hear from those lips that are soon to be sealed in death the pathetic entreaty, "Oh, pray!" can I refuse to pray? I do not; I cannot. Prayer is our duty; events are with God. But I must say, I will say -I will tell the negligent man beforehand, what I fear. I fear, I do fear, that such praying is nothing better than the supplication of our terror and despair! I fear that it is altogether an irrational and unauthorized praying! I fear that it is like praying that guilt, and even a whole life of it, may feel no enduring remorse, that sin may not be followed by sorrow, that vice may leap at once to the rewards of virtue, that the sword which a man has plunged into his bosom may not wound him, or that the envenomed draught he has taken may not poison! I fear that it is as if we should take our station on the banks of the mighty river that is pouring its accumulated waters into the ocean, and pray that they may turn back to their fountain-head; or as if we should gaze upon the descending sun in heaven, and pray that he may stand still in his course! I tremble with a strange misgiving, as if it were a praying not to God, but against God!

For, what is this prayer? It cannot harm us to make the inquiry now, before that crisis comes. What is this prayer? It is a prayer that the flow of moral habits may turn back to its source; that the great course of moral causes and effects may all be stopped; that the great laws of the moral universe may all be suspended. It is praying against many a solemn declaration of holy writ. And will it-I askwill the prayer be heard? Again I tremble at that question; again my misgivings come over me; I ask, but I know not what to answer. I know, in fact-I may conjecture and hope-but I know of no answer to that awful question, unless it be in this more awful language:— "Be not deceived"-it sounds like a warning in mine ear" be not deceived; God is not mocked:"-man's indulgence may flatter him; plausible systems of his own devising may encourage him to venture his soul upon an easier way of salvation: and weaker bands than those of almighty justice might have been escaped, but-" God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth "-not what he wishes when the seeds of sin are implanted, and have sprung up, have grown to maturity-I cannot read it so but "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

Tell me not the oft-repeated tale of a death-bed repentance. I turn to it an incredulous ear. What does it amount to, even when it comes with the kindest testimony of partial affection? Alas! it is doubtful, even in its utmost latitude, and in the moment when it claims our utmost sympathy. For what is it? It is, that the subject of this charitable judgment was willing to die, when to die was inevitable; that he sought for pardon, when he felt that he must be pardoned or perish in his sins; that he prayed, but it was when Atheists have prayer; that he hoped, ah! he hoped when it had become too terrible to despair!

And now what is the result? What is it that the issue of all this fearful, I cannot call it flattering, experience tells us? What is the fact on which this solemn conclusion, concerning the inefficacy of a death-bed repentance, rests? In many cases, it is revealed only in another world, and is beyond our scrutiny. But when it is known, I beg it may be solemnly considered what it is, and what is its bearing on the hopes of a death-bed repentance. The result is-and I speak, let it be repeated, of a fact-the result is almost without exception, in cases

H

where the subject of such experience recovers, that he returns to his old habits of living, without any, or any but a very slight and temporary change. In many such instances, where the experience has been very bright and convincing, the individual retains no recollection of anything he said, or was supposed to have felt. It was all a delirium. The moral state, as well as the mental state, was a delirium. And there is too much reason to fear that all such experience is a moral delirium, at best.-I would not willingly disturb, for one moment, the peace of a fond and anxious friendship. I will not speak of the state of those who are dead, but I must speak of the dangers of those who are living. And surely, if there are any, this side of the retributions of eternity, who could most fearfully warn you not to postpone religion to a dying hour, it would be those who have hung with anxious watchings around the last hours of the disobedient and irreligious, and have trembled, and prayed, and wept for their welfare!

My friends, I have only time to present to you and to myself one practical question; are we habitually ready to die? The question, my brethren, is not whether we expect to be ready at some future time. It is not whether we mean to be ready. It is not whether we are making the most solemn promises to ourselves that we will, sometime, set about the preparation for that great hour. But the question is, are we ready for it now? Are we habitually ready? Are we convinced that we are to be judged, not by some imaginary life which we intend, and intend, and for ever intend to lead, and which we never do lead, because we are always intending it are we convinced, I say, that we are to be judged, not by that imaginary life which we are for ever intending to lead, but by the life which we are now actually living? Have we given up the folly of expecting to do anything in future which we will not do now; of expecting to do that in sickness which we cannot do in health; of expecting to do that in death which we cannot do it life? Are we doing just as much to prepare as if the judgment were to depend on what we are doing-for it is to depend on what we are doing, and doing, and doing, through the whole of life as much, I say, as if the judgment were to depend on these hourly deeds which we are now performing, on these momentary feelings which we are now cherishing? If not, then there ought to be a revolution in our lives-call it conversion, regeneration, a change of heart-I care not by what name; but I say that there ought to be a revolution in our lives, of such magnitude and moment, that the eternal judgment only can declare it! Are we, then, habitually ready to die? If not habitually, we never are, for religion is a habit. If not habitually, if not at least habitually making ourselves ready, there is reason to fear that we never shall be; for life-do you not perceive?—is a tissue of thoughts, purposes, and feelings, which is growing stronger as it lengthens, so that the disinclination to prepare for death is growing every moment, while every moment the time for it lessens.

There is a vague notion-for it is the hope of all that death will not break into the midst of life- —a vague notion, with many, of retiring in advancing years from the cares and business of life to make this preparation, which involves great and hazardous mistake. They seem to think that the heart will become pure, and spiritual, and heavenly, as the state of life becomes quiet and free from the urgency of worldly

cares.

Delusive expectation!-as if all growth in nature were not most vigorous amidst calm and silence: as if, in like manner, the rooted passions of the soul were not likely to grow stronger and more stubborn amidst the silence and quietude of declining years! What is the fact? Did you ever see selfishness, or avarice, or a worldly mind, lose its accustomed power in such circumstances? On the contrary, we know-who has not witnessed sad and striking instances of it?-we know that nothing is more common than for avarice and worldliness to find strength in leisure, and freedom in retirement; that they fix a stronger grasp upon the decaying faculties, and fling their icy bonds over the soul amidst the winter of age. As well might the Ethiopian change his complexion by retiring from the scorching sun to his shaded hut; as soon might the leopard lose his spots barely by plunging into the solitudes of the wilderness, when the flood could not wash them away. -The waters of death are not waters of ablution, but rather do they give the colouring and complexion to our destiny. They are not a slow and oblivious stream, but rather a rushing torrent that bears us away before we are aware. Death comes suddenly to all. It does break sooner or later into the midst of life. It comes at a time when we think not. It comes, not when all our plans are ready for it; not with harbingers, and prophecies, and preparations; not with a heartthrilling message, saying," Set thy house in order, for this year thou shalt die;" no voice is in the infectious breath of the air that brings contagion and death with it; no coming step startles us when disease is approaching; no summoning hand knocks at the gate of life, when its last dread foe is about to enter its dark and guarded passages; no monitory conviction within, says, "This month, this week I shall die!" No, it comes at a time when we think not; it comes upon an unprepared hour, unless our life be preparation; it finds us with all our faults, with all our sins about us; it finds us that which life has made usfinds us such as the very action, habit, and spirit of life have made us -and bids us die such as we lived!

Who of you will meet his end when he expects it? Perhaps not one. Or, if you should, how solemn a message would you address to the living! Who of us has, in our own apprehension, been brought to such a crisis, but has had thoughts, which no language can utter, on this momentous concern? We felt that then was not the time to prepare. "Oh! not now-not here!" is the language of the dying man, as, with broken utterance, and the failing and faltering breath of life he testifies his last conviction, "Not now-not here, is the place or the time to prepare for death!" And he feels, too, that all which the world contains vanishes into nothing compared with this preparation! Are we then prepared?-not by a preternatural or extravagant state of feeling; not by glooms, nor by raptures, nor by any assurance, nor by any horror of mind; but by the habitual and calm discharge of our duty, by labours of kindness, by the spirit of devotion, by a temper of mind kindred to that heaven which we hope to enter! Are we thus ready, every day, every hour? On the exchange, in the office, in the study, in the house, and by the way; in the workshop, and in the field, are we ever ready? Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when he cometh, shall find watching; and if he shall come in the second watch or in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants."

ON DELAY IN RELIGION.

ACTS xxiv. 25: "Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee."

THUS answered Felix when Paul "reasoned of righteousness, and temperance, and judgment to come." So impressive was the expostulation that, as we are told, "Felix trembled ;" and yet so strong was his love of indulgence and ease, that, though shaken by the terrors of conscience, he could say, "Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee."

This, my friends, is not a solitary instance in the history of human conduct. Felix, the easy sensualist, the self-indulging worldling, the negligent excuser of himself, has more followers, we must fear, than Paul, the fearless preacher. There are more to resist the voice of conscience than to urge its reproof.

Yet there are times of admonition-even though the lips of every other teacher were silent-there are times of God's admonition that come to all. The events of life, or the fears of death, sometimes arouse the most careless. The stern call of adversity compels attention; or the time of escape from danger, of relief from sickness, or of full and overflowing prosperity, touches with ingenuous feeling, the minds of the most thoughtless. There are seasons, too, of more than ordinary reflection. The conviction sometimes comes with power-we hardly know whence it comes-that our life is hasting away, and that but little time is left to fulfil its duties and to secure its better hopes; or else conscience-like the preacher in our text-conscience comes forth from its prison of long confinement and silence, and reasons with the guilty heart, of righteousness, and temperance, and judgment to come, till it trembles. Alas! that these eventful hours and moments should glide away like other moments and hours of life, and be lost in the tide of common affairs and events! Yet it is even so. The greatest and most solemn feelings of the human heart may pass away and leave no deeper trace than its most idle fancies. Felix trembled; and Agrippa afterwards said in the same judgment-hall, to the same preacher, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian;" and yet these declarations are not the record of the lives of these men, but the record of one awful moment. Again the world rushed in with its cares and pleasures; again indulgence pleaded and pride flattered; and the moment the moment of promise and of peril-was lost, lost never to be recovered, never to be recalled, perhaps, till the great judgment shall reveal its unspeakable solemnity and consequence.

And do you ask how it is that the most precious moments of our earthly existence are thus lost; how it is that the embryo purposes of duty are destroyed; how it is that what are seemingly the very epochs of our improvement-how it is that the fairest signals of hope become

the monuments of our shame and condemnation? I answer, in the language of all experience and of all Scripture, the reason is to be found in the plea of delay. It is not because any one resolves upon sinning and suffering the penalty, but it is because every one is promising future amendment. It is not because the human heart can boldly and imperatively silence the "strong monitions" of conscience, but because it can evade them-because it can say to each one of them, successively, "Go thy way for this time. Go thy way, not for ever;" that were too fearful to say; "not for ever-oh no: I will call thee back again; when there is a convénient season I will call for thee; but go thy way for this time."

Let us, then, endeavour to spread out a little this plea of delay, and consider in some particulars its nature.

In the path of transgression, the traveller is always in straits of difficulty, which urge him forward. His way on either side is hedged up, and to his own apprehension, he is always put under the necessity of proceeding. Now this would render him extremely uneasy, and would be quite intolerable, indeed, if the case were never to be any better. But though he is rushing on in a narrow and headlong passage, he always descries a point before him, where, to the eye of his imagination, the path becomes wider; some fair and tranquil spot where he will have leisure to pause and consider. There is never-there never was-there never will be-a course of sinful indulgence, or of sinful neglect, but it has, and for ever will have, marked out somewhere in its progress, the more convenient season. There is always a period, but it is never present-there is always a period coming when temptation is to intermit its power; when the ever-besetting obstacles to present duty are to be withdrawn. "It is true," says the victim of procrastination, "it is true that religion is a thing which ought to be attended to, and must be; it is true, for instance, that this act of piety, or benevolence, ought to be performed, or that extravagance or indulgence ought to be laid aside, but a number of circumstances," he says, "for the present render it particularly inconvenient. In a little time things will change for the better, and then the matter shall most assuredly be attended to."

Or else some evil habit-this very procrastination, indeed, becomes a habit, and one of the most fatal-but some habit of sensual vice is stealing upon the man, who yet maintains an outward decency; and he intends to maintain it. No man in the world less intends to become the victim of violent passion and vile profligacy. But now is not the convenient season to reform. When this time of trouble or of provocation has passed by, for which, at present, he says, "some solace is needed, or some indulgence is lawful," then the evil is to be manfully resisted. Or perhaps the subject of duty is viewed on a larger scale. There are many who feel that they ought to do much more to preparc for a future state than they have been wont to do. They feel that they are not yet Christians; that religion is not with them the concern of chief interest; that prayer is not their pleasure; that God is not the supreme object of love, and fear, and obedience. Something is yet to be done. They are yet to pray, and to care for the soul. They do not intend to leave the world in total neglect of the great and sublime purpose for which they were sent into it. They dare not meet the God of life and of judgment thus. But for the present, the cares of this