It may possibly be objected to these instances, that the men to whom they relate were enfeebled in health, and consequently disposed to take a more gloomy view than was necessary of their position, and unable, on that very account, to struggle with difficulty and trial. But to this the reply is obvious, that if the world is indeed all that its votaries believe, it ought to afford not only a passing joy when all is bright and prosperous, but a solace in sorrow and adversity as well. There are many instances, however, in which the confession has been wrung from men when no such plea could possibly be urged. One of the most remarkable of these is that of the celebrated Lord Chesterfield—a complete man of the world, and a thoroughly selfish one. He had everything, so far as this life was concerned, to make him happy; wealth, rank, literary tastes, a cultivated mind, influence with his own order, and general popularity. And he tested to the very utmost the world's power of making him happy; he denied himself no enjoyment, and it is to be feared no sin which he was inclined to indulge; yet, after all, this was his sad acknowledgment:-"I have run silly rounds of business and of pleasure, and have done with them all. I have enjoyed all the pleasures of the world, and consequently know their futility, and do not regret their loss. I appraise them at their real value, which is in truth very low; whereas those, who have not experienced them, always over-rate them. They only see the gay outside, and are dazzled with their glare; but I have been behind the scenes, and have seen the coarse pulleys and dirty ropes, which exhibit and move the gaudy machine. I have seen and smelt the tallow-candles which illuminate the whole decorations, to the astonishment and admiration of an ignorant audience. I look back on all that is past as one of those romantic dreams which opium commonly produces, and I have no wish to repeat the nauseous dose. I have been as wicked and as vain as Solomon, but am now at last able to feel and attest the truth of his reflection, that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Shall I tell you that I bear this situation with resignation and constancy? No. I bear it because I must, whether I will or no. I think of nothing but killing time the best way I can, now that time has become my enemy. It is my resolution to sleep in the carriage during the rest of life's journey."

One of the most striking and affecting chapters in the whole Bible is the second chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes. Look at the long catalogue of means and resources of happiness which the Royal Preacher enumerates: "I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine, yet acquainting mine heart

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with wisdom; and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life. I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits: I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees: I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces: I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem also : my wisdom remained with me. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour." Surely, it might be said, this man must be happy! Here are pleasures of sense, the gross and the refined; here is power; here is wealth; and, more than all, here is intellectual enjoyment. How can he be otherwise than happy? Read what follows: "Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, ALL WAS VANITY and VEXATION OF SPIRIT."

Comment is needless. These confessions speak for themselves. They are but a few of thousands which have been wrung from disappointed and weary hearts, and which prove, beyond doubt

"That not in natural or mental wealth

Is human happiness or grandeur found.
Attempt, how monstrous and how surely vain,
With things of earthly sort, with aught but God,
With aught but moral excellence, truth, and love,
To satisfy and fill the immortal soul!
Attempts, vain, inconceivably! attempt
To satisfy the ocean with a drop,

To marry immortality to death,

And with the unsubstantial shade of time

To fill the embrace of all eternity."

But there is true happiness for man even on earth, though it is not to be found in the world. It is to be found in CHRIST. He once said, and he says it still to every weary, broken heart, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He once said, and he says it still to every man who is longing for true peace, "If any man thirst, let

him come unto me and drink." Let us look for a moment or two at the nature and reality of the happiness which is to be secured by the soul that seeks it in Christ.

He first of all takes away the sense of guilt. We would put it to the soul, which is conscious of dissatisfaction and unrest, Has not the thought that you were exposed to God's displeasure had something to do with your weariness? The thought of God as your Judge filled you with terror, and you endeavoured to banish that thought from your mind. The Lord Jesus Christ can secure you a free and irreversible forgiveness. "The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth from all sin." And forgiven, you may look up with confidence and joy to heaven, and say, "He who reigns supreme in that heaven is now my Father and my Friend." So John Bunyan, describing Christian toiling on beneath his heavy load of guilt, says, "He ran thus till he came at a place somewhat ascending, and upon that place stood a Cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a Sepulchre. So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the Cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off from his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more. Then," he adds, 66 was Christian glad and lightsome, and said, with a merry heart, 'He hath given me rest by His sorrow, and life by His death.'"

Then, too, he changes the heart. His own Spirit rectifies the moral taste, so that the soul can appreciate and enjoy the purest pleasures; and then there are opened, for the soul so renewed, sources of the richest happiness. It is delivered from the pangs of an evil conscience; for, though still sensible of imperfections, its aim is to do all of God's will. There is a joy in every exercise of spiritual communion with God; there are the pleasures of holy activity and of rightly regulated affections; and there is a gladness which springs from those bright and glorious hopes of immortality with which the gospel fills the soul. The true Christian possesses a joy which, if he be true to himself, will be ever increasing, and which often rises so high that it is unspeakable and full of glory. It is a joy which has been tried. It has cheered the hearts of those who must otherwise have been involved in despairing woe. It has sustained the widow in her desolation; it has shed a halo of light around the couch of suffering; it has illumined the depths of dark and noisome dungeons; and amid all the tortures of the rack and the gibbet and the stake, thousands upon thousands have proved it to be undying and immortal as the soul itself. The joys of the world are like the mirage, which deludes the

thirsty and inexperienced traveller by what appears to him at the distance to be refreshing water, but which melts away as he approaches it, and leaves him nothing but the dry and burning sand; but the joys of true religion are a "fountain of living waters," whose streams can never fail.

It would be very easy to adduce facts in proof of all we now advance. Perhaps the testimony of those is likely to be of most value in such a connection who, having tried the world and found it vanity, have sought and found the peace and rest which they desired in the intelligent and devout service of God. One of the most interesting testimonies of this kind ever borne is that recorded by Doctor Doddridge in his life of Colonel Gardiner. In the Colonel's younger days he was, by his own confession, a gay and dissipated man. Profligacy and irreligion, indeed, prevailed amongst military men, and, indeed, amongst the higher classes generally, to a far greater extent than now. He was arrested, however, in a most remarkable manner in his career of vice, and brought to a saving acquaintance with the gospel of Christ. As might naturally be expected, the change excited no little attention, and exposed him to a large amount of ridicule. Unmoved, however, he held on his course. One day, at his own request, a number of his former associates were invited to meet him at dinner. During the dinner a good deal of raillery passed respecting his altered views and conduct, which for the time he left unnoticed; but afterwards, when the servants had withdrawn, he explained to them calmly and seriously the views which he entertained, declared his firm determination to regulate his conduct by the principles of the gospel, and then told them what his experience was as to the relative advantages and disadvantages of his present and former courses. He had run, he said, the widest round of sensual pleasure, with every advantage of vigorous health and exuberant spirits; yet in all he found nothing like true happiness. But that happiness he had found in religion. There reigned in his breast, he said, a calm and habitual serenity, and he looked forward with composure and even with pleasure to those solemn realities, which the gayest sinner must admit to be equally unavoidable and dreadful. They listened with respectful attention, and at length one of them exclaimed, "We thought this man mad, and he is in good earnest proving that we are so." And no man ever yet exchanged the service of the world and of sin for that of Christ, without finding a satisfaction and a joy which no language could describe.

Arthur Henry Hallam, the son of the great historian, died, we believe, at the early age of four and twenty. His memory

is enshrined in one of the most beautiful and touching poetic productions of the present day, the "In Memoriam" of his friend and brother-in-law, Alfred Tennyson. Amongst his papers, after his death, there was found the following: "Lord, I have viewed this world over, in which thou hast set me. I have tried how this and that thing will fit my spirit and the design of my creation, and can find nothing on which to rest, for nothing here doth itself rest; but such things as please me for awhile, in some degree vanish and flee as shadows from before me. Lo, I come to Thee, the Eternal Being, the Spring of Life, the Centre of Rest, the Stay of Creation, the Fulness of all Things. I join myself to Thee; with Thee I will lead my life and spend my days, with whom I am to dwell for ever; expecting, when my little time is over, to be taken up into thine own eternity." It was a right and wise decision; and the soul, whoever it be, that thus comes to God through Christ, will certainly find in him a perfect and everlasting rest.

"It is very true," some one may say; "I cannot tell how it is, but somehow or other I have not yet found the happiness for which I have been ever craving, and for which I am craving still. Many a time I thought I was just on the point of securing it, but it eluded me. It was not, as I expected, in pleasure; all my wealth has not yet procured it for me; and those honors, which render me the object of so much envy, are hollow and unsubstantial, and I am sometimes inclined to think, instead of bringing it in their train, remove it further off than ever." If such be your experience, you are not alone. Millions have felt just as you do, after they had made full proof of all the world could give them. It is not in the power of the world to give you the happiness you desire. Just as the dove let loose, while the waters of the Deluge still covered the earth, found no rest for the sole of her foot, till she found it once more in the ark, so will you find no rest till you find it in Christ. But he can give it you, and he is prepared to give it you Now. Believe in him, and there will spring up in your heart a joy which earthly care will not take away, which affliction will not destroy, and which, surviving the ravages of death itself, will gladden you for ever in that world where there is "fulness of joy," and where there are "pleasures for evermore."

J. F. SHAW, BOOKSELLER, SOUTHAMPTON ROW, AND
PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON:

AND W. INNES, BOOKSELLER, SOUTH HANOVER STREET, EDINBURGH.
London: J. & W. RIDER, Printers, 14, Bartholomew Close.