GOD in this life and the rewards which He has promised to good men in the next; let me entreat them all to reverence grey hairs, and never to forget the duty which youth should pay to age. This duty cannot be placed in too strong a light. It has been felt and acknowledged in every age and every country, even where the glorious light of the Gospel never shone. Every feeling of the heart seems to point it out. Old age is subject to many infirmities, and commonly attended with many sorrows. Let it be the business, let it be the delight of the young, to support those infirmities, and to lessen those Never forget the reverence due to an

sorrows.

old man.

Listen to his advice with attention and respect. Give him every assistance in your power. If distress should sometimes make him fretful and impatient, bear with meekness and gentleness the infirmities to which all are subject. Do nothing to give him pain; study in every way to contribute to his pleasure; try to amuse him when his spirits fail; support him when his limbs have lost their strength; watch him on the bed of sickness; do not forsake him at the hour of death. When he shall be removed to a happier world, you will remember with pleasure

every act of kindness which you have done him. You will bitterly regret every one which you have neglected. Do not fly from the sick room; in such scenes you will learn wisdom and virtue. They will not destroy your happiness; they will only make it more lasting, and more worthy of a Christian. If you have done your duty in such scenes, they will be remembered with pleasure, when all the amusements of a thoughtless world are only recollected with a sigh. The tender offices of love and duty which you have performed for the aged, will comfort you when you also lie on a sick bed; and the blessing of God will rest on those who thus fulfil his commandments.

May all who now hear me, while they reflect on the different periods of life, learn so to number their days that they may apply their hearts unto wisdom. At whatever hour their Master call, may He find them always ready; and in youth, in manhood, or in age, may the Christian be prepared to say, "LORD, now lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."

SERMON XVII.

ST. LUKE Xxiii. 46.

And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit; and having said thus, he gave up the Ghost.

HAVING now observed the progress of

a Christian in his passage through this life from childhood to the brink of the grave; it only remains to consider his situation, and to com pare it with that of a wicked man, at the hour of death. This shall be the subject of my present discourse; and at our next meeting I hope to close the whole, by looking with the eye of faith beyond this transitory life, and leading you to reflect on what we are permitted to know of the glories of Heaven.

However men may differ in all other respects, there is one event common to all, and that is death; yet it is astonishing to see how seldom they reflect on this subject. Consider I beseech you what it is to die. You see it every day, and one day you must feel it; but have you ever seriously reflected on death? To die, is to leave all that is dear to us here on earth. Those pleasures for which we too often neglect our duty, must end at once. The riches we have gained, must be left behind., We must see no more on earth the friends we have loved. The strong and vigorous limbs will be stiff and cold; the anxious heart will cease to beat; the bosom which once swelled with pride, will be humbled in the dust; the worm will feed on the cheek of beauty. that the kindest friend can then do to shew his love, will be to lay us in the cold ground, and leave us there to be eaten by worms. Such is the end of human pride, and of human happiness! Such is the fate which power cannot prevent, which wisdom cannot escape. The rich man clothed in purple, and the beggar at, his door, must sink alike into the grave, must, alike return to that dust of which they were formed. My brethren, have you ever thought of this?

All

Have you reflected, that I who speak, and every one of you who hear, must be in the state which

I have described; that it will happen soon; that it may happen now?

I

speak to you again.

may never be allowed to Some of you may never

see another Sunday.

Before the end of a year,

there is every reason to expect that some of those who are now present will be laid in the

grave. In a few years, this will probably happen to many. In a few more years it must happen to all. Is it possible we should believe and know this awful truth, and yet that so few should prepare for an event which must befal every one? We try to secure wealth; we say to our soul, "thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." But who remembers the dreadful answer of GOD?" Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee."*

O my brethren! these are thoughts to make the firmest tremble; and nothing except religion can support us under them. But let us view these things as Christians, and all is changed. We must die indeed; but what is death, when viewed with the light of revelation? If we leave

*Luke xii. 19.