the thought, that the place of each one in the Redeemer's kingdom may depend upon the progress he has made in life; I do not mean upon his works that he has done-that is impossible, "for we are all unprofitable servants," and can earn no preference; but upon his character-what he is his fitness to be employed in the higher offices of the kingdom, and to sit nearest to the King. I do not pretend to know by what rule these unequal honors will be distributed; "there are last that shall be first, and first that shall be last;" but it seems certain that those will sit nearest to the Lord who shall be found most like him.

Then if it is true that upon our progress in holiness depends possibly our place in the Redeemer's kingdom, certainly our happiness here, and the glory of God in us, the subject of this volume cannot be unimportant to the believer. The time is short-how short God only knows-but short certainly; our sun perhaps is already on the horizon; or before it has reached the noon, some untimely blighting has chilled our frame, and left but little

vigor for the task, which in our days of capability we have done so idly; or if it is not so as yet, it would be unwise to wait till it shall❤ be; there are mornings of life which never have an evening. Shall we be content, when Jesus comes, to take the lowest and the farthest seat, while some who in knowledge and profession seem below us now, are bidden to go up higher?" This is indeed to want ambition such as saints may feel. But "already is the kingdom of God within us:" the days are lost that we delay to claim its freedom and to share its bliss. That heaven we anticipate, is but the perfecting of a bliss begun; every step we advance in holiness brings us nearer to the enjoyment of it. If we have not tasted it, it is because we have not reached after it. We have gazed so long upon our own deformity, we have forgotten the beauty we are required to transcribe into our bosoms. We have become so low, so indolent, under the sense of our own weakness, we have forgotten that in Jesus we have strength for everything.

How, then, is man to find out God? Where

are we to see, that we may copy it, the likeness in which we were created, and to which we were redeemed? In the abstract idea of God, there is nothing that humanity can com. pass. His creative power, his all-disposing wisdom, his undeserved bounty, and resistless vengeance these are all we know of God, and these we cannot imitate, for they are the attributes of Deity. But as God has manifested himself to us in the humanity of Christ, we have a perfect pattern, by which we may fully know what he would have us to be. In proportion as we resemble this, we are holy in his sight; and in proportion as we are holy we are happy. If it be but some faint, imperfect feature that we catch graven by his Spirit on the heart, it will be great gain on our abundant wretchedness. But he has promised more, he has commanded more; and though of ourselves we can do

as if we could do all.

nothing, we are to act

When the artist puts

the pencil into the pupil's hand, and bids him copy what he sees, he knows he cannot do it, but he means to teach him. So when our heavenly Father places himself in charac

ters of humanity before us, and bids us "be holy as he is holy, and pure as he is pure," he knows we cannot, but he intends to lead us forward, by almost ur conscious steps, to the attainment of that which he requires. He sets before us the object of imitation that, with eye intently fixed upon its beauty, we may love it more the longer we behold it, and grow insensibly to the likeness of what we love-still longing, still proceeding, but then only "satisfied, when we awake after his like. ness."

In the Object of Life.

"For I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me."-JOHN vi. 38.

No reasonable being acts without a motive. The veriest animal capable of choosing, is determined in his choice by something. It can not be that man should live without an object to which his actions tend, in which his purposes terminate, which determine his path, and impede him forward in it. Without this momentum communicated from without, the rational, deliberative spirit could no more choose a course and follow it, than the dead masses of the material universe could find themselves an orbit and maintain their motion in it, without the restraining force of gravitation. These inert bodies move as they are driven, and if some counter-influence supervene, they cannot choose but leave their course and follow it. Man has a power of resistance,