mora! feeling, which is struggling against the course which he is pursuing. Let the hurry of worldly pleasure and occupation be suspended, and you find him in a state of severe affliction with nothing to sustain him. Let sorrows press heavily upon him, and he sinks into despondency. Everything is against him. He does not look to God, or hope in his mercy. All his anticipations connected with religion. are those of fear and dread. But the hour must come, when he must feel that his hold upon the world is breaking away, that, however unwilling or unprepared, he must enter upon an untried scene of being. Here his imagination will be busily employed in picturing, not the state of happiness to which he is to be introduced, but the scenes of wo which await his guilty soul. O how melancholy is the course of him who estranges himself from God! How wretched the condition of him who hath no hope in his death!

But this guilty, wretched man is not without his influence, while he lives. His vices may be associated with many attractive qualities of character. He may be the father of an innocent family, the companion of the young and unsuspecting. Those who feel that religion imposes restraints upon the waywardness of passion, may easily yield to the influence of one, who seems to feel none of those restraints, and carries with him a seductive show of liberty. The unsuspecting may be corrupted by his society, and those who already have commenced their downward course, may be accelerated in their progress, and rendered less sensible to the admonitions of God's providence and word. This one sinner may do much to seduce others from the course of virtue. As he advances, he may find his companions multiplying, and virtue may weep over the conquests of sin.

How benevolent then that influence, which turneth such a man from the error of his way. It is drying up a source of moral contagion. It is saving many an unsuspecting

creature from threatening ruin. It is giving to a guilty, degraded man the joys of virtue. It is furnishing him with pure pleasures, inspiring him with cheerful confidence in God, giving him support under the trials of life, and preparing him to meet the last earthly trial with a hope full of immortality. It is sending him forth among men as an instrument of good, as a missionary of the cross of Christ, as one who will allure thoughtless men to a brighter world, and lead the way to heavenly happiness. O what a change is here produced, how benevolent is its aspect upon the present condition of man!

But our view ought to be extended beyond this world. Man is to live after he shall cease to be interested in earthly joys, cares and trials. He is to live beyond the grave, and his happiness in the future, as in the present life must depend upon his character. Read then the description given in the gospel of the future condition of the ungodly. That they are highly figurative descriptions, we readily admit; but the figures in which they are clothed are not without their meaning. If they mean anything, the threatenings of God uttered to deter men from sin are most fearful threatenings, and imagination cannot picture the future horrors of the sinner's doom. He must enter upon eternity the enemy of a God of love. He who converts him saves a soul from death, saves a fallen creature from final ruin. In saving one soul, he may rescue from eternal death a thousand souls, which might have been betrayed by the influence of this one. He may add to the happy society of heaven those who were fast approaching a world of wretchedness. What a motive this to the exercise of Christian benevolence! Do you wonder at the solicitude manifested by God for man's salvation? Do you wonder that Jesus was willing to pour forth his blood in a cause like this; and that his apostles readily exposed themselves to every trial and suffering, that they might carry forward the work of love, which their Master had commenced?

Are you not

amazed, astonished, that those who call themselves Christians should be so little interested in this glorious work; that they should see with so much indifference the work of destruction going on around them; that they should so feebly labor to save souls from death?

Christians, I call upon you in the name of the Lord to engage in this work. You are surrounded by those who are strangers to Christian faith and hope. Will you make no effort to direct their influence aright, to stay the moral contagion which rages around you? Will you see souls ready to perish, and make no exertions to save them from death? Do you ask how you are to engage in this work? I answer, In the spirit of your Master, in a spirit of love. You yourselves are sanctified but in part. You are sinners, and, whatever be your virtues or hopes, you are to ascribe all to the grace of God. You are then to make his grace in your behalf appear for the purpose of attaching others to the Saviour whom you love. You are to go to them, not in the spirit of the Pharisee to boast of your superiority, but with sympathy and love to entreat them to accept the offered salvation. You are to put forth your influence in such a manner that they may feel the conviction, that you are interested for their welfare; that you are pleading for their good; that you are laboring for their souls, and not for the selfish purposes of party ambition. It is by gentleness, by kindness, by love unfeigned, by patience and perseverance, that you are to succeed in this work of benevolence. Your virtues, your Christian purity, submission, obedience and joy must speak for you in the cause which you would advocate. Your prayers also must ascend warm from the altars of your hearts to God, not only for those whom you would bless by your influence, but for yourselves also. Go to this work in earnest, animated by a spirit of love, and you will not labor in vain. Think, if each of you convert but one sinner from the error of his way, if each of you save but a single soul from death, how glorious will be your reward.

SERMON IV.

ERRONEOUS COMPARISONS OF THE PRESENT WITH THE

PAST.

ECCLESIASTES VII. 10.

SAY NOT THOU, WHAT IS THE CAUSE, THAT THE FORMER DAYS WERE BETTER THAN THESE? FOR THOU DOST NOT INQUIRE WISELY CON

CERNING THIS.

THE features of the present age are of a striking character. To some minds they are portentous of evil only; to others of unmingled good. To some the agitation which is now passing rapidly through the world of intellect, questioning, modifying and overturning established habits of thought and long venerated opinions, seems to threaten the entire prostration of religion, and utter confusion, guilt and wretchedness. To others the process now going on is but a spirit of improvement, the tearing up of habits which have dwarfed the mind, the dawn of a golden age, the pledge of the promised millennium. In both these opposite views there is much that is extravagant; much that is not warranted by the history of the past, or by a knowledge of the present. All is not bright in human condition and prospects; all is not dark. The same elements are now at work that have been at work nearly six thousand years. They are in some respects differently combined and developed; but the process is essentially the same. Yet if

we were to lean toward either of these extremes, we should be disposed to favor that which presents the brightest picture; for this gives the best encouragement for man to put forth his efforts, and to increase his power, it brings cheerfulness to the heart, and manifests a confidence in the government of God; while the other, though it may be associated with deep religious feeling, with an acute sensibility to moral good and evil, still indicates a diseased state of the mind, fills the soul with despondency, substitutes sighs for vigorous efforts, and manifests distrust of the Divine providence and of the promises of revelation.

It is the disposition which leads men to aggravate the evils of their condition, to murmur and despond, which is rebuked by our text. It is with reference to this disposition, that the remarks now to be made will be offered to your serious consideration.

The comparison of the present with former times, and the endeavor to form a fair estimate of the peculiar relative situation of the present age is not what the sacred writer would censure. This every reflecting man will do, and must do. If two periods of time are brought before his mind, he cannot but behold their distinct features, and he must regard them as they appear to him. Indeed, this is necessary to a wise improvement of the lessons which past ages have sent down to us. It is the result of such comparison, exhibiting itself in complaints, ingratitude and despondency, which is censured. Such a result is not necessary; it is not fairly drawn from a wide view of facts; it exhibits a diseased and guilty state of mind; it tends to evil, and to evil only. Therefore is it rebuked in our

text.

1. If the habit which is reproved do not exist in its worst form in every mind, it is in some form and degree so common, that we may well inquire in passing, how it can be accounted for. The golden age has ever been placed at a period far back on the records of time. Those