the hours of reflection, and a useless cumberer of the ground. Nor can he find any palliation of his folly in the plea that he finds nothing to do. There is ever enough to employ usefully the hours of every one's life. Go, cultivate and expand the noble faculties which thy Creator hath given thee. Go, call into exercise and useful application the powers that lie dormant in thy nature. Go, search the pages of wisdom; traverse the regions of truth, and by acquisition of knowledge, lay the foundation of future usefulness to thy country, and the world. Go, seek the Most High God, thy Maker and Redeemer. Consider, studiously, what it is that he requireth of thee, in order that thou mayest spend wisely the years of this fleeting life. Go, bring to the habitation of thy parents the reviving fragrance of a good name, and get to thyself the habit in which thou mayest emulate angels, the habit of industriously doing good. Go, and do this, and much more that is equally obvious and worthy of thee, before thou complainest in apology for thy indolence, that thou findest nothing to do. Unhappy the youth in whose mouth is this delusive plea. For him the best years of life will pass away without furnishing the foundations of respectability and comfort. On him neither peace nor prosperity, neither public esteem nor self-satisfaction will ever wait; but in their stead that contempt which the common sense of society fastens upon those who have no object nor employment, and that weariness, dissatisfaction and self-reproach, to which the Almighty, in his justice, generally exposes the inactive. With great propriety, therefore, has experience always recommended to the young a definite pursuit, and diligent occupation, and it is with striking and apposite acuteness, that Solomon represents the field of the slothful, as the same ground with the vineyard of the man "void of understanding."

Thus, I have set before you some of the qualities which indicate the character in the text. As you have accompanied me in these observations, you have perceived and felt, that they are qualities by which human nature is degraded; prosperity, improvement, and happiness frustrated, and the best hopes of so

ciety, the hopes which depend upon the rising generation, most unhappily blasted. Be induced, then, my young friends, to use industriously the morning of your lives. Let not your attention be absorbed, and your ambition satisfied with external decorations and distinctions. As you would avoid taking firebrands into your bosoms, guard against admitting to the near intimacies of friendship, the unprincipled and vicious. With a discretion worthy of your rational and immortal natures, flee youthful lusts, and avoid the resorts of pollution and abasement. Above all things, know you the God of your fathers, and serve him with a perfect heart, and with a willing mind. Cherish for religion that respect which you would cherish for the guardian of your race, and the arrows which are aimed at her name or services, consider them as aimed at the shades of your forefathers, and at the dearest interests of the world. Then shall the hearts of your parents be gladdened with the knowledge of your wisdom and discretion; then shall your country find in you, her glory and defence; then shall the Church rest upon you, as her strong and affectionate supporters; then shall your bosoms be filled with self-approbation, and the peace of God; then, at whatever period death shall remove you to other duties, and other worlds, you shall not depart prematurely; for honourable age is not that which standeth in length of days, nor that is measured by number of years, but wisdom is the gray hair unto men, and unspotted life is old age.

SERMON XLVII.

ON THE DISTRESSES OF THE POOR IN WINTER.

ST. MARK, xiii. 18.

'Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter.”

OUR blessed Lord is, in this chapter, informing his disciples

of the awful calamities which should come upon Jerusalem after his ascension; calamities, "such as had not been since the creation" of the world "to that time, neither should be" afterwards. Of these evils he forewarns them, and instructs them how to act for their own escape and preservation. Among other precepts which he gave them, "Pray ye," says the compassionate Saviour, "that your flight be not in the winter."

At this inclement season,* these words do the more forcibly strike our attention. Let us meditate upon them. They will present some topics to our minds, worthy of our consideration.

And, in the first place, they remind us of the severities of winter. This cold and hoary monarch is not content with stripping the earth of all its vegetative beauty, and covering it with a dreary garb, he compels the beings who have life and inherent warmth, to bow beneath his icy sceptre. The beasts are mute and chilled; the birds flee to their coverts; and man, feeling in winter the awful power of God, cries, "Who can stand before his cold?" In this season, the exposed and the destitute endure

* This Discourse was preached in Charleston, in a rigorous winter, after a fall of snow.

peculiar hardships. The wandering traveller plods comfortless on his way; the poor seaman eyes the billows with horror, and shivers in the storm. To the children of want it is a time of complicated wretchedness. They feel, alas! that winter furnishes poverty with fangs which she has at no other season.

But amidst all the severities of winter we may discover the benevolence of God. How wonderful is that goodness which leads, instinctively, a part of the animal tribes from the inhospitality of a wintry region, to milder climes! How equally tender is that kindness which tempers the bleak and frosty winds, to the sides of the little birds, and more helpless beasts, which he has taught to remain! How gracious is that providence which causes the earth, in the seasons of her fertility, to produce a suf ficient provision for the dreary months, when winter will check her fertility, and bind her furrows with frost! How merciful is that forethought which has stored a marvellous element in the forest and the bowels of the earth, to furnish man, when the sun departs from his zenith, with a pleasant substitute for the warmth of his beams. And when we consider how many human beings are exposed, some tossed at sea, amidst the horrors of the waves and fierce raging of the storms; others, naked on the land to the scourgings of the tempest, and oppressed with the hardships, beneath which, it should seem, that human nature would sink; when we contemplate these exposures of multitudes of our race, and behold them brought through all the dangers and sufferings of the season, to the joys and hopes of spring, who sees not that the God who rules the winter is the same merciful God who rules the year? The displays of his power are, indeed, at this season, more awful. We see him in the terrors of his might. But he is nevertheless kind.

Which leads me to another thing which the text suggests, that to him all men, and especially those "who are in danger and necessity," apply for protection "from the evils to which they may be exposed." It is God who causeth the winter. "He giveth snow like wool, and scattereth the hoar frost like ashes." Again. "He sendeth forth his word and melteth

them; he bloweth with his wind and the waters flow." He therefore has power to mitigate the rigours of our condition. To him the Redeemer sends his disciples for preservation from the calamities to which winter might expose them. And to whom should those who are in danger or necessity so confidently go, as to their heavenly Father, who maketh the wool to be warm on the lamb, "and feedeth the young ravens which call upon him." Art thou, then, exposed at this season upon the billows of the ocean, or filled with distress for thy seafaring friends? Look up with devotion to that Almighty Being who rides upon the tempest which scours the deep. Art thou fearful of the conflagration which so often increases the calamities of this season? Use that prudence which God has given thee for thy direction, and supplicate the protection of the shadow of his wing. Art thou among the children of poverty, and for want of food, of raiment, or of fuel, dost thou mourn in the wintry blast? Go to the God who heareth prayer. With humility make thy wants known to him; entreat him for his Son's sake, to compassionate thy distresses, and if he have not some better purpose to accomplish, by withholding thy wishes, he will devise a way thy safety, and supply thy wants. For he despiseth not the prayer of the poor destitute; but when he maketh his cry, his

ear hearkeneth thereto.

for

This suggestion will be enforced, if we observe another thing which the text most strikingly and affectingly impresses upon our minds, viz.: the compassionate nature of the blessed Redeemer, who is our Intercessor at the right hand of God. Every act of his life was a display of tenderness and love. Whether we consider him descending from the bosom of his Father, and taking our nature upon him for the recovery of our race from perdition; or contemplate him while he dwelt upon earth, making it his meat and drink to enable the poor to forget his poverty, and the afflicted to remember her misery no more; or behold him on the cross, seeking with persevering benevolence, the pardon and salvation of his wretched enemies; we have sufficient evidence of the loveliness of compassion, and that it