the outworks of religion; and more to our direct preaching and pastoral labors, for the conversion of sinners, and the augmentation of holiness in the Church of God?

With such a mainspring in the hearts, and preaching of God's ministry, revivals will multiply, and the harvest of the world will be planted and reaped; while without, all will be but a splendid formal machinery of unholiness, while the whole world lieth in wickedness, and the battle goes against the Church, and the glorious things spoken concerning Zion are deferred.

Oh, my brethren, what is the itching ear of mortals and the praise of men for brilliant classical sermons and splendid eloquence, which amuses the ear as a pleasant song or stilful music upon an instrument; but which awakens not the conscience, and pricks not the heart, and does not regenerate the soul by the power of the Spirit, and fit it for heaven. God grant that by this storm we may all be made more spiritual, more prayerful, more faithful, and more successful and happy, in winuing souls to Christ!

A TIME TO DIE.

ECCLESIASTES III. 2.

Death! 'tis a melancholy day
To those who have no God;
When the poor soul is forced away
To seek her last abode !

"A time to die!" Only one time. In seeking a fortune we may make new trials when we fail in one; but dying is one, solemn, final, eternal experiment! The voyager launches upon a shoreless dieth, and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where sea, and returns no more for ever to the land he leaves. "Man is he? As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up, so man lieth down and riseth not: till the heavens be no inore, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep!" The tide of life will roll on; the bustle of the world will continue; friends will meet in smiles, and part in tears, as before; flowers will bloom, and stars will shine; empires will arise and fall; the sower will walk forth and scatter in hope; the reaper will gather the sheaf to his bosom; autumn winds will moan, and fierce wintry storms will drive in anger past; the cheerful hearth will chime its crackling notes of comfort, with glad music of fireside joys; but by all this the dead are not disturbed, for "they have no more a portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun." They die, and are laid into the grave, and there all is to them alike.

The storm that wreaks the wintry sky
No more disturbs their calm repose,
Than summer evening's latest sigh

That shuts the rose.

It is somewhat strange that the truth of our mortality is so often. repeated in the Bible. "A time to die" is echoed into our ears again and again. It is because we are so prone to put the thought of dying away from us. Every day's experience teaches this truth. The tolling bell, the long funeral train, the garments of mourning, the new made grave, are daily testimonies that it is appointed unto man once to die. And yet, how soon is all forgotten! Scarce has the grass grown upon the grave of the departed, before even many of the relatives have ceased to feel that death is solemn. As when we throw a stone into a stream it causes a momentary sound and agitation of the surface, and then the stone lies silently below while the stream glides on as before; so when one falls by death, it causes a short groan, a tear, and a few thoughts of death and dying; but the sod is closed over, the sleeper lies in silence beneath, and the tide of life and human folly flows madly on!

The world around is also full of admonitory voices. The fading flower, the falling leaf, and the autumnal moans of the dying year all speak of death. We all do fade as a leaf, and as for man, he cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down! But man, bent upon the chase of wealth and honor, heeds not, though the tide of life ebbs fast from his heart.

Let us but step forward a little way in life and our death scenes will be around us. They will surely come. All the solemnity which we have witnessed in the death of others will be experienced by us. Who can realize fully the dread anxiety of the last moment? Solemn twilight, in which the dying rays of earth and the new-born light of heaven are blended! The world and life is full of changes, but there is no change like dying. How far is that moment from us? The answer is," man also knoweth not his time." A step, as thy soul liveth, is between thee and the grave! "As the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them." These figures are expressive. The fish in the net, while it is yet in the water, thinks he is still at liberty, and while the net is drawn towards the shore he knows not that he is snared, even while he is at the edge of the water he feels still in his element, when lo! at once he is raised above the surface and he is caught. He was in the net before, and was in reality caught, but now he feels it: so man swims in the midst of influences and tendencies which are preparing his dissolution, and when he is thus led to the very shore of eternity he is suddenly snared, and carried away. So also the bird walks upon the snare, and knoweth not that it is for its life, when at once it is caught. So also a blind man walks up to a precipice, and knows not that the next step will dash him upon the rocks below. Great God! how solemn thus to walk on the earth hollow with the caverns of the dead, and not know at what moment the frail shell upon which we stand may break down into eternal burnings! How knowest thou, O man, how far before thee stands

the stake which is to bound the days of your pilgrimage! Who has numbered your days and told you their sum? If you know not, why do you boast yourself of to-morrow, and say it shall be as this day. Why does vain man walk so proudly, so carelessly, and so madly forward, not knowing whether the next foot he puts down will be on earth, in heaven, or in hell! "Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass."

How shocking must thy summons be, O death!
To him that is at ease in his possessions;
Who counting on long years of pleasure here,
Is quite unfurnished for that world to come!

There must be some painful things in the death of a wicked man. Many untold horrors must gather around him in that fearful crisis. Of this the countenance of the corpse the moment after death bears awful witness. Who has not observed the difference in the countenance of the recently dead? The infant gathers a smile upon its face in the moment of death which it retains for days. Perhaps that smile is a response to the friendly greetings of angels who are waiting with friendly wing to bear the disembodied spirit to its God. Or it is caused by the sweet presence of the Saviour who stands by, as if kindly to reprove the weeping parents with those blessed words "suffer little children to come unto me." Not only in children, but in aged Christians who died ripe for glory, is the same phenomenon often witnessed. The smile of the spirit when it breaks through into glory is left behind impressed upon the lineaments of the face. But who has not witnessed the haggard and gloomy horror that death leaves behind it on the countenance of the man of sin who dies in despair? It seems, as if by some deep convulsion, the soul were expelled in shattered fragments from the body! The half-opened mouth, and the eyes fixed in wild astonishment denote that the soul at the moment of its exit has been fearfully surprised. And why should it not, when perhaps at the moment it realizes the thrilling truth, "thou art weighed in the balance and art found wanting !" O man of sin, in your life's last twilight hour, you will find around you images ill-boding and fearful, and dark-floating phantoms relieved in lurid fire, will be the landscape sketched ont before your dying eyes!

THE AMERICAN

NATIONAL PREACHER.

No. 12. VOL. XX.] DECEMBER, 1846. [WHOLE NO. 240.

SERMON CCCCXXXV.

BY THE REV. REUBEN TINCKER.
WESTFIELD, NEW-YORK.

THE RICH FOOL.

And he spake a parable unto them saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:

And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?

And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.

And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?

So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.-LUKE XII. 15-21.

JESUS CHRIST had been preaching to a large assembly, and on themes of the deepest importance. He warned his hearers against indulging in hypocrisy; and he encouraged an honest, open conduct, from the fact that everything is naked and opened to the eye of God; and that all efforts at concealment are vain; that deeds of darkness wil! stand forth in the light, and words spoken in secret be proclaimed on the house-tops. He dissuaded from the fear of man, and he inculcated the fear of God from the consideration that men could kill only the body, but that God could destroy also the soul. And not only should they stand in awe of the Being who is infinite in power, they should confide also in the providential care of Him who attends on the falling of a sparrow, and who numbers the hairs of our heads. He insisted, also, on the importance of confessing him before men, attaching to it the blessedness of being acknowledged by Him as his in the great day before God and angels; while, on the other hand, those who denied him here, he would for ever disown and reject hereafter. He labored to restrain them from speaking one word against the Holy Ghost, by the alarming assurance that such blasphemy would never be forgiven; while, if they spoke advisedly, the Holy Spirit would in return speak for them so readily and wisely, that they need not, when falsely accused, meditate their defence, or concern themselves as to what they should answer.

Such were the high and solemn themes of discourse treated of by Him, who felt their power, and who, in persuasiveness and solemnity, spake as never man spake. And one should, indeed, think it had been enough to have filled their hearts; and, at least for the time, to have divorced them from the trifles of this world; and that those who heard him, if they gave utterance to any sentiment, would have inquired earnestly, "Sir, what must I do to be saved?" Instead of this we hear, "Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me." Oh! the human heart! how fallen, how grovelling; how, on the brink of eternity, it makes excursions after its covetousness! how, in sight of heaven, it layeth up treasures on the earth!

Ambassadors for Christ are sometimes discouraged to find, that while treating with those to whom they are sent on "the grand concerns of judgment and of mercy," while they set before their hearers life and death-while they would awaken them by the terrors of the Lord, and win them to penitence and love by the cross of Jesus, they are discouraged to find that some who they address, sleep; that some are looking around to attract to their persons or their attire, the admiration of their fellow-creatures; and that others are lost in plans of vain amusement or of future gain. But let Christ's ministers remember, "the servant is not greater than his Lord, nor the disciple than his master." And let them not be discouraged, that under circumstances of deepest solemnity, the mouth. still speaketh from the abundance of the heart; that dividing inheritances occupies the hearer in this assembly, for it occupied the hearer of the great Teacher, the Lord from heaven. But instead of exclaiming in despair, "I labor in vain, and spend my strength for nought," let the want of success in what has been said increase the preacher's diligence in saying something more. Let him turn the worldly current, which flows out of a worldly heart, round among his audience, that they may see in it the plague of their own hearts; let the exhibitions of depravity thus afforded become a text from which to preach to them all a sermon adapted to their wants. Thus did Jesus. When covetousness protruded itself into the assembly,--when the inheritance was brought in to be divided, he did not say, "Away with it; name it not." But he assured them that that was not a work to which he was appointed; he was not a judge and a divider of their temporal possessions. And he proceeded to say, in a voice of solemn warning, "Take heed and beware of covetousness; for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." And not only did he announce this truth in the abstract, but he proceeded to illustrate and enforce it, by giving his auditory the history of a man who was rich; a man anxious and selfish, atheistical and shortlived, foolish and ruined.

I have already discoursed to you from the application made to Christ, and his refusal to arbitrate in regard to it. Also from the injunction, "Take heed and Leware of covetousness;" setting be