mountain, or a drop of water to the ocean is small; yet the ocean is but a collection of such drops, and the mountain an assemblage of such particles; but what proportion is there betwixt a thousand years and that which never ends. Alas! the most of us are unmindful of this eter. nity. We are anxious about the manner in which life shall be spent, whether we shall move through the world in estimation or neglect, in affluence or poverty; but we seldom think, whether we shall live for ever in the joys of Heaven, or in the torments of the damned. The world hath no gain, and sin hath no pleasure to offer, which will influence him who looks on the rising smoke of everlasting burnings. One moment in that furnace hath more agony in it than the longest life in sin hath enjoyment. And religion cannot be said to demand too much from those to whom she promises pleasures evermore. Compared with the concerns of eternity, the cares of the world, and the most splendid projects of fleshly wisdom appear quite insignificant. Thus they are felt by the most ardent votaries of avarice and ambition in that hour when they look back on the world which they are quitting, and forward into the eternity on which they are about to enter.

Let us remember that every year brings us

nearer and nearer to the close of time, and that when we step into our graves we pass into eternity. Life is a stream rushing into that ocean; its motion is rapid of itself, and it is often quickened by violent gusts; we hear as we advance the surge breaking on the shore, and yet we act as if we should never reach it. "Oh that we were wise, that we understood this, that we would consider our latter end."

It would be improper to close this sketch without urging its readers to reflect how short life now is in comparison of what it was in the first age of the world. It is needless to state the theories by which men have endeavoured to account for this shortening of man's days, for it is wisest and best for us to resolve this into His appointment in whom we live, and move, and have our being. And his wisdom, and his goodness, are apparent in the change. The longevity of the patriarchs was necessary, that tradidion might communicate directly the origin of evil and the hope of mercy, but by writing in after ages, and by printing in modern times, race unto race are shewn God's wonders of old. Their longevity was necessary to replenish the newly-formed world; but had such a duration of life been continued, the earth would long ago have been over-peopled, and the most horrible

bloodshed and misery would have cursed our race. Besides, if the idea of living to seventy or eighty years, emboldens the young to pursue with such determination the indulgence of their appetites, the postponing our future account to ten times that duration, would render vice most audacious in its worst excesses. I may add, that the long continuance of those on earth, who by their power, and their crimes, are the scourges of the human race, would be a dreadful increase to the sorrows of this vale of tears. In the ages before the flood the means of life were easily procured, but the prolongation of life to their term of existence, would, in the present state of the earth and of society, subject the righteous to hardships, toils, and miseries under which their patience would sink, their virtue would fail, and their hope perish.

Let none then complain of an abridgment of life thus marked with mercy, mercy even to the impenitent; since in proportion to his continuance in sin will be the degree of his misery in the place of torment for ever; and peculiar mercy to the good in calling them early away to the joys of Heaven. Fretfulness may shorten life, but it can never extend it, and it will aggravate the miseries of our few and evil days.

Let us begin this instant preparation for eter

nity, for while threescore years and ten sum up the life of man, few arrive at that period. Few old men are to be seen in any assembly; a small corner of the churchyard would be sufficient for the graves of those who have come to hoar hairs, and almost the whole of it is devoted to infancy, youth, and manhood. Many an infant, after its first smile, or its first cry, goes hence, and is no more; the strength of manhood is crushed before the moth, and the gaiety of youth, like the hectic bloom of consumption, blossoms near the grave. Let us not waste in folly the time which duty demands, nor cast away on sin the heart which Jesus claims. Let every day be marked by those services of devotion, those acts of self-denial, those labours of love, those offices of sympathy, and those efforts of patience and zeal, which will bear testimony that we have lived no day in vain. Let us weep over our lost years, and begin this day a more serious improvement of time than ever. And let not the good despond under afflictions which will soon be terminated. The last tears of some are now dropping, and that bed is preparing for you where the weary are at rest. Let us run with patience the race set before us, looking unto Jesus, and let us pray that whatever God may withhold from us in a present world, he

may command on us the blessing out of Zion, life that shall never end.

NABOTH'S VINEYARD.

HISTORY should be the monitor of virtue. Its delineations of the characters of wicked men should be executed in such a manner as to excite the strongest abhorrence of iniquity, and to warn us against the methods by which temptation has overpowered the heart. Sacred history possesses this requisite in all its extent. It narrates the crimes of the wicked without the least colouring, either of partiality or prejudice, and, by pointing out their motives and their issue, it teaches us the necessity of controlling our passions, and steels the heart against all the allurements of sin, by the impressions which it produces of its horrible result.

The life of Ahab is in all its parts rich in moral instruction, and the sacred writers have recorded the transactions of it with peculiar minuteness; and though it must have been painful to them to have set forth such a series of crimes