set forth, not to drive us to despair, but, in connection with a Father's forbearance, to incite and animate us to zeal, and self-sacrifice, and persevering diligence, in the pursuit of goodness. Let us feel that it is so; and so feeling, is there any good reason why we should not aim to discharge the great duty of obedience?

We cannot fail to be aware that the standard of virtue in society is loose and accommodating, and that we are continually in danger of being lulled into a life of spiritual indifference and mediocrity, which our conscience cannot approve. We have never yet, I speak to the consciences of those who have experienced aspirations after high virtue, we have never yet realized our intentions, or reached the attainment we had hoped. How deeply does this con

viction sting us at times, as we

survey our condition and

prospects! Shall it be so forever? Shall we be content to go on in this uncertain and vacillating course? Shall we suffer it always to be the case, that we are dissatisfied with ourselves, whenever we examine ourselves? There is no way to have it otherwise, but to receive a new conception of the nature of Christian obedience. It is not what we have carelessly regarded it. It is not what we have indolently thought it to be. It is absolute, universal, voluntary. us surrender our wills. Let us give our hearts. Let us have no will but that of God. Let us love his law. Let us delight ourselves in his statutes.

on, day and night.

Let

Let us meditate there

This it is which keeps us in such a state of sad deficienсу- our inclinations and purposes are not at one with the will of our God. This it is that makes us restless and dissatisfied- we obey him not heartily. Let us yield to him in all conduct and duty, just as implicitly and readily as we yield to the arrangement of day and night, summer and

winter; not dreaming of questioning or opposing his plain directions and laws: then all will be peace; there will be no opposition, no warfare between ourselves and God. Policy, interest, human opinion, appetite, passion, worldly custom, which have been to us so many masters, claiming our service, and dragging us to and fro with contrary commands, will no longer have dominion over us. We shall have but one master, and that the kindest and best; one law, and that the highest; one service, and that a perfect freedom. The serenity of our Redeemer, who did not his own will, will pass into our souls, and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, will keep our hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God.

I COUNT NOT MYSELF TO HAVE APPREHENDED; BUT THIS ONE THING I DO: FORGETTING THE THINGS WHICH ARE BEHIND, AND REACHING FORTH UNTO THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE BEFORE, I PRESS TOWARD THE MARK FOR THE PRIZE OF THE HIGH CALLING OF GOD IN CHRIST JESUS MY LORD.

"THE things which are behind, and the things which are before!" For so it is with us here. We are in the midst of things; not at rest, but passing onward; not at home, but travellers; not stationary inhabitants, but pilgrims and strangers on earth. We are going on from stage to stage, leaving on the road one scene of business and pleasure after another, and arriving at new. What was ours is ours no longer. What is ours will be soon gone from us. Behind us are our childhood, our youth, and our early homes, our first warm loves, our first bright hopes, our early innocence and our early sins; before us are the cares and trials of an unknown destiny, and the duties of an uncertain probation - bereavement, toil, sickness, age, death, judgment; behind us, ignorance, weakness, imperfection; before us, knowledge, virtue, perfection, or, it may be, worse ignorance, baser sin, and the loss of glory; — behind us, a few brief years; before us, eternity.

'And, as we pass onward in this unceasing progress, Time numbers our steps, and marks the advancement we have made. As he rapidly strides on, he holds out to us his glass, that we may note the running sands. To-day, as he turns it for another year, he bids us pause to look at the things that are behind and the things that are before, and to recollect ourselves before we go farther. It is well for us, a thoughtless and giddy race, that such moments arrive; that the sun runs a circle round the earth; and when he turns back from the extreme limit of his course, gives warning, by the shortening days, of the shortening term of life a warning that seems to reach us in the words of our text, Forget the things that are behind, and reach forth to those which are before.

Forget? How forget? Why forget? We cannot, we ought not, forget the home of our childhood, the cares of our parents, the faithfulness of friends, the kindness of God, the instructions, the warnings, and the blessings of the past. Every thing whose memory may make us better, we are bound to cherish. The apostle simply means that we should forget our attainments, forget that they are any thing; for, compared to what remains to be accomplished by us, they are nothing. Count them, therefore, as nothing. Rest not satisfied with what you have done, but press forward to that which you still have to do.

This is the caution which we are to gather from the language of our text, and which it is peculiarly proper that we should consider and apply at a season like this. It is one of the points in our course by which we reckon, as a traveller by the milestone. It is one of the marks by which we number our days," and by which we are reminded to "apply our hearts unto wisdom." We look back to the year which is closing behind us, and are ashamed at the scanty record of our Christian progress which it is sealing

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up for judgment. We look forward, and we cannot tell that the space of another year will be granted us, to complete the work that is given us to do. What can be more

suitable, at such a moment, than to consider the duty, suggested by the text, of continual improvement, and apply it to our consciences? May God give us grace to do it faithfully!

In leading your thoughts upon this subject, I will begin with stating some reasons for the duty.

1. And first of all, we may make the general remark, that Improvement is the universal law of God; to which every thing in nature, and all the arrangements of providence and grace, are conformed. Look where we will, we find nothing made perfect at once; scarcely any thing is stationary; all things are in a state of progress. This may be in a thousand ways illustrated, and in every illustration man may read a lesson of instruction for himself. The herb, the tree, the animal, spring from an insignificant beginning, and reach their perfect stature by a gradual progress. The day does not open on the eye in meridian splendor. The year does not burst into ripe maturity at once. The nation does not arrive at power and fame in a day..— To look more widely for instances. The earth on which we tread, with its tribes of plants and animals of every order, ascending in a beautiful scale to perfect man, has come to its present condition by a process of improvement. Our researches into its structure appear to prove, that, before it was brought out of the chaos mentioned by Moses, it had been already more than once inhabited and destroyed. The remains of its former tenants are found embedded in the ancient rocks. But amongst them are no remains of men. The world, at its several antecedent periods, seems to have been peopled successively by creatures more and more perfect, and man, the most perfect,