into the presence of God, may close the account of life, may withdraw the offer of mercy, may cut short the opportunity of salvation. What if it should? Are you ready for that interview and that reckoning? Have you accepted the offer and improved the opportunity? This day, whose hours are so rapidly passing away, may be to you the last day of grace. The invitation which the Saviour now addresses to you may be the last he will ever make. Shall this day, then, be wasted? Shall this invitation be refused? To-night the door may shut, Reader, would it shut you in or out, forever?

HUMAN LIFE.

MOST men are more anxious how they may sail adown this narrow and shallow inlet of life, than how they shall navigate the ocean of Eternity, into which it opens, and whither current and tide, wind and air, are combined to hasten them.

This life derives its chief importance, not from its length, nor from its pains and pleasures, nor from any abstract magnitude that there is in its incidents and occupations, but from the fact that it is the life of an accountable being, and is itself the seed-time for eternity-the period of an immortal soul's probation, its only probation. All the rest is harvest time. All be

It is of more consethan it can be in any This life is not for

yond the grave is retribution. quence how we live and act now, portion of our existence hereafter. ease- "Wo to them that are at ease.' How unsuit

able is ease now, when your trial has not yet come on, when the business of your embassy into this world is not yet accomplished, the orders of your master not yet fulfilled, your stewardship not surrendered. We shall be accountable beings forever, and that wherever we may be; but it is on the manner of regarding that accountability in this first brief portion of our existence, that the condition of the whole is made to depend. Within a single hour of Adam's life he decided the fate of the world. By one accountable act he ruined himself and us. Compared with this, what was all he ever

did afterwards.

We live all our time at the mercy of merciless death,

LENGTH OF LIFE.

It would not be for the promotion of the salvation of the race of men to lengthen human life. The experi ment has been tried, and how completely did 'it fail, Life has been shortened in mercy. God is to be praised that men live no longer. If it were found to be a fact, that many persons repent and turn to God in very advanced life, our judgment would be different, But

that is notoriously not the fact. Generally, the mind is made up on the subject of religion early in life, and, when made up, there is rarely a reconsideration of the question. This is specially true of those who enjoy the advantages of a religious education, or the faithful ministrations of the Gospel. If, then, men grow worse as they grow old are farther removed from a disposition to repentance as they are carried forward in life, why should they live longer? If they will not repent at seventy, would they at seven hundred? But why does any one complain that he has not space enough for repentance? It is because he wishes to employ the time he has in something else than repentance.

THIS LIFE AND THE NEXT.

If it is worth while to labor to be happy for the first seventy years of your existence, why should you not make equal provision for the second seventy, and for the third, and for as many as your existence may be divided into? Does the fact, that the second septuagenary term of years is to be passed in another world, make the happiness of it less desirable and less worthy of your labor, than if the period of your earthly existence were extended to twice threescore and ten? If there is a something that is capable of diffusing comfort and happiness through that second period of years, is it

not as deserving of human attention, and study, and toil, as that is which makes the first seventy comfortable and happy? How much more, if the second division of our existence is a duration absolutely without end? It is hard to be accounted for, even in a depraved creature, that he should be so exceedingly anxious about himself until a certain day and hour of his existence, and perfectly regardless of his interests beyond that-that a being who is more certain that he shall live forever, than he is that he shall survive another year, should be so eager to labor and lay up for that which is both brief and uncertain, and at the same time so indifferent about providing for a certain immortality-so assiduous to lay up something for the soul so long as it may preserve its connection with the body, and perfectly careless what becomes of it so soon as it leaves its miserable clay, and begins to exist in another state, and with its capacities of enjoyment and suffering far more exquisite than they even were before.

TIME AND ETERNITY.

Is it not strange, that the only things we do not prepare for are those things which will inevitably occur; while those things which, besides that they are of inferior importance, only may occur, it is our aim and endeavor to be fully prepared for. We are so engaged,

so absorbed in preparing for an uncertain life, that we omit to prepare for a certain death.

Heaven sees no spectacle on earth so melancholy, as the sportiveness of souls on the brink of an unblest eternity.

If men make so much and so rapid progress in evil here, where there exist so many restraints and hindrances to evil, and so many means of good, what must be the progress of the impenitent hereafter; how swift, how awful! In hell there will be no restraint from evil, and no means of good; no Sabbath, no Bible, no good Spirit, no Saviour. He will be in the midst of such company, and surrounded by such examples, and uninvited to any effort at restraint, much less reformation, by any ray of hope that would in the least avail.

Tell me what is behind you, and I will tell you what is before you.

If, in time, men become so vile as to be the incarnation of evil, what must they not be in eternity.

ETERNITY.

How near, Oh! how very near are the eternal realities, judgment, heaven, and hell-as near as deathnearer than the grave. The soul reaches home before the body does.