cious have been thy thoughts unto me, O God; how great is the sum of them."

The calendar of lost hours, how soon amounting to lost years, may at least warn us against adding to their number. They will set before us the things which we have done, and left undone; they will remind us of the vast number of the moments we have lived and lost to God, compared with those which, by any probability, we can hope to live and improve to Him for the future. The reflection that our Maker lent us every hour for his glory, that we have lost a scarce credible sum of them, without any increase of holiness and happiness, must, as we count them, produce the deepest feeling of penitence and contrition. We shall cry out with tears to Him who only can pay all that debt, Lord,

have mercy upon me; God be merciful to me a sinner.

Then he which had received the one talent came and said, I hid thy talent in the earth: his Lord answered and said, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him: cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness. Matt. xxv. 24, 25. 30.

of

Exhort one another daily, lest any you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Heb. iii. 13.

I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. Ps. lxxvii. 10.

Let me be weighed in an even ba

lance. So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Job xxxi. 6; Ps. xc. 12.

IV.

Be careful to read and pray unto God before reading any communication of this world. There is frequently more of hope, or care, or trouble, in the first worldly tidings of the morning, than in the long course of the day and they will divide the mind; they will break in and steal upon our holiest exercises. How soon does the mind, if discomposed or agitated the least, wander from the great end of its devotion, and become so lost as scarcely to be conscious that it is in prayer: sometimes we repeat the same petition we have offered, doubtful whether we have not offered it before in our forgetfulness.

Awful repetition! though awful yet most merciful! that the prayer should return to be uttered for a second time; we scarce know whence it cometh! to warn us of the guilt of our wandering, in God's awful presence, and of his still pitying and gracious waiting for our heart's offering, that He may not cast out our prayer, nor turn his mercy from us.

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. Matt. xxii. 37, 38.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness. Matt. vi. 33.

V.

If the works of the Lord are contemplated with devout adoration for their

beauty and glory, how much rather should we adore their awful and beneficent Creator! Shall the sun give light and joy upon the earth-and the earth, and the hills, and the woods rejoice-the fruits sustain, the flowers delight-the waters refresh us? and shall not there be more joy and glory and more delight to our souls in Him who made all these by his wisdom, and made them so glorious by the breath of his mouth? If there be an awful joy and love to Him in beholding his works, how shall we rejoice in communion with himself, and in his power to make us holy and happy!

O ye nights and days, bless ye the Lord, praise him and magnify him for ever. O ye spirits and souls of the righteous, bless ye the