tells us we are mortal; though, like Felix, we defer the consideration of our eternal destiny to some future opportunity, which we may never chance to find; yet in spite of all our procrastination and wilful forgetfulness, the steps of the destroyer, will one day, we know not how soon, be found within our dwellings; and however unprepared we may be for his coming, no entreaties, no supplications, will induce him to delay his visit even for a moment.

But this is not all. Death is not annihilation. If it were, the worldling might perhaps console himself in this time of fear, with the miserable solace of an eternal sleep. But the portals of the grave lead not, God be praised, into the land of nothingness. They are, on the contrary, but the entrance into a state of being, which will be without end or change. Yet is there one fearful trial, which every departed soul must undergo, ere it procures admission into those mansions of endless existence, which are to be its portion for ever. After death, comes the judgment. This solemn truth, is impressed upon us in every page of God's revelations; to it, as to a beacon light, are we directed to shape our course. Much more is unfolded respecting its nature and design, than is revealed concerning any other event or circumstance which belongs to the world of spirits. The judge of that resplendent yet terrible tribu

nal is declared; the solemn splendours which will surround his throne of glory are displayed to our view, as far, at least, as heaven's magnificence can be depicted in mortal language. It is not hidden from us, that the earth shall open, and the mouldering tenants of her countless tombs, rise from the bed of corruption in which they have lain so long. We know too, that the ocean, that fathomless grave, whose mighty surface bears not a mound, to tell of the myriads of uncoffined dead who sleep beneath its waters, shall restore the victims, who found their last earthly resting-place in the dens of that Leviathan, which thou, O God, hast made to riot in its boundless wastes. These unnumbered multitudes will be ranged before that awful judgment seat, to hear the sentence pronounced, which will doom them to everlasting woe or everlasting joy. Amid these anxious and trembling hosts, must every one of us be found. We are all today, my brethren, living and breathing mortals; all probably forming our plans of future profit or future pleasure; all, I fear, too occupied in devising schemes, which have a reference only to earth and earthly considerations. Yet there shall we also stand. When that day shall come, no artifice can hide, no arm can shield us, from the glance of the eternal and omnipotent. We may call upon the rocks to overwhelm, and the

mountains to cover us, but we shall call in vain.

And where will be the fruits of those gratifications and engagements, which now employ so large a portion of our time; which draw our minds away from God; and tend so powerfully to banish from our thoughts, the remembrance of this day of his final reckoning with his creatures? Look at the man of pleasure or of ambition now. Where are the luxuries which have pampered, or the high flown hopes which have lured him on? In this hour of dread and dismay, spread the choicest dainties on the board of festivity; fill the wine cup with the most luscious liquors; gather the sensualist and the voluptuary from the assembled throng, and place them before the banquet. Say, will they taste it? Not one morsel, my brethren, not one drop of that intoxicating goblet, which on earth they were wont to drain so deeply. And if the aspirant after fame or human dignity, be called to pluck even a crown from the heaps of empty diadems, which the monarchs of the world have sought and worn, will he now seize the prize, so long and so ardently desired? It would be vain and useless here. It would be worse than madness, to assume the pomp and pageantry of earth, before the King of kings and Lord of lords. Look at the miser too; the man who has toiled and con

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trived, aye, and even prayed for gold. Has he brought his coffers with him, to pay a ransom for a life mis-spent? Place his hoarded heaps beside him; tell him of the fair and wide domains which once owned him as their master; and bid him seek comfort, if he can, in the contemplation of his wealth. Think you he will find it? Think you that the richest gifts of mammon, can buy one drop of water to cool the sinner's tongue? And the Sceptic too, the miserable unbeliever-where is his boasting now? He who once derided the revelations of his God; who dared to pride himself upon his own superior wisdom, and to mock the Redeemer even upon his cross of mercy; how will his impious railings, his fine-spun subtleties, support his spirit, when that Redeemer comes a second time to judge the world? His idiot theories might be praised and followed here; his wayward fancies might find disciples amongst the erring children of mortality; and the incense of their praise might shed a false fragrance around the path of his earthly wanderings, and fall even upon the silence of his grave. But who will applaud him inthe day of judgment? Who in this hour of his last and longest need, will stand by his side who has denied and despised the great God of heaven and earth?

It is in truth, my brethren, an awful and an important consideration, to reflect that they on

whom the world is wont to look with esteem and envy, may be thus destitute, thus feeble and helpless, in the day when the master comes to reckon with his servants. If wealth, if pleasure, if all those thousand ends and objects, for which we toil so hardly and so anxiously, can give no confidence, can bestow no comfort; the trembling spirit may inquire, what can? If neither the rich, nor the proud, nor the noble, nor the mighty, can in virtue of these qualifications stand upright in the presence of the eternal judge, you may seek perhaps to know, what are those endowments which can give boldness in this day of judgment? Who are they, it may be asked, who will abide in hope, when so many of the most exalted of the earth, are put to shame and confusion? What course of living, what discipline of the soul, must be practised in our mortal sojourning, that we may stand unhurt in this final consummation of all things? The words of our text will, if taken in connection with the passage to which they belong, give a full and satisfactory answer to the enquiry. "Herein" says St. John, "is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment." You see how he directs the thoughts and energies of Christians towards this prize of their high calling, a life of happiness to come. He tells them, that their love to God and his eternal and ever blessed