year; and thus, month after month and year after year are passing, and one season of life after another is stealing away: and the only hope is, that in some tremendous exigency, or by some violent paroxysm, when fear and remorse and disease and death are darkly struggling together, that may be done, for which the whole previous course of life has not been found sufficient.

But is it true-for I am willing to pause at this point, and deliberately to consider the question-is it true, can it be true, some one may ask, that a mistake so gross, so irrational, so at war with all that we know about character, about its formation, and its necessary results-can it be true, that such a mistake, about the whole vast concern of our happiness, is actually made by any of us? Can it be, you will say, that men, with reason and experience and Scripture to guide them; can it be that men, in their senses, are substituting in place of that deliberate formation of their character for happiness for which life is given, some brief preparation for it, at a future period, and espe- . cially at the last period of their lives?

I am persuaded that it is true, my brethren, however strange; and these are the considerations that convince me of it.

In the first place, there are multitudes around us, that hope and expect to be happy hereafter, who are conscious, that they are not preparing for it; who acknowledge at every successive stage of life, that if they were instantly to die, without any further opportunity to prepare for it, there would be little or no hope for them; who feel that, if the very character which they are now, every day forming, were to go to the judgment, their case would be desperate; who hope therefore, most evidently, not to be judged by the

prevailing tenor of their lives, but secretly expect to do something at last, to retrieve the errors, the follies and sins, which they are now daily committing.

Again; although it is a common impression, that but few LIVE in an habitual preparation for heaven, the impression is almost as common, that but few actually die unprepared. Of almost every individual who leaves the world, something is told, which encourages the hopes of survivors concerning him. I stand before you, my brethren, as a Christian minister, and I solemnly declare, that familiar as I have been with that sad and mournful scene, the death of the wicked, it has almost invariably left this strange and delusive hope behind it. Indeed, the extreme solicitude with which every symptom of preparation is marked in these circumstances, the trembling anxiety with which every word, every look is caught, but too plainly indicate the same impression. What the amount of this proof is, we will presently consider. It is sufficient at this point of the inquiry to state, that it is collected and arranged as carefully, and offered as confidently, as if it were material; that it encourages those who repeat and those who hear it; that the instance of death is very rare, in which surviving friends do not tell you that they trust and believe that all is well. Even when a man has led an eminently pious life, many are apt to feel as if the proof of his piety was not consummated, unless he had died a happy and triumphant death; as though it were to be not only desired, but demanded as a matter of course, that in feebleness and distress of body and mind, and the sinking of all the faculties, the mind should exhibit its utmost energy; as if, amidst the cold damps of death, the expiring flame of sensibility should rise the highest. It is to be feared that good men, and with the best inten

tions no doubt, have yet given great distress to many faithful Christians and done great injury to others, by countenancing this unreasonable notion. The great question is, not how a good man dies, but how he has lived.

The third and final reason, which convinces me of the prevalence of this mistake, which I am considering, is the almost universal dread of sudden death. It is not to be denied, indeed, that a change so great as that of death, and so mysterious too, is in itself and naturally, fitted to awaken a feeling of apprehension. But I maintain, that the principal reason for this apprehension, is the fear of consequences, "the dread of something after death;" and that there is a vague hope in almost every mind, that some preparation could be made at the last, if only a little time were granted for it. And indeed, if we all entertained a settled conviction that we are to reap as we have sowed; that we are to be miserable or happy in the other world, according to the character we have formed in this; that we are to be judged by the life we live, and not by the death we die; what would it import to us, whether we fell suddenly, in the paths of life, or slowly declined from them; whether we sunk at once beneath the stroke of an apoplexy, or more slowly under the attack of a consumption? Something, it would import to us no doubt, as friends; for we should wish to give our dying counsels; but as expectants of retribution, what could the time of a week or a month's last sickness avail us? I will answer: and I say, as much, by the most favourable supposition,-as much as such a space of time, in any part of life could avail us; and no more.

Such then and so fearful, and proved to be so fearful by the plainest indications, is the moral state of

multitudes. Life is given them for the cultivation of a sacred virtue, of a lofty piety, of pure and godlike affections, as the only way to future improvement and happiness. They are not devoting life, to this end; they know they are not; they confess they are not; and their hope is yes, the hope, on which they rest their whole being is, that by some hasty effort or paroxysm of emotion, in the feeble and helpless time of sickness, or in the dark day of death, they shall be able to redeem the lost hope of a negligent life. If only a week or a month of health were offered them to prepare; if that specific time, a week or a month, were taken out from the midst of life, and they were solemnly told that this must be all the time they can have to prepare for eternity, they would be in despair; and yet they hope to do this, in a month or a week of pain and languishment and distracting agitation. It is, as if the husbandman should sport away the summer season, and then should think to retrieve his error, by planting his fields in the autumn. It is as if the student should trifle away the season appointed for his education, and then, when the time came for entering upon his profession, should think to make up for his deficiencies, by a few weeks of violent, hurried and irregular application. It shows, alas! that the world, with all its boasts of an enlightened age, has not yet escaped the folly of those days of superstition, when the eucharist was administered to dying persons, and was forcibly administered, if the patient had no longer sense to receive it; or when men deferred their baptism till death; as if the future state were to depend on these last ceremonies. And as well depend on ceremonies—and more consistently could we do so,

-as depend on any momentary preparation for happiness. As well build a church or a monastery to

atone for our sins, as to build that fabric of error in our imagination.

It is not for us, I know, to limit the Almighty! It is not for us to say, that he cannot change the soul in the last moments of its stay on earth. But this we may fearlessly say; that he does it, if at all, by a miraculous agency, of whose working we can have no conception, and of whose results, by the very supposition, we can have no knowledge.

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I desire, my brethren, to state this point with all sufficient caution. I not only do not deny, that God has power to convert the soul in the last moments of life, but I do not absolutely deny that there may be some such instances in the passing away of every generation. I do not know, and none of us can know, whether such miracles are performed or not. It is commonly thought that the case recorded in Luke's Gospel, of the thief on the cross, is an instance of this nature. But I do not think it can be pronounced to be such. We know not how much time he may have had, to repent and form a new character. He says, we indeed suffer justly;" but the act for which he suffered, may have been a single act, in which he had fallen from a generally good life. But admit that such interpositions do take place; is it safe to rely upon them? We do not know that they do. We do not know, that in the passing away of all the generations of mankind, there has been one such instance. Is it safe to rely, in so tremendous a case, upon what we do not know, and upon what, after all, may never be? My object is to show that it is not safe; and for this purpose, I shall reason upon the general principle. The general principle is, that the future must answer for the present; the future of this life, for the present of this life; the next month, for this month; the next year for this