as those wise servants who were ready at the coming of their Lord. Matt. xxv. 1-10. In this way, and in this only, can we expect the Lord's presence will be with us to comfort and preserve us unto the end; and to make that end of our earthly journey the beginning of joy unspeakable and full of glory in a world where his children do ever behold his face, rejoice in his love, and become more and more like him through all eternity.

Now, my friends, examine yourselves how far things are thus with you. Whether or not you are endeavouring to set the Lord always before you, and to follow his beloved Son in faith and newness of life? If you are so doing, you will not act as poor Adam did after his fall, when he endeavoured to hide himself from the presence of the Lord; but you will rather rejoice in the solemn fact that the Lord is a God at hand, and not afar off, and you will desire to set him always before you, as an exercise of the soul at once leading to caution and to comfort.

In this case, however, you will find from time to time enough to humble you in the dust, under a sense of your unworthiness; for the more closely a man watches his thoughts and heart the more will he feel convinced of many sins, negligences, and ignorances cleaving to him, even to his most holy things. But, then, this will stir him up to watch and pray, and to endeavour to set the Lord before him more solemnly, more humbly, more holily for the future. And for his encouragement God will lead him by his grace from strength to strength, and make him more than conqueror. Still, however, he must remember that he is in an enemy's land, and that so long as he is in the body, so long will the world, the flesh, and the devil continue to war against his soul.

But alas, for the poor thoughtless, Christ-despising, God-neglecting seaman who does all he can to drive the Lord out of all his thoughts! Again we would tell thee that thou art an unhappy man; nor can all the madness, and riot, and sinful,

company thou art found amongst wholly silence conscience or bring peace to thy soul; nay, thou dost know thyself that much of thy merriment is put on and forced, it is not the joy of a merry heart, but it is an effect to drive away reflection, and to shut the Lord and the remembrance of his presence out of that heart. And what will all this avail? Will the Almighty draw back from observing and writing down all thy evil ways, because thou dost endeavour to fly from him? Will he give thee year after year for repentance, and never come to wind up the reckoning? Will thy voyage of life never come to an end? Ah, there are hundreds and thousands who either seem to think so; or in the madness of fools that make a mock at sin go on shouting out, "A short life and a merry one, carry on boys, who's afraid?" Oh, what sport is this to thine enemy the devil! This is just as he would have it to be. This course he knows will bring thee to a short life; carrying on on this tack will run thy soul stem-on upon the rocks of

eternal perdition; and when thy soul is wrecked, and is for ever breaking up, but never so destroyed as to come to an end, he will then taunt thee with thy past madness and past folly, and ask thee what thou then thinkest of despising heaven, of brow beating the judgments of the Almighty, and of carrying on for hell? Oh, take warning while mercy is within thy reach! Cry aloud, "Lord Jesus, save or I perish." Agonize to break from sin, from Satan and from all his servants. Oh, rest not day or night until thou hast found deliverance, and pardon and peace through the blood of the Lamb. May it be so for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

"Oh, Thou by long experience tried,
Near whom no grief can long abide ;
My Lord, how full of sweet content

"All scenes alike engaging prove,

To souls impress'd with sacred love!
Where'er they dwell, they dwell in thee;
In heaven, in earth, or on the sea.

"To me remains nor place nor time;
My country is in every clime;

I can be calm and free from care
any shore, since God is there.

On

"While place we seek, or place we shun, The soul finds happiness in none; But with a God to guide our way, 'Tis equal joy to go or stay.

"Could I be cast where thou art not, That were indeed a dreadful lot;

But regions none remote I call

Secure of finding God in all."