Ah! we may exalt self, and make a god of it---but while we do it, there is a frown gathering on the brow of God----which will destroy us.

We good! when we do not go to God in prayer, unless we want his aid in some worldly scheme of aggrandizement ?----unless when we lie on the bed of sickness, and then try to pray and coax him to spare us----unless when we have a dear friend near the grave, and then we try to bribe him to raise that friend up by our prayers and tears! We good! when we acknowledge not God in our daily business and pursuits, and yet are impatient and ready to impeach him if they go wrong? We good! when in all our aims not one in a thousand tends to God or to his glory!--when we live as far from him as we can, and keep this distance always between him and us? We good! when we do not remember him in our mercies, nor receive his richest of all gifts with thankfulness and gratitude!

We good! when we do not daily converse with him and commune with him, and receive light from his word!

When we know that we wander daily, and yet rather go still further off, than to return to him----with a contrite, broken heart----asking forgiveness!----when we do not read his word----honor his Son---imitiate him in our lives!

Say, dear hearer, are we good !----good enough to live as we do and to die as we are.

Oh hearer, we may forget our condition, and our relations to God; we may deny them; we may wish they were different; but all this will do no good! All men seek their own ends; their own happiness, regardless of God and of the universe, till created in Christ Jesus unto good works.

What then is to be done? To be done? Why, cease to do evil; cease to be supremely selfish; cease to dethrone God from your heart; cease to live for yourself; cease to depose God, while you place sin on his throne; cease to make self the deity, while the almighty Creator, Preserver, and Redeemer, is put off, and rejected, while the soul chases shadows, flies to broken cisterns, and feeds on ashes!