The contagion in which we live, transfuses itself into our own minds. How often is the purity of the closet lost amid the pollution of the world, the good resolutions of the morning give way to bustle and business, or to the career of pleasure, and the day that began with innocence and devotion, ends in vanity and vice! Temptations in every form assault your innocence, and the adversary of your soul is for ever on the watch. One false step may send you to the bottom of the precipice. One word spoken in passion, hath given rise to quarrels that have lasted through life. A single glance of envy, of revenge, or of impure desire, hath raised a conflagration which could only be quenched by blood. To avoid the pollution with which the world is infected, to keep off the intrusion of vain and sinful thoughts, enter into thy chamber, and shut thy doors around thee. There the wicked cease from troubling, there the man who is wearied of the world is at rest. There the glare of external objects disappears, and the chains that bound you to the world are broken. There you shut out the strife of tongues, the impertinences of the idle, the lies of the vain, the scandal of the malicious, the slanders of the defamer, and all that world of iniquity which proceeds from the tongue. In this asylum thy safety dwells. To thy holy retreat, an impure guest dares not approach. Enjoying the blessed calm and serenity of thy own mind, thou hearest the tempest raging around thee and spending its strength; the objects of sense being removed, the appetites which they excited, depart along with them. The scene being shifted, and the actors gone, the passions which they raised die away.

In the second place, this devout retirement is favourable for fixing pious purposes in the mind, and strengthening our habits of virtue. We are so formed by the Author of our nature, that the material objects with which we are surrounded raise ideas in us, and make impressions upon us merely by their own nature, and without any assistance from ourselves. There are motions in the body which are involuntary and spontaneous, and there are impressions in the mind which are as much out of our power. At the presence of certain objects, we feel certain passions whether we

will or not; we cannot command the emotions which arise in the mind; on many occasions we are merely passive to the influence of external things. When imminent danger threatens, or the shriek of jeopardy is heard, the heart throbs, the blood takes the alarm, and the spirits are agitated without our direction or consent. As the nature of the plant is affected by the soil where it grows, as the nature of the animal is affected by the pasture where he ranges, so the character of the man who never thinks, who never retires into himself, arises from the mode of life in which he is engaged. His mind is in subjection to the objects which surround him. He passes from object to object as the scene changes before him, and he is delivered over from passion to passion according to the events which vary his life. Thus in society we are in a great measure governed by accidents, and the mind is passive to the impressions which it receives.

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But in solitude we are in a world of our own. We can call up what ideas, and converse with what objects we please. We can say to one desire, "go," and to another, come. Dazzled no longer with the false glitter of the world, we open our eyes to the beauties of that better country which is a heavenly one; stunned no more with the noise of folly, we can listen in silence to the still small voice. Escaped from the broad way, we set out on the narrow path. That is the place, and then is the time to seal the useful truth, and to fix the pious purpose. Then you can best recollect your native strength, and stir up the grace of God which is in you. Then at leisure you can reflect by what temptations you were formerly foiled, that you may guard against them in the time to come; foreseeing the evil day, you will look out for the best support when it comes; and, putting on the whole armour of God, you will be able to resist the fiery darts of the evil one, and to go forth conquering and to conquer. By these means the good thoughts which were scattered up and down your life will be collected together, and settle in a fixed purpose of new obedience. The various rays thus converging into one, will kindle into a fervent flame. From Logan's Sermons.

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THE DEATH OF THE WICKED.

The remembrance of the past, and the view of the present, would be little to the expiring sinner; could he confine himself to these, he would not be so completely miserable; but the thoughts of a futurity convulse him with horror and despair. That futurity, that incomprehensible region of darkness, which he now approaches, conscience his only companion; that futurity, that unknown land from which no traveller has ever returned, where he knows not whom he shall find, nor what awaits him; that futurity, that fathomless abyss, in which his mind is lost and bewildered, and into which he must now plunge, ignorant of his destiny; that futurity, that tomb, that residence of horror, where he must now occupy his place amongst the ashes and the carcases of his ancestors; that futurity, that incomprehensible eternity, even the aspect of which he cannot support; that futurity, in a word, that dreadful judgment to which, before the wrath of God, he must now appear, and render account of a life, of which every moment almost has been occupied by crimes. Alas! while he only looked forward to this terrible futurity at a distance, he made an infamous boast of not dreading it; he continually demanded, with a tone of blasphemy and derision, Who is returned from it? He ridiculed the vulgar apprehensions, and piqued himself upon his undaunted courage. But from the moment that the hand of God is upon him; from the moment that death approaches near, that the gates of eternity open to receive him, and that he touches upon that terrible futurity, against which he seemed so fortified-ah! he then becomes either weak, trembling, dissolved in tears, raising up suppliant hands to heaven, or gloomy, silent, agitated, revolving within himself the most dreadful thoughts, and no longer expecting more consolation or mercy, from his weak tears and lamentations, than from his frenzies and despair.

Yes, my brethren, this unfortunate wretch, who had always lulled himself in his excesses, always flattered himself that one good moment alone was necessary, one sentiment of compunction before death, to appease the anger of God, despairs then of his clemency. In vain is he told of

his eternal mercies; he feels to what a degree he is unworthy of them. In vain the minister of the church endeavours to soothe his terrors, by opening to him the bosom of his divine mercy; these promises touch him little, because he knows well that the charity of the church, which never despairs of salvation for its children, cannot, however, alter the awful judgments of the justice of God. In vain is he promised forgiveness of his crimes; a secret and terrible voice resounds from the bottom of his heart, and tells him that there is no salvation for the impious, and that he can have no dependence upon promises which are given to his miseries, rather than to the truth. In vain is he exhorted to apply to those last remedies which the church offers to the dying; he regards them as desperate reliefs, which are hazarded when hope is over, and which are bestowed more for the consolation of the living, than from any prospect of utility to those who are departing. Servants of Jesus Christ are called in to support him in this last moment; whilst all he is enabled to do, is secretly to envy their lot, and to detest the misery of his own; his friends and relations are assembled round his bed to receive his last sighs, and he turns away from them his eyes, because he finds still amidst them the remembrance of his crimes. Death, however, approaches: the minister endeavours to support, by prayer, that spark of life which still remains : Depart, Christian soul," says he: He says not to him, Prince, grandee of the world, depart. During his life, the public monuments were hardly sufficient for the number and pride of his titles. In this last moment, they give him that title alone which he had received in baptism; the only one to which he had paid no attention, and the only one which can remain to him for ever. Depart, Christian soul. Alas! he had lived as if the body had formed his only being and treasure; he had even tried to persuade himself that his soul was nothing; that man is only a composition of flesh and blood, and that every thing perishes with us. He is now informed that it is his body which is nothing but a morsel of clay, now on the point of crumbling into pieces; and that his only immortal being is that soul, that image of the Divinity, that intelligence, alone

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capable of knowing and loving its Creator, which now prepares to quit its earthly mansion, and appear before his awful tribunal. Depart, Christian soul. You had looked upon the earth as your country, and it was only a place of pilgrimage, from which you must depart. The church thought to have announced glad tidings to you, the expiration of your exilement, in announcing the dissolution of your earthly frame. Alas! and it only brings you melancholy and frightful news, and opens the commencement of your miseries and anguish.

Then, the expiring sinner, no longer finding in the remembrance of the past, but regrets which overwhelm him; in all which takes place around him, but images which afflict him; in the thoughts of futurity, but horrors which appal him; no longer knowing to whom to have recourse; neither to created beings, who now leave him; nor to the world, which vanishes; nor to men, who cannot save him from death; nor to the just God, whom he looks upon as a declared enemy, and from whom he has no indulgence to expect; a thousand horrors occupy his thoughts; he torments, he agitates himself, in order to fly from death which grasps him, or at least to fly from himself. From his expiring eyes issue something, I know not what, of dark and gloomy, which expresses the fury of his soul; in his anguish, he utters words interrupted by sobs, which are unintelligible, and to which they know not whether repentance or despair gives birth. He is seized with convulsions, which they are ignorant whether to ascribe to the actual dissolution of his body, or to the soul which feels the approach of its Judge. He deeply sighs; and they know not whether the remembrance of his past crimes, or the despair at quitting life, forces from him such groans of anguish. At last, in the midst of these melancholy exertions, his eyes fix, his features change, his countenance becomes disfigured, his livid lips convulsively separate; his whole frame quivers; and, by this last effort, his unfortunate soul tears itself reluc tantly from that body of clay, falls into the hands of its God, and finds itself alone at the foot of the awful tribunal.Massillon's Sermons.