faction, if on reckoning with ourselves at the end of the day, or the week, or the year, on the application of our faculties and our time, we can foothe ourselves in reflecting that we have not fuffered them to lie idle, that we have not fquandered them away, that we have not mifemployed them, but have used them answerably to the will of God, and have accomplished many good and useful purposes with them! What a pleasure, when we can fay to ourfelves, that we have discharged our obligations, worthily maintained our post, that we have ferved and affifted fome of our fellow-creatures, that we have been the benefactor of our brethren! What a pleafure, when we may promise ourselves the respect, the affection, the gratitude of the whole fociety, and can accept and employ their reciprocal fervices, their testimonies of efteem and remunerations, with a good confcience, and with the grateful fentiment that we are not unworthy of them! And how greatly must all these pleasures contribute to the felicity of the individual! How pleasant to him must be the retrospect on his past, the enjoyment of his prefent, and the profpect of his future life! How boldly may he think on God, and how freely and confidently converse with men! How contented, how fatisfied must he be in the consciousness of his growth in inward perfection and the furvey of the good he has effected about him! How delicious muft each longer or fhorter recreation be to him, the enjoyment of each innocent pleasure, either fen

fual

fual or intellectual, fince he has earnt it by useful employment, and has not palled his appetite for it by too frequent an indulgence in this feasoning of life! Pure advantages, pure pleasures and fatisfactions, utterly unknown to the man without occupation, the idler. To him his faculties, his powers are often a burden. To him every day, every week, every year of his life, is alike empty of actions and events that might foothe and refresh his mind. Him the past afflicts, the present perplexes and the future confounds. And as often as he is forced to reflect upon himself, he must stand abashed before God and man. His very pleasures are monotonous and infipid. And how often is he cloyed of them, how often must he nauseate them! How great then must be the advantage in this refpect of the induftrious over the idle !

To fum up all, my pious hearers, a bufy life, conducted with intelligence, with regularity, with confcientiousness, and directed to the common intereft, is the beft preparation for a fuperior, a more perfect and more blissful state in the future world. The more we here unfold our capacities, and ftrengthen and improve our faculties by practice; in fo much greater and more important matters shall we there employ them; the more fhall we there be able to execute with them; the more quickly and easily shall we there march onwards to the mark of fupreme perfection. The more carefully and diligently we do in this province of the kingdom of

God,

God, what he has delivered us to perform; the more will he confide to us to tranfact and to use in other provinces of his kingdom. The more extenfively we here operate about us in views of general utility; fo much the larger the field of operation he there will affign us. The better we here allow ourfelves to be educated and formed by our heavenly father, the better will he be able to employ us there when we fhall have exchanged this ftate of infancy for manhood. Reft and refreshment without previous toil, payment without fervice, perfection without the best and faithfulleft ufe of our powers, blifs without an active, bufy life, can no more be thought of in heaven than it can upon earth, can there no more exist than here. What an encouraging profpect for the man that leads a life of bufinefs! And what a comfortless, melancholy idea for the flothful, who paffes his days in loitering and idleness.

And now, my pious hearers, take all this into your minds at one view, confider, that a bufy life exempts a man from the oppreffive load of liftloffnefs; that it fecures him from a thoufand follies and finful exceffes; that it most cogently incites him to unfold his capacities, to exert and exercife his faculties, and thereby induces and impels him to advance his perfection; that it furnishes him with means and opportunities of being ufeful to mankind in the greatest variety of ways, and of acquiring a vaft influence on the general intereft; that it is a rich fource of pleafure and happiness to himself;

that

that in fhort it prepares and fits him for a higher and better state and fay after all, whether a life of business is not of real, of great value; whether it is not far preferable to an inactive, idle, unoccupied life.

Certainly, my dear friends, this is the best, the nobleft use of life. Hereto are we ordained and called; hereto has God entrusted to us capacities and powers, and given us fo many urgent wants. Thus alone can we accomplish his will and be fubfervient to his purposes on earth. Thus alone can we become as perfect, as happy as man can be in the present state, and extract from this, usually fo fhort and uncertain a life, as much advantage as it is able to afford. Thus no moment of it paffes empty and unenjoyed away. Thus we as it were multiply our existence and lengthen our life. Thus we live and operate in others and through others, and frequently even to the latest posterity. Render therefore thanks to God, my dear friends, if he has placed you by his providence in a busy station, proportionate to your powers, and adequate to your time. Complain not of the multiplicity and trouble of it. Be not drowzy and indolent in the performance of it. It is fuited to the state of exercise and education we live in at prefent; and if you carry it on with understanding, with regularity, with confcientioufnefs, if you confider and treat it as a task affigned you by God, you will pursue it with fatiffaction and ease, and not without advantage.

Therefore,

pay

Therefore, long not for the imaginary happiness of an indolent repofe, as you would not foon severely for foolish wifh. Let it rather be to you, your as it was to our faviour, your meat, your pleasure, to perform what God has given you to do, to work indefatigably while yet it is day, left the gloomy night of affliction and forrow, or the impenetrable fhades of death, come on before you have finished your task. Be like the faithful fervants, whom their lord, at his coming, be it late or early, finds bufily employed in his service.