on trust; so it is in the great school of providence. There are hard lessons to be got in this school. As the pupil is often obliged to bend all his faculties to the task before him, and tears sometimes fall on the page he is studying; so it is in the school of God's providence; there are hard lessons in it.

In short, the whole course of human life is a conflict with difficulties; and if rightly conducted, a progress in improvement. In both these respects, inan holds a position peculiar, and distinct from that of the animal races. They are not at school. They never improve. With them too, all is facility; while with man comparatively, all is difficulty. Look at the anthill, or the hive of bees. See how the tenant of the one, is provided with feet, so constructed that he can run all over his house, outside and inside-no heavy and toilsome steps required to go upward or downward; and how the wings of the other, enable him to fly through the air, and achieve the journey of days in an hour. Man's steps compared with these, are the steps of toilsome endeavour.

Why is this so? Why is man clothed with this cumbrous mass of flesh? Because it is a more perfect instrument for the mind's culture, though that end is not to be wrought out without difficulty. Why are his steps slow and toilsome? Because they are the steps of improvement. Why is he at school? That he may learn. Why is the lesson hard? That he may rise high on the scale of advancement.

Nor is it ever too late for him to learn. This is a distinct consideration; but let me dwell a moment upon it in close. Nor, I say, is it ever too late for man to learn. If any man thinks that his time has gone by, let me take leave to contradict that dangerous as

sumption. Life is a school; the whole of life. There never comes a time, even amidst the decays of age, when it is fit to lay aside the eagerness of acquisition or the cheerfulness of endeavour. I protest utterly against the common idea of growing old. I hold that it is an unchristian, a heathen idea. It may befit those who expect to lay down and end their being in the grave, but not those who look upon the grave as the birth-place of immortality. I look for old age as, saving its infirmities, a cheerful and happy time. I think that the affections are often full as warm then, as they ever are. Well may the affections of piety be so! They are approaching near to the rest that remaineth; they almost grasp the prize that shall crown them; they are ready to say, with aged Simeon, "now let thy servant depart." The battle is almost fought; the victory is near at hand. "Why," does any one still ask 66 why does the battle press hard to the very end? Why is it ordained for man that he shall walk, all through the course of life, in patience and strife, and sometimes in darkness?" Because from patience is to come perfection. Because, from strife, is to come triumph. Because, from the dark cloud, is to come the lightning-flash, that opens the way to eternity'

Christian! hast thou been faithful in the school of life? Art thou faithful to all its lessons? Or hast thou, negligent man! been placed in this great school, only to learn nothing, and hast not cared whether thou didst learn or not. Have the years passed over thee, only to witness thy sloth and indifference? Hast thou been zealous to acquire every thing but virtue, but the favour of thy God?

But art thou faithful, Christian? God help thee to be yet more so, in years to come. And remember for

thine encouragement, what is written. "These things saith the first and the last, who was dead and is alive; I know thy works and tribulation and poverty, (but thou art rich ;) fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer; be faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown' of life."

XV.

ON THE VALUE OF LIFE.

(Preached on New-Year's day.)

AND JOB SPAKE AND SAID, LET THE DAY PERISH, WHEREIN I WAS BORN.Job iii. 2-3.

THERE is a worldly habit of viewing this life, and especially of depreciating its value, against which, in this discourse, I wish to contend. It is the view of life which many of the heathens entertained, and which better became them, than those who hold the faith of Christians. "When we reflect," says one of the Grecian sages, 66 on the destiny that awaits man on earth, we ought to bedew his cradle with our tears." Job's contempt of life, so energetically expressed in the chapter from which my text is taken, was of the same character. We may observe, however, that Job's contempt of life, consisted not with the views entertained by the children of the ancient dispensation, and was emphatically rebuked, in common with all his impious complaints, in the sequel of that affecting story. The birth of a child among the Hebrews was hailed with joy, and its birth-day was made a festival.

But there are times and seasons, events and influences in life, which awaken in many, sentiments similar to those of Job, and which require to be considered.

The sensibility of youth sometimes takes this direction. It is true, indeed, that, to the youthful mind,

life for a while is filled with brightness and hope. It is the promised season of activity and enjoyment, of manly independence, of successful business, or of glorious ambition; the season of noble enterprises and lofty attainments. There is a time, when the youthful fancy is kindling with the anticipations of an ideal world; when it is thinking of friendship and honour of another sort than those which are commonly found in the world; when its promised mansion is the abode of perfect happiness, and its paths as they stretch into life, seem to it as the paths that shine brighter and brighter forever.

But over all these glowing expectations, there usually comes, sooner or later, a dark eclipse; and it is in the first shock of disappointed hope, before the season of youth is yet fully past, that we are probably exposed to take the most opposite and disconsolate views of life. It is here that we find real, in opposition to factitious sentimentalism. Before this great shock to early hope comes, the sentimental character is apt to be affectation, and afterwards it is liable to be misanthropy. But now it is a genuine and ingenuous sorrow, at finding life so different from what it expected. There is a painful and unwelcome effort to give up many cherished habits of thinking about it. The mind encounters the chilling selfishness of the world, and it feels the miserable insufficiency of the world to satisfy its longings after happiness; and life loses many of the bright hues, that had gilded its morning season. Indeed, when we take into account the unwonted and multiplied cares of this period, the want of that familiarity and habit twhich renders the ways and manners

of life easy,

the difficulties and embarrassments that beset the youthful adventurer, the anxiety about establishing a character and taking a place in the world,