disinterested deeds, and all these are interesting qualities; but, remember, they are the gifts of nature, the endowments of your susceptible age. They are not virtue. God and the inward monitor ask for more. The question is, do you strive to confirm, into permanent principles, the generous sensibilities of the heart? Are you watchful to suppress the impetuous emotions, the resentments, the selfish passionateness, which are warring against your honorable feelings? Especially do you subject to your moral and religious convictions, the love of pleasure, the appetites, the passions, which form the great trials of youthful virtue?

Here is the field of conflict to which youth is summoned. Trust not to occasional impulses of benevolence, to constitutional courage, frankness, kindness, if you surrender yourselves basely to the temptations of your age. No man who has made any observation of life, but will tell you how often he has seen the promise of youth blasted; intellect, genius, honorable feeling, kind affection, overpowered and almost extinguished, through the want of moral strength, through a tame yielding to pleasure and the passions. Place no trust in your good propensities, unless these are fortified, and upheld, and improved by moral energy and self-control.

If any

To all of us, in truth, the same lesson comes. man will be Christ's disciple, sincerely good, and worthy to be named among the friends of virtue, if he will have inward peace and the consciousness of progress towards Heaven, he must deny himself, he must take the cross, and follow in the renunciation of every gain and pleasure inconsistent with the will of God.

LESSON CXLI.

Immortality the Reward of Virtue.-LINDSAY.

THE doctrines of that philosophy, which despises equally the probabilities of reason and the truths of revelation, are beyond description dreadful. They bring death to the soul here, by threatening it with death hereafter. They extinguish all the rising energies of the mind, and all the tenderest sympathies of the heart.

If I can believe these doctrines, then must I believe, that the first and strongest of all desires, the desire of living, has

been given only that the thought of its final disappointment, may destroy the relish of its present gratification. Then must I believe, that the human soul, which, in this state, can but just expand its germ, and put forth its blossoms, shall never realize its flattering promises of a harvest to come. Then must I believe, that all the best affections of nature obtain a sweet, but temporary and precarious indulgence, in the intercourses of friendship, and the endearments of domestic life, only that the idea of everlasting separation may come home upon the soul in more tremendous horror.

What is there-in the name of wisdom, what is there in the short and interrupted enjoyments of humanity, that could compensate for the anxiety and pain, which such ideas must occasion to the thoughtful, especially in those hours of sorrow, when all other consolations are unavailing, if not aided by the consolations of religion?

For myself, I would rather dream—if it were nothing but dreaming-I would rather dream a thousand and a thousand times the dream of immortality, than wake once to the reality, supposing it to be one, which would draw a terrific gloom over all those prospects, that mitigate the evils and enhance the joys of man. But a reality it cannot be, if there is a just and merciful God, who rules the universe, and has given to us the word of life.

Infidel, cease! tread not with daring step and cruel purpose, that hallowed ground, which upholds, and upholds well, whatever wisdom or affection values most. Respect, at least, the sensibilities of a wounded spirit, and leave to the mourner in Zion, O! leave him that faith, which alone can reconcile him to the death of others, which alone can fortify his courage in the prospect of his own, which alone can fill his heart with peace and joy in believing.

But why bespeak the forbearance of infidelity, when we may securely defy its most inveterate enmity? We are covered with the armor of God-we wield the weapons of everlasting truth. We stand upon that rock, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. We know in whom we have believed, and that He is able to keep the good thing which we commit to Him, till the fair dawning of that morn, which shall give us back all that has been excellent in wisdom and in virtue; all that has been pleasing to the eye of fancy, or dear to the heart of affection.

Yes, ye venerable worthies! who have enlightened and

improved the world, it was with this prospect before you, that ye consumed the midnight oil in laborious studiesthat ye exhausted the energies of your minds, and the strength of your bodies, in illustrating important truths, and communicating useful knowledge.

Ye too, who have suffered persecution for the sake of righteousness, who have nobly thought, and bravely died in the defence of truth—yes, ye fanned your holy ambition, ye nerved your high and generous resolves, by the desire and hope of that divine approbation, which will crown your labors with eternal triumph.

Ye shall not lose your expectation. We shall see you owned and proclaimed, in the midst of an assembled universe, by Him who was himself a voluntary victim to his love of truth and human happiness. We shall see you receive the crown of righteousness from His hands, whose doctrines inspired you with high purposes; whose spirit guided you in the execution of them, whose example taught you to labor and suffer for God and eternity.

And ye, whose silent virtues have adorned Christianity in the more humble walks of private life; whose gentle spirits and kind attentions have smoothed the brow of care, and sweetened the cup of enjoyment, and cheered the circle of domestic relations, ye shall not be forgotten by Him, who answered so well the prophet's description; who fed his flock like a shepherd; who gathered the lambs with his arm, and carried them in his bosom, and gently led those that were with young. He, who was meek and lowly in heart-who delighted in encouraging the timid, and confirming the doubtful-will bring you safely to the peaceful mansions of his Father's house, and restore to your sight, to your everlasting society, those objects, without which heaven itself would be but half a heaven to the heart of sensibility.