fidence in the efficacy of a death-bed repentance. The mercy of God is, indeed, boundless as His universal works; but. can a cessation from sin, when the power and inclination no longer remain with us, be weighed against a life of negligence or crime? for we may never forget, that if mercy be one attribute of the Almighty, justice also is another.

SERMON XI.

ON THE NECESSITY OF FREQUENTLY READ

ING THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

2 TIM. iii. 16, 17.

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correcttion, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works."

THE stream of time flows swiftly on, and we are carried with silent but unwearied speed, upon its deep and restless bosom, from the cradle to the grave. Scarcely does the voyage of life appear commenced, when the dimness which spreads itself around warns us that the day is far spent, and the night at hand; and shows to our imperfect sight, that the tide of life has ebbed away, but that the ocean of eternity lies before us.

Brief as is the time allotted to man on earth, useless are his endeavours to extend its limits, or retard its course. He toils and struggles on within its narrow space, adding with fearful speed to the days that are gone; till he starts at finding his term of trial is expended, and the hour at hand, when the sovereign Judge of all the earth will demand an account of his stewardship, and, as that account shall stand, award his. sentence.

Yet short as his course has been, how chequered does its review present it? Years, which in prospect seemed so long, now appear only as a tale that has been told, as a vapour that has vanished. Sorrows, that were dreaded in their approach, and endured with impatience, have passed away and are consigned to oblivion, or remembered with indifference. The hours of carelessness which were yielded a prey to gaiety and mirth, and those more solid pleasures, which pure and holy joy can diffuse throughout the mind;-these, too, have faded from our trembling grasp, and, like our former woes, are forgotten, or

remembered without delight. From the home of our birth, and the scenes of our childhood, and the companions of our first and purest affections, we are severed; and the friends of other years, who have shared in all our youthful joys, are exchanged for the rude converse of strangers, and the heartless intercourse of the world.

Yet, for the preservation of a life so varied, how anxiously do we seek provision? We scruple not, day by day, to rise up early, and late take rest, that we may provide the meat that perishes for the body that decays. But when that body has decayed, whither will its undying tenant flee? What other habitation is prepared for it, when its former one shall return to the dust from whence it was taken? It will wing its flight into a world unlike the present—a world, eternal in its duration-unvarying in its scenes. In the mansions prepared for us hereafter, will be one exhaustless life of joy or woe, unchequered by change, unmingled with decay.

In turning our views to the regions be

yond the grave, we aim not at the presumption of attempting to describe either the nature of the joys of heaven, or of the woes of hell. The Evangelist St. John, the favoured disciple of his beloved Master while on earth, and the depositary of express revelations after His ascension; he, who saw a door in heaven opened, and was illumined by the light of the holy city, and beheld the river of life, and the throne of God; even he has declared that it doth not yet appear what we shall be. But the Almighty has stooped so low in His merciful desire to lead men to the attainment of happiness, as to convey the magnitude of spiritual joys, under images suited to the nature of earthly pleasures; unfolded in language fitted to our understanding, though not as a description of the joys themselves.

To excite in us a desire to become partakers of that mysterious bliss, which the mind of man, at present, is unable to conceive; those pleasures in which mankind most delight, are opened before us. But the promise of "banquets" of "rivers of