the rocks and fastnesses of habit; and this host of evil tempers and passions, warring against your happiness, and for ever to war against it, till conquered-this host there is no miracle to dispossess or overcome. Or shall I say that reflection, and effort, and self-denial, and watchfulness, and prayer, are the miracles that are to do it. Yes, they are miracles, too seldom seen; and when they are seen, and when they put forth all their strength, they are of no sudden operation; they must do their work slowly.

And yet, I say again, how short is the time in which they have to do their work! How short, at the longest, is the life in which these spiritual prodigies, and signs, and wonders, are to be wrought out! Let the departing year, ere yet it is gone for ever, again admonish us of the brevity of life-again tell us, that the time is short. How many things that we have done during this one brief year, shall remain upon the earth when we are gone! We have worked with the frail materials of earth, but they are stronger than we. The very leaf, on which we have written our bonds and deeds, or our testaments, or our thoughts of religion, truth, and wisdom-that very leaf, which the flame of a taper could consume in a moment, shall last longer than we. The very raiment which clothes us, though it be of the frailest texture, may be more enduring than we, and the feeble moth that consumes it may be our survivor. How truly is it said, that our foundation is in the dust, and that we are crushed before the moth! We have got gain, and we have builded houses, and we have proudly launched forth our ships, to have dominion over the seas; but our gains shall be for others; and these habitations which we have reared shall remain long after they have known us no more; and the ships we have builded shall breast the shock of the ocean billows, when the last wave of earthly trouble shall have passed over us for ever!

We have come

Once more let the departing year admonish us. together to receive its admonition. Let it not be in vain. It may be the last admonition of this kind that we shall ever receive. When the next message of the closing year comes to warn us, it may find us gone where admonitions never come. Now, therefore, let us be faithful. Now, let us resolve, while it is called to-day, and in every coming day, let us strive to do every spiritual work that our hand findeth to do, with all our might-without delay, without neglect, without any possible failure.

The time is short. How brief, how transitory, how evanescent is a year! So will life appear, when we stand on the borders, to us, of all earthly time. Look back upon the past year. It is gone like a dream! A few such dreams-and life itself is gone for ever! But there is one thing that can turn this unsubstantial and otherwise fearful dream of life, into a blessed reality; and that is steadfast virtue, humble piety, devoted prayer, the true service of God. So live then, that life be not a frightful dream to visit your soul hereafter with threatening and horror, but a blessed reality to bear you up to the regions of an immortal life.

REFLECTIONS AT THE CLOSE OF DAY.

GENESIS XXIV. 63: "And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at eventide." THE employment of the evening hour, here described, and attributed to the ancient patriarch, is variously represented by different commentators. Some say that he went out to meditate, others to pray, and others render it, that he went out simply to walk in the field at eventide. I have only to remark that there is no impropriety in supposing either of these to be the true meaning; and that all of them might be very naturally united in such an hour and place.

But be this as it may-I am about to propose to you some of those reflections which are suitable to the close of day.

I. And the first and most natural reflection to make at the return of the evening, is, on the blessings we have enjoyed: the blessings of nature, of existence, and the blessings with which life and the world are filled. To the contemplation of nature simply considered-to the contemplation of that grand display which every day's revolution opens to us, there is a prevailing indifference, arising, I think, from causes which are not altogether of a moral character. There have been so many fanciful and merely pretty descriptions of nature, as to have brought a kind of discredit on all professed meditations of this kind. It is almost felt as if it were the province of poets and sentimentalists only, with which common men on common occasions have little or nothing to do. And thus many of us, by a sort of formal maxim, have shut ourselves out from some of the most delightful and ennobling reflections. We have a natural obstacle to contend with, of sufficient strength, without creating any artificial ones. The commonness which attaches to everything in the world around us, has almost unavoidably tended to bring down all that is splendid, beautiful, and majestic in nature, to the character of what is tame, ordinary, and uninteresting. With what emotion does a man enter into some populous and magnificent city, which he has never before seen! With what enthusiasm do our travellers visit Rome, and survey its noble ruins of aqueducts, and temples, and triumphal arches! With what a fascination of the senses should we wander through some of those Oriental palaces or halls of which we read; amidst magnificent decorations of every material, form, and colouring-golden lamps, and resplendent mirrors, carved work and tapestry, and silken couches and carpets rich with all the dyes of the East; where luxury, and art, and imagination, have gathered all their treasures-where the air that circulates through them is loaded with perfume, and breathes with music:-we should

probably feel almost as if we were in another and ethereal world. And yet I do not hesitate to say, that all this is perfectly flat and insipid compared with what we witness in the revolution of every day! Let it only be new, let it be seen for the first time,-let the earth be surveyed in such a season as this which is now passing over us ;-let a being like ourselves be brought from some region where the sun never shone, where the fields were never clothed with verdure nor the trees with foliage; let him behold first, the glorious coming of the day, the golden East, the sun as he would burst from the clouds that wait upon his rising; let him look up to the heavens that spread in awful beauty and sublimity above him; let him gaze upon the earth around him with all its fair and various forms, its fresh verdure and flowery fields, its trees and forests, all waving in the breeze of morning; let him hear the song from the groves-the song of happiness that blends with all the sounds of the wakening earth; let him catch in his view the living streams as they flow, the extended plains, the majestic mountains, and then go forth

and survey the boundless tracts of ocean; let him wander the live-long day, through all this world of beauty and magnificence,-and how poor and meagre would be to him, all the works of human power and art! Would he not meditate, as he walked forth at the eventide of such a day? Would he not say, "What a day has this been! a day of wonders!" Would he not almost instinctively bow down in adoration and gratitude, and in language like that which the poet has put into the mouth of the first man who saw all this loveliness and glory, would he not say,

"These are thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almighty! thine this universal frame,

Thus wondrous fair. Thyself how wondrous then!
Unspeakable-who sittest above these heavens,
To us invisible, or dimly scen

In these thy lowest works; yet these declare

Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine.”

Another subject of reflection, appropriate to the eventide, is life; life I mean, now, as a blessing.

A day's existence, since there are innumerable days like it, is commonly regarded, I believe, as one of the most indifferent matters of reflection; as scarcely worthy of notice, unless it be to speak of its vanity and unimportance, and the little it has offered of what is either interesting or estimable. Such, alas! is the fruit of prevailing irreligion, If it be asked of most persons concerning the day that has passed over them, what it has offered that is worthy of note, it is common to hear it spoken of with the greatest indifference, and often with ennui and weariness. It seems to be thought of as a hasty and vanishing moment; and a moment too, which, if it had not been hasty, would have been far worse than indifferent or wearisome. I do not say, that we should be often making grave or sentimental comments on the day that is past; but I fear that the opposite habit of speaking-the light, or indifferent, or dull habit--but too well indicates the insensibility there is to the value of existence, to the value of a day.

Others may feel something of its value. In their evening offerings of thanksgiving, they may acknowledge the favour of God to them that they have lived another day. But how little-may it not be-that the

most considerate and devout feel the import of this acknowledgment! How great is the privilege of existence!-to live, to think, to be-to have come forth, as we have, from darkness, from nothingness, to the joyful precincts of life and light; to be clothed with these senses, mysterious ministers, that bring all nature around, subject to us- -all its fruits, its fair forms, its beautiful colours, its fragrance and its music, subject to our dominion. Doth not the ephemeral insect, that perishes in the hour or the day of its birth, that is confined to a little spot of earth, or pool of water-yet doth it not sport in the beams of life? Is not the winged creature, the frail passer-by of a season, buoyant and melodious, with the joy of its transient being? Hath not the goat upon the high hills-hath not the eagle on the mountain-top, a gift, for which he might well pay thanks, if he could do so? And what thanks, then, shall man render for his rational, religious, immortal being-man that he is, unlike the beasts of the field, capable of being thankful? Theirs is a life of sensation; his, a life of the soul. Their guidance and limit is instinct; he walks in the paths of knowledge, of improvement-yea, in the everlasting paths of improvement and hope. They shall pass away -from every valley and mountain, from every living stream, and every region of air, they shall quickly pass to the shades of eternal oblivion. But man that liveth now, shall live for ever. The day that is passing over him, belongs to a series of endless days and ages. What value shall he not attach to such an existence! What tribute of gratitude can be too profound, to mark its successive periods-its morning hour, and shades of evening!

I have spoken of nature and life, my friends; and besides their own intrinsic character and excellence, what blessings do they spread before us each day! How many are the testimonies of God's beneficence, in our condition and our nature, in our social relations, and individual experience, in occupation and in leisure, in business and recreation, in peace at home and safety abroad, in the pursuits and pleasures of daily activity, and the invitations of nightly repose! Perhaps we think not of all this, and we go to the kind rest that Heaven has provided, with complaint upon our lips. We say that we have many cares, and crosses, and vexations. And yet it may be, that there is no chamber of sickness in our dwelling, no suffering friend to sympathize with; no want at our daily board, no anguish of bereavement in our hearts. Oh! these would make us comprehend how favoured is the lot of health, and cheerfulness, and competence.

And yet, after all, how inadequate would be the best sense we could entertain of the blessings of a single day! Swiftly its hours and minutes pass, thickly its cares and occupations crowd upon us; but more swiftly do its mercies come, more closely do they press us on every side. The divisions of time, its minutes and instants, supply no measure, no means of enumeration for the benefits we receive. As each beating pulse is the signal of unnumbered movements in our animal frame, so the passing moments of life, mark, but do not count, innumerable operations and benefits in the universal frame of nature, and the countless tribes of living creatures. Ages of happiness are crowded into moments of God's goodness; and yet the moments of his goodness are lengthened out to everlasting ages. How precious are thy thoughts unto us, O God! how great is the sum of them! if we should

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count them, they are more in number than the sand; when we awake, we are still with thee."

Such are some of the thoughts of God's mercies, with which it would become us to close the day.

II. Of our faults and offences, it becomes us, in the next place, to think. Conscience has now its hour, and may, unmolested, do its office. It is a delicate monitor, and often, in the eagerness and hurry of our daily pursuits, it is trodden down, or passed by and neglected. But in the silence of evening, it has a distinct and audible voice. And for us, erring, sinning men, it is greatly wise to listen,

"To talk with our past hours,

And ask them what report they bore to heaven,

And how they might have borne more welcome news."

The ancient philosophers earnestly recommended to their followers, to appropriate a part of each evening to a review of the acquisitions of the day. But the Christian philosopher, who knows that there is something more important even than knowledge, and far more difficult to obtain, will more earnestly exhort his disciples to settle at the close of every day, the great moral account with it. This account is not to be satisfactorily settled in any general way; not by the vague acknowledgment that we are sinners, that we have our share, of course, in human imperfection, that we are frail and erring mortals like the rest. Our particular faults must be dealt with, not our general delinquencies only -our particular omissions of duty must be called to mind; forgetfulness towards our Creator, or injury to our fellow-beings, either in deed, word, or thought. Our errors and offences are daily repeated, and what chance exists of their correction, if they are not daily recollected, and resolved against? It is for want of this daily and specific consideration of their faults, that so many persons, and so many even who profess to be leading a religious life, go on, ten, twenty, or thirty years, without making any evident progress, without any material amendment of their bad tempers, or spiritual negligences-just as passionate, as avaricious, as selfish or worldly, as they were years ago. Who has not been alarmed, for his very capacity of moral improvement, at the frequent remark, so often made, and so sadly verified-that men continue through life very much what they were in their early dispositions? 'I see he is the same!" says some shrewd observer, and yet perhaps he speaks of one whom he knew forty years ago, and who, perhaps, during all these forty years, has imagined that he was a good Christian. But let it be known, that he is not, in any valuable sense, a good Christian, if he really be in all moral respects the same. He is not the true disciple of a thorough, spiritual, heart-searching conscience or Christianity. It is the nature of real religion to advance. It can no more rest than the rising light. It can no more fail to shine brighter and brighter. The doctrine of growth in grace is not an obsolete doctrine. It is the experience, it is the hope of every good man. It is his refuge from the gloom of utter wretchedness and despair.

I am not wandering from the subject. He who will, at every evening, seriously review the faults of the day, cannot fail, in process of time, to correct them-cannot fail to improve. And I know not how he can make this progress in any other way.