to the theatre, or to still worse places, if you saw this vast and searching eye, with piercing looks, fixed upon you? Impossible. "No," you would say, "I must wait till that eye is gone, or closed, or averted." But it is never gone, never closed, never averted. This the religious man knows, and therefore says, “Thou, God, seest me." Would you sin, if your father were present? Would you enter the haunt of vice if he stood at the door, looking in your face, and saying, "My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not; my son, walk not thou in way with them, turn thy foot from their path?" You could not so insult and grieve the good man's heart. But though your earthly father is not there, your heavenly Father is. Your father's eye does not see you, but God's eye does. This the religious person believes and feels, and turns away from sin.

the

Then religion presents a judgment to come. Yes. "God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world by Jesus Christ." "We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." "And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those

things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works." What a description! What a day will be the judgment. day! The shout of the descending God; the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God; the bursting tombs, and rising dead; the conflagration of the universe, and the gathering of the nations to the Lord in the air; the separation of the righteous from the wicked; and the final doom of all; the closing of time, and the commencing of eternity; the going away of the wicked into everlasting punishment, and of the righteous into life eternal! Oh, what destinies! The good man believes all this, and acts under its influence. How many has the prospect of the day of judgment alarmed in the midst of their sins; how many has it checked; how many has it been the means of converting! I knew a lady in high life, one of the most accomplished women I ever met with, who, while living in all the gayeties of fashionable life, visiting in noble families, and fascinating them by her power to please, dreamed that the day of judgment was arrived. She saw the Judge, in awful majesty, commence the dread assize. Around him, in a circle, the diameter of which no eye could measure, was drawn the human race, awaiting their doom. With slow and solemn pace, he traversed the whole circle; whomsoever he approved, to

them he gave the token of his acceptance by graciously laying his hand upon their heads. Many he passed, and gave them no sign. As he approached the dreamer, her anxiety to know whether she should receive the token of his acceptance became intense, till as he drew still nearer, and was about to stop before her, the agony of her mind awoke her. It was but a dream: a blessed one, however, for her. It produced, through the Divine blessing, a deep solicitude for the salvation of her soul. She became an eminent and devoted Christian; and some years since departed, to receive from Christ the gracious token of his approval, in his immediate presence, and in the regions of immortality.

You, too, young man, must be brought into judgment. You are to form a part of the circle drawn round Christ, to receive your sentence; he will approach you; he will give you the token of reception or rejection. Do, do consider that tremendous scene. How awful was the irony of Solomon! "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judg ment," Eccles. xi. 9. You may go to places of vicious amusement, but you must go from thence to the judgment-seat of Christ: there is a path from every scene of sin to the bar of God. He goes with you as a witness; and conscience also

goes with you as a witness: what witnesses these to be brought against you in judgment! "I will come near to you to judgment, and I will be a swift witness against all that fear not me, saith the Lord,” Mal. iii. 5. Oh, did you realize this awful fact, did you keep your eye upon the judg ment-seat, did you anticipate your appearance at the bar of Christ, which religious men do, and which religion would lead you to do if you possessed it, how effectually would you be protected from the evils by which you are surrounded. Could you sin, with a voice sounding in your ears, "For all these things I will bring you into judg ment?" No; here would be a defence to you, as it has been to many others, and is to many now. Adopt it as yours.

CHAPTER IX.

RELIGION CONSIDERED AS LEADING TO COMFORT

AND HAPPINESS.

66

"YOUNG men away from home must have something," you are ready to say, to interest, to amuse, to gratify them. They have been called to sacrifice the comforts of their father's house, and to endure many hardships, and much discomfort, and need something to enliven and divert their minds." True. But it should be of a kind that would not endanger their health, their morals, or their future interests, and especially their souls. To seek relief from the labours of business, the gloom of solitude, or the annoyance of an unpleasant domicil, by "the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season,” is to recruit our wearied nature, and to enliven our dull frame, by drinking a sweet tasted and effervescing draught of deadly poison. That young man is not only not pious, but scarcely acts the part of a rational creature, whose love of diversion leads him to seek such gratifications as are ruinous to all his interests for time and eternity. A love of pleasure, a taste for amusement, as such, is a most dangerous propensity. Business, young man, business, is what you should attend to. There is pleasure in industry. Employment is gratification. But still you repeat, "We must