of the sons of prosperity is this the sad and melancholy history! Their plans in business succeed according to their designs and wishes. Their credit in society rises and is established. The greetings they meet in the scenes of public or commercial resort become more frequent and respectful. Their domestic accommodations and comforts are enlarged and multiplied. Their children aspire to better accomplishments, and to a higher circle than those who went before them. To use the beautiful language of Eastern song, they wash their footsteps in butter, and the rock pours them forth rivers of oil. All this is right; for he would indeed be a selfish and an envious man that would grudge to honourable industry its appropriate reward. But in the midst of this justly-earned prosperity, where is the natural and legitimate return to the kind and bountiful Author of it all? You go forth in the morning, and you return at evening, without looking up to the benevolent Power that led you out in hope, and brought you home with tidings of success. Your children are arrayed in the produce of your gains; but, oh! how often do you forget to tell them of Him who blessed their father's toil! Day after day passes off, and God is still forgotten. The sound of music is heard in your dwelling; but there is no note of praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. But, my friends, this dream of carelessness will not always last. A season is hastening on, when prosperity with all its happiness will lose its charms, and eternity with all its appalling realities will force itself on your thoughts. In that

solemn moment, all the accumulations of successful industry will be miserable comforters. Vanity indeed may whisper, that at least you have made ample provision for your children; but the bitter reflection will recur, that you have done nothing to guide them to the better inheritance. To approach the gateway of eternity, strangers to God and Christ; and to leave the dearest objects of your earthly love,―alas! the only love you have ever known, to wander careless like yourselves,—can you bear the thought? O that ye were wise, that ye understood this, that ye would consider your latter end! It is not too late to sanctify the prosperity that Providence has given. It is not too late to seek that favour which is life, and to become the objects of that loving-kindness which is better than life.

2. While many of the prosperous need to be thus warned and counselled, there are some of the children of God who, destitute of earthly prosperity, need encouragement and comfort. Worldly prosperity, we have seen, is by no means a usual attendant on the faithful. It is through much tribulation that they enter the kingdom. And wise and gracious purposes are answered by the distresses and sufferings of the children of God. Do not, then, repine at the circumstances in which you know it is the will of Heaven to place you. What though it be in a vale of tears that you are appointed to sojourn? an everlasting home awaits you in a region of unfading beauty and untroubled peace. It is but for a season you have to struggle with trial and infirmity.

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Endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. By the patience and resignation, the contentment and quietness, with which you bear your humble lot, let the world see what religion can do for them that know its principles and feel its power. Though your portion of earthly good be small, you have a large and enduring inheritance prepared for you. Though the earthly house of your tabernacle must be dissolved, you have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. He that spared not his own Son, but gave him for you, will with him give you all things.

3. There is yet a third class to whom the preceding reflections lead me to speak. I trust there are some here whose religious improvement corresponds with their worldly prosperity,-who, surrounded with wealth and all the comforts which wealth commands, have laid up for themselves treasures in heaven, and who can look beyond all the glitter of terrestrial joys to an unfading inheritance on high. Yours, my brethren, is indeed a happy lot! you are verily a people favoured of the Lord! Be grateful to the Providence that hath thus prospered your outward lot; but be more grateful still to that Grace which has protected you against the snares of prosperity, and guided you to the choice of that better part that shall never be taken from you. Walk as the children of such distinguishing mercy. Let the bodily health with which you are blessed be consecrated to the glory of Him that upholds you, and go about doing good. "Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the first

fruits of all thine increase." You have learned that you are but stewards of the goods of Providence, and you look forward with anxious thought to the day when you must give an account of your stewardship. Be it your daily prayer and unwearied effort to abound in good works. You are like a city set upon a hill; many eyes behold you, and many watch your example. Let your light so shine before men that they may glorify your father who is in heaven. And thus prospering and being in health, even as your souls prosper, you shall be honoured to evince that, how difficult soever it may be for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven, it is at least not impossible.

SERMON XVIII.

1 CORINTHIANS, i. 18.- "The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God."

PAUL had peculiar difficulties to encounter and overcome in the exercise of his office as an apostle of Christ. He had not only to meet and to resist that general disinclination which the love of sin awakens against a religion which proclaims indiscriminate and unaccommodating war against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man, he was the object of jealousy and hatred with certain false teachers, who, envying his success, sought to shake his credit and authority as a servant of God. One of these restless and aspiring spirits had found his way into the Church of Corinth, and had been exceedingly active in the work of mischief. He endeavoured to gain favour with the Corinthians by affecting to imitate the rhetorical refinement of which the Greeks were so passionately fond; and, underrating the peculiar discoveries of the Gospel, especially the doctrine of salvation through a crucified Messiah, he sought to charm them with a display of his knowledge of the boasted philosophy of the Grecian schools. He was but too successful in his unholy enterprise; for, although he did not succeed in leading the whole of the Corinthian