youth?

sparks fly upward from the fire. What is man in his infancy? An helpless sufferer, subject to a variety of diseases, over which he has no controul, agonized and convulsed in his nurse's arms, before he can speak plain enough to tell what it is that pains him. What is man in his A A disappointed sufferer: his lively anticipations blasted; his most sanguine wishes thwarted; his unsuspecting confidence abused; his heart sickened; his temper soured. What is man in his age? A sufferer still; growing infirmities and threatening diseases in his own body; sickness and death among his friends, perhaps among his own children. See him standing by the bed of his dying child; or see him reading the letter from a distant country, which brings the dreadful news! his tongue utters no complaint; but mark his labouring breast, his quivering lip, his stifled respiration ready to burst at every moment into a groan of anguish. Follow him, after the successful effort has been made to preserve calm composure among his sorrowing relatives; O, follow him into the privacy of his chamber, and behold the overwhelming flood of his undisguised wretchedness. "What is man, O God, that thou art mindful of him?"

Neither is this all: few, said the father of the twelve tribes, and evil also, have the days of the years of my life been. This expression

may perhaps refer to such calamities as we have just mentioned-the various natural evils which had befallen Jacob. Although at such a season, (when all those things of which he had before complained as being against him, had turned out to be really for him; when he had been rescued from the threatened horrors of famine, and had recovered not only his lamented Simeon and cherished Benjamin, but his dear long-lost Joseph also, whom he had supposed dead,) a reflection on the miseries of his life appears unnatural. But his present blessings setting before him, in a touching point of view, the divine goodness, and thereby in contrast, his own unworthiness, he seems rather to refer to the sinfulness of his past life; and in this sense his words are of invaluable application.

The most affecting considerations of the brevity, the vanity, the misery of human life, will avail nothing, unless accompanied with an unfeigned conviction of sin. They may excite the sensibilities of our nature, and move men to tears; but they will never subdue the enmity of the heart, and convert men to God. They may agitate for a moment, like a vessel passing through the waters; but being passed, the waters close behind, and no trace is left. If proofs of this position were required, they might be largely supplied by reference to the

beautiful and truly pathetic compositions of the heathen moralists. The Christian preacher, if he would acquit himself as a wise masterbuilder, must dig deeper for his foundation, and not content with addressing men as children of dust, and children of grief; he must occupy his more peculiarly characteristic ground, and address them as sinners, actual, wilful offenders against the Majesty of heaven, children of wrath, the well-merited wrath of Almighty God. Sin is the cause, the only cause, of sorrow and of death. Before sin entered into the world, all was joy and peace and immortality: and if sin had never entered, all would have continued joyful and peaceful and immortal; but "by one man sin did enter into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon men, for that all have sinned."

This scriptural truth is very generally acknowledged to a certain degree; but it may truly be said, that no man feels it as it deserves to be felt; and to convey any adequate impression of it, it is absolutely indispensable to enter into particulars. We sacrifice, indeed, by so doing, much of elegance and good taste, but we gain what is incomparably of more consequence, a plainness not to be mistaken. When eternity is our subject, and immortal souls are at stake, it betrays a lamentable trifling to be

deterred from wholesome plainness by an apprehension of inelegance. Our aim is not the gratification of your tastes, but the salvation of your souls.

What is that man, and how are the days of the years of his life spent? He is a swearer, In his common conversation blaspheming against God so habitually, so instinctively, that he has ceased to perceive his own blasphemies, and will shield himself from the accusation, by pleading that he was unconscious of the fact, and intended no harm by it; as if the inveteracy of an evil habit afforded an excuse for the repetition of a wicked action, instead of being its most unpardonable aggravation.

And what is that other man, and how are his days spent? He is a liar. Deceiving and flattering with his tongue, denying the truth if he has been guilty of any mischief or dishonesty, and glorying in the dexterity wherewith he has cast the blame upon another; frequently inventing falsehoods for the entertainment of his associates, and to obtain for himself the character of an agreeable companion; taking advantage of certain circumstances which do occur and which give an appearance of truth to his statements, wilfully to misrepresent, to aggravate, to traduce, to slander. And what is that third man, and how do the days of the years of his life pass? He

is a thief. Directly or indirectly stealing from his neighbour: a servant, receiving wages and not honestly or conscientiously working for it, embezzling or wasting his master's property, or joining in a systematic league of fraud with his master's tradesmen.* A gentleman, by delays or other disingenuous dishonesties defrauding his servants and tradesmen of their lawful dues, and squandering in the mean-time what is in strict justice the property of another, on the extravagant indulgence of his own sensuality or vanity: holding a situation and enjoying the emoluments attached to it, without intending, without being qualified to fulfil its duties. A tradesman, wilfully furnishing in

* In London this is regularly organized. The housekeeper and butcher, &c. &c. enter into a mutual compact, that the former shall encourage profuse expenditure, amounting even to waste, throughout the year; and that the latter shall, at the end of the year, give a premium, bearing an established per centage proportion to the gross amount of the master's bill, so that the housekeeper has every inducement to be bountiful, present perquisite, and future premium.

As a guard against this, and other similar evils, for the interest of masters, and the moral effect upon servants and tradesmen, the author would venture to recommend the universal adoption of "Pass Books," open at all times to the inspection of all parties, and if masters and mistresses in fashionable life will not inspect these books, then, when they raise an indignant outcry againt the dishonesty of their inferiors, let them just bear in mind, that by their own culpable neglect they are accessories to the crime.