be employed. If every sun and planet in the universe were searched to find a field of labour for us, the one which He has chosen would be found every way the best adapted to our capacities and our interests. If a good man were, for the time being, to be endued with an archangel's powers, and allowed, with an archangel's speed, to wing his way to any part of the extended universe-to investigate principles, explore fields, and converse with various orders of beings-he would come back to re-commence the work he had left, and finish his probation just where God had first assigned him a field and a work. He would come back to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, to visit the sick and minister to those in prison. He would come back to deny himself, and bear his cross; to instruct the ignorant, and reclaim the vicious; to hallow the Sabbath, and fill his seat in the sanctuary; to pray in the social circle, and labour in the Sabbath school. He would come back to the world to which his Saviour came, and engage in carrying forward his Saviour's grand design, of winning souls from sin to holiness. He would come back, though it were to weep, to suffer, and to die.

And is it not a most wise and most benevolent economy, which makes it a man's great business to serve his generation? Could a greater calamity befall us than to deprive us of such a privilege? Do we not need a moral discipline in just such a school--a school of patience and self-denial, of joys and sorrows, of smiles and tears. Moreover,

if we are to dwell together in a heaven of love,— then, what an economy is that, which makes one redeemed sinner the instrument of another's salvation! What an economy is that, which binds them each to other, not only as saved by the same Deliverer, brought into the same relation, and exalted to the same privileges, but which binds them to each other as benefactors and recipients!

It is also the will of God that you should glorify him; and by serving your generation you do glorify him. You glorify God the Father, who gave his Son to redeem sinners; you glorify God the Son, who loved us, and gave himself for us; you glorify the Holy Spirit, who takes the place of Christ's visible presence on earth, while he is in heaven as our Mediator and Intercessor.

It is the will of God that you should enlarge your capacity, brighten your crown of glory, and prepare yourself for entering upon an inheritance "incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away." And all this you do, if, as a Christian, you serve your generation.

LECTURE VII.

PIETY IN EARLY LIFE.

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 thy heart, and in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.— Eccles. xi, 9.

A CHRISTIAN king of Hungary being very serious and pensive, his brother, a gay courtier, inquired the cause. "O, brother," said the king, "I have been a great sinner against God; I know not how to die, and appear before him in judgment." His brother, making a jest of it, said, "These are but melancholy thoughts." The king made no reply; but as it was the custom of the country, that when the executioner came and sounded the trumpet before any man's door, that person should be immediately led to execution-the monarch, in the dead of night, sent the executioner to sound the trumpet before his brother's door. The brother, hearing the trumpet of death, and seeing the messenger of death, sprung into the king's presence, beseeching to know in what he had offended. "Alas, brother!" said the king, "you have never offended me; but if the sight of my executioner is so dreadful, shall not I, who have greatly offended, fear to be brought before the judgment-seat of Christ ?"

concern.

What could be more pertinent? Life is a serious It is a solemn probation, every day of which looks to the out-spreading future,—and the transcendent interests of that future are to be determined by the manner in which we deport ourselves here. "Enter a court of justice; there is one concentrated point of interest and attention. However splendid the forms of its administration, however solemn its functionaries, whatever may have been the dreadness of its issues, until law seemed to have been built up into a throned state, and to be covered with a spotless robe-all are forgottten while we gaze upon the prisoner at the bar. There he stands,-what a spectacle! The excess of feeling has confounded every feature, until they have lost their power of expression; and yet how keenly alive is he to every word, to every glance! How his eye rivets! how attentive his ear! Every function and organ seem to vibrate. The representative of justice, the death-man himself, were not half so impressive as that poor culprit foreboding the verdict of his guilt. We were spectators then; but we shuddered from the mere force of sympathy. We are ourselves to be cited; we must ourselves confront this inquest. 'Awake, ye who have ever lived, ye who have ever died,' must soon sound in our ear."

What then is to be done? How are we to meet that great assize? These, my young friends, are the questions-the questions, in comparison with which all others are the merest trifles--lighter

than the small dust in the balance. It is to the subject of personal piety, to a complete preparation for that day, that I wish to rivet your attention on the present occasion. And in enforcing the claims of personal religion upon you, I by no means wish to present it, either in its relations to the present or the future, only in its aspects of dread and solemn majesty. Unquestionably it has these aspectsmore dread, more solemn, than the most powerful intellect or the most vivid imagination ever conceived; but it has its mild, its gentle, its serene aspects. If the God of the Bible is a magistrate— robed in justice, "terrible in majesty," "of purer eyes than to behold iniquity," to impenitent sinners "a consuming fire," he is also a benign Father, full of pity, long-suffering, slow to anger, rich in mercy, and waiting to be gracious. If the coming judgment is inconceivably solemn, it may be also inconceivably joyful and glorious; if an eternity of guilt and misery is dreadful beyond thought or conception, an eternity of holiness and happiness must be infinitely glorious and desirable. Listen, then, while I address you on a subject, in which all your real interests are concentrated. In doing this, I shall attempt to point out some of your dangers; and then urge upon you such motives, and offer you such advice, as the Bible presents, and our limits permit.

1. One of your greatest dangers lies in thoughtlessness and inattention.

What am I? and whither am I bound? are