heart can alone give value to the offering; and it is the heart he allures away. Our Saviour implied this when he gave us that infallible rule for self-examination, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." At the great day of account, when the books shall be opened and the Judge set, the question will not be-did you say your prayers? did you follow gaiety? did you spend your time in frivolous employments? A single reference to a single test, will suffice to cover with confusion, or fill with humble confidence; to open or shut the gates of heaven-" Lovest thou me?"

You may wonder why I pause so long on the religious value of life, but, in fact, it involves every other consideration. Once fully recognize this axiom-time the school for eternity-and our tastes, our pursuits, our employments, and our recreations, will follow in well regulated order. So long as we fancy ourselves the mere creatures of a day, at liberty to please ourselves, and do what we will with our own, we must necessarily be triflers. We may mix up much that is graceful and attractive, nay, much even that is valuable, with

our trifling, but if we leave eternity out of our calculation, and provide only for time, we may have our reward in present pleasure, and present success; but when death comes, where will that reward be? If the things that are seen are our chief good, what is to be done when we can neither take them away

were

with us, nor remain on earth to enjoy them? But I should deceive you, my dear I to represent this necessary surrender of the heart to God as easy, or in our own unassisted power; no, it is from God that we must seek and desire willingness to honor and obey him. It is he who must teach us to know, in order that we may love; to love, in order that we may serve him. When such willingness is induced in the soul, then, and then only, begins true, solid, lasting happiness. This is the "inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away:" the hidden treasure which "neither moth nor rust can corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal," which time cannot impair, nor death itself destroy. It is offered freely to all; "Whosoever will, let him come and take of the water of life freely "" If ye,

being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him." These are the words of Him "who spake as never man spake ;" and through the Scripture, he speaks them to each of us. My dear, let them not be spoken in vain. "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find." I know well that the disinclined heart will suggest a thousand objections to these things, but I know also that they are false and frivolous. Perhaps you will tell me that you are happy already, and ask, why you may not remain as you are. You may, if your happiness is established on a rock; but if it be built upon the shifting sands, pause before you determine. Youth, gaiety, and good temper, may give a charm to your present existence; but then the future -sickness, affliction, age, death-will they, of themselves, avail for those dark hours? Give this a serious thought; and may you be enabled to "remember your Creator in the days of your youth, while the evil days come not, and the years draw nigh when you shall

say, I have no pleasure in them." May you be enabled from this time to say unto Him, "My Father, thou art the guide of my youth."

Believe me, my dear

Affectionately yours.

LETTER VIII.

MY DEAR

IT is so when we come to the work of watching over our hearts, and amending our lives, in earnest, as to a great and all-important work, which requires, not merely the whole concentrated energies of the human mind, but the powerful assistance of the Holy Spirit added thereto, and working therewith, we feel for the first time the weakness, the vacillation, the worldliness, the propensity to error, the indisposition to duty, the sin in our nature! Herein consists the benefit of sickness, and next to sickness of retirement. there learn ourselves, that book of many pages, that text of many meanings! An individual thrown, and thrown under disadvantageous circumstances, into close and

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