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MOODY BROTHERS,

PRINTERS, 12, CANNON STREET,

BIRMINGHAM.

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The Ecclesiastical Observer.

THE RIVER ROLLS ON.

TIME has been compared to a river; and the comparison is apt and beautiful. As the river's current is often imperceptible, so with time: it is only now and then that we realize its flow. But the arrangements of Providence are such that none can live long without a reminder that the River of Time rolls on.

AUTUMN, with its fading flowers and falling leaves, reminds us that time is flowing. As we watch the sere leaves whirling and circling to the ground, a pensive, half-sad half-melancholy feeling involuntarily takes possession of the mind. We observed those same leaves as they budded in the spring, and saw them gradually develope into the green and gor geous foliage of summer. Now they are withered and strewn along the pathway, and, as they rustle along before the wind, they preach a sermon on the swift, the ceaseless flow of time.

The NEW YEAR, too, is calculated to remind us that time is flowing. Ah, the New Year has a voice that but few can entirely drown! Many, as they hear the midnight bell tolling slowly and solemnly the knell of the departing year, inwardly, if not audibly, exclaim-"Dear me, so another year is gone! How swiftly it has passed! Every year seems to fly past quicker than its predecessor."

Our BIRTHDAY anniversary is also calculated to remind us that time is always flowing. Every returning birthday is a messenger sent from God. It comes with a voice from the Eternal. It comes with a warning voice, too. Some of us like to sing that beautiful hymn, the chorus of which ends with—“ A day's march nearer home;" but we can then sing—“ A year's march nearer home." If saved, it is so; but, if not saved through Christ, then the opposite of this is true: we are only a year's march nearer hell. Careless sinner! this is an awful, a startling thought. Be warned by it in time. "Seek the Lord while he may be found: call upon him while he is near."

The DEATH OF FRIENDS is also calculated to remind us that time is always flowing.

"Friend after friend departs—

Who hath not lost a friend ?
There is no union here of hearts

That finds not here an end."

Observer, Jan. 1, '72.

We all know what it is to have lost a friend. We remember when the flush of health mantled on the cheek, and every limb was replete with the vigour of life. Gradually, however, the bloom of health gave place to the pale hue which generally accompanies disease; the strength gave way, and the eye no longer sparkled as before. Long and lingering was the illness which followed, and at last it became clear to all that death was in the cup. We saw the sunken cheeks, the hollow, sepulchral eyes and the wasted frame; and oh! what hours of anxiety and anguish we spent as we clung to the sinking one, now dearer to us than life. At last a cold, clammy sweat gathered on the brow, the breathing became broken and heavy, then a convulsive shudder, and all was over-our friend was no more! And we have never forgotten the cold tremor which ran through our frame as we laid our hand upon the cold clay-all that remained of the loved one gone. Ah! such death-beds cry-loudly cry-" Time is always flowing, redeem it while you may." The winding sheet criesPrepare to meet thy God; and the hollow sepulchre echoes back— Prepare, prepare, prepare to meet thy God."

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GREY HAIRS are also calculated to remind us that time is always flowing. If we refuse to hear the warning voices of Autumn leaves and New Years-if we turn a deaf ear to the sermons which every Birthday preaches and which are so impressively repeated on every Death-bed-God often sends other messengers to ring the awful truth into our ears. Instead of sending the sere leaves of autumn, He sends the sere leaves of life-grey hairs. Ah! surely none can look upon those blossoms for the grave without reflecting on the shortness of human life and the rapid flow of time. Old man! Old Woman! those grey hairs are messengers from the God who has so mercifully spared you up to this present: they are hoary and venerable evangelists silently, yet most eloquently, proclaiming that "the Lord is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." Young Man! Young Woman! those grey hairs preach loudly to you. The burden of their sermon is this "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them." And let us beware lest we should ever lightly trifle with or slight those grey hairs.

But it is possible for some of my readers to be in the position described by the prophet" Grey hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth it not." Ah! you may refuse to hear the solemn voices of Autumn leaves, of New Years, of Birthdays, Dying Beds and Grey Hairs, and under some strange delusion imagine that time with you is just the same. But your own dying bed will break forever the fatal spell. Then you will awaken to something like an adequate conception of the real, the priceless value of time; then you will realize the fact that time never stands still, never loiters, but flows always, and always onwards; and you will bitterly regret that you have been so long oblivious of the fact. Listen, then, O listen to this friendly warning. With a new year begin a new life- —a life of faith in the Son of God, who loved you and gave Himself for you. All on this river are borne on to one of two destinies.

Time, then, is ever flowing. It may be imperceptibly, still it is ever flowing and bearing us all on its bosom. And whither is it bearing us? Whither! O whither? Whither, dear readers! O whither are you steering on time's fast-flowing river? There are but two ports, and in one of

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