys that " eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man."

For this kingdom learn to live. "Seek FIRST the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” What are the riches, pleasures, honors and hopes of this world?-so fleeting, so vain, so false ! But here, here is something that satisfies and abideshere is a kingdom that lifts up the soul from dust and corruption, and points the kindling eye to brighter worlds.

Well might that gentleman of distinguished science, Sir Humphrey Davy, after taking a wide survey and experience of earth's largest gifts of knowledge, wealth and glory, exclaim, "I envy no quality of mind or intellect of others; not genius, power, wit or fancy; but if I could choose what would be most delightful and 1 believe most useful to me, I prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing; for it makes discipline of goodness,

creates new hopes where earthly hopes vanish, and throws over the decay, the destruction of existence, the most gorgeous of all lights; awakens life in death, and from corruption and decay calls up beauty and divinity; makes an instrument of torture and of shame a ladder of ascent to paradise; and far above all combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful visions of palms and amaranths, the gardens of the blest, the security of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and the sceptic only views gloom, decay, annihilation and despair."

Have you not observed that infidelity is produced by something wrong in character, in pride, or vanity, or oddity, or an attempt at distinction, or sourness of temper, or an unsocial disposition, or, more commonly in sensual vice? When do you find the sunny, calm, pure, benevolent, sound mind wrapping itself in the selfishness and gloom of infidelity? And have you not also observed that while those defects of character tend to produce infidelity, infidelity in turn tends to produce and foster them?

To those who, under the blazing light of revelation, shut their eyes and harden their hearts. against the divine government, the progress to ruin is certain and usually swift. Unhappy beings! while often priding themselves on their superior sagacity and wisdom, they are of all men really

REWARDS OF INFIDELITY.

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the most sorry dupes of incredulity and superstition.

And as to the rewards of infidelity, what are they? Even if the restraints of civil law, of early instruction, of conscience, of public sentiment and of restraining grace do avail to hold the infidel up from the gulf of ruin through the brief period of his mortal life, which they seldom in fact do; from the everlasting heaven of religion, he makes himself a voluntary and hopeless exile. Of all places in the universe, himself being witness, the infidel's grave is the most gloomy. There is darkness without any light, corruption without resurrection, ruin without recovery, despair without hope! There is the end of one whose living creed was, as expressed in the Bible in his own significant language, "All things come alike to all; there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked, to the clean and to the unclean. Wherefore I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry." Such is the end of infidelity to human vision; but who, save God himself, shall lift the curtain of eternity and announce the doom of the deathless soul?

If then there are those, as there always have been and always will be till sin is banished from the earth, who from any motive choose to abandon their minds to the dark and malignant spirit of infidelity, who can seek for themselves no more honora

ble and humane employment than to endeavor to take from virtue its support, from affliction its consolation, from existence its value, leave them, leave them! to their chosen folly. Go not a step with them in that dark way. Commit yourself

NOW and WHOLLY to truth and religion. Have as little to do with infidels and infidel writings as possible. Is it necessary to drink a whole hogshead of vinegar, to learn that it is sour? or to take all the arsenic ever made into your stomach, to learn that it is poisonous? And is it necessary to read all the infidel books and hear all the infidel preaching in the world, to learn that infidelity is sour and poisonous? If you have learned what is the natural and healthful nutriment of the soul, USE IT; whatever injures and destroys, let it alone.

This may be called bigotry, fanaticism, priestcraft, ignorance, illiberality; but no matter for that. If men will call you by these hard names because, with your eyes open, you choose what is good and refuse what is evil, be content to bear it. "If you be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are you; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you. On their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified." Give yourself cordially, confidently, firmly and wholly away to Jesus Christ and his service, and although infidelity may scowl, and ignorance cavil, and sin blaspheme, you will have all heaven upon your side,

ETERNITY OF TRUTH.

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and the final issue of the contest between the powers of light and of darkness, will be your certain victory and your exceeding great and precious reward.

It is but the echo of the united voices of the wisest wisdom, the loftiest virtue and the noblest benevolence that has adorned humanity in all ages of the world, which declares that the Bible con ́tains the most true, needful, healthful, nourishing and enduring of all instruction for the accountable and immortal mind. Its lessons of wisdom are from the deep fountains of eternity. They will continue to flow as from a well-spring of everlasting life, even after all the sources of natural science shall be dried up. Yea, when the stars of heaven shall fall like autumnal leaves, and when yonder glorious orb shall go out in darkness, the everlasting truths unfolded in the word of God will impart ever-growing light, life, and joy to the soul, as it shall range the sweet fields of paradise in the world of spirits bright.