privacy and retreat; but the most important must be performed in the midst of the world, where we are commanded to shine as lights, and by our good works to glorify our Father which is in heaven. This world, as the context represents it, is God's vineyard, where each of us has a task assigned him to perform. In every station, and at every period of life, labour is required. At the third, the sixth, or the eleventh hour, we are commanded to work, if we would not incur, from the great Lord of the vineyard, this reproof, Why stand ye here all the day idle?- We may, I confess, be busy about many things, and yet be found negligent of the one thing needful. We may be very active, and, withal, very ill employed. But though a person may be industrious without being religious, I must at the same time admonish you, that no man can be idle without being sinful. This I shall endeavour to show in the sequel of the discourse; wherein I purpose to reprove a vice which is too common among all ranks of men. Superiors admonish their inferiors, and parents tell their children that idleness is the mother of every sin; while, in their own

practice, they often set the example of what they reprobate severely in others. I shall study to show that the idle man is, in every view, both foolish and criminal; that he neither lives to God; nor lives to the world; nor lives to himself.

I. He lives not to God. The great and wise Creator certainly does nothing in vain. A small measure of reflection might convince every one, that for some useful purpose he was sent into the world. The nature of man bears no mark of insignificancy, or neglect. He is placed at the head of all things here below. He is furnished with a great preparation of faculties and powers. He is enlightened by reason with many important discoveries; even taught by revelation to consider himself as ransomed, by the death of Christ, from misery; and intended to rise, by gradual advances, to a still higher rank in the universe of God. In such a situation, thus distinguished, thus favoured and assisted by his Creator, can he hope to be forgiven, if he aim at no improvement, if he pursue no useful design, live for no other purpose but to indulge in sloth, consume the fruits of the earth, and

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to spend his days in a dream of vanity? Existence is a sacred trust; and he who thus misemploys and squanders it away, is treacherous to its Author.--Look around you, and you will behold the whole universe full of active powers. Action is, to speak so, the genius of nature. By motion and exertion the system of being is preserved in vigour. By its different parts always acting in subordination one to another, the perfection of the whole is carried on. The heavenly bodies perpetually revolve. Day and night incessantly repeat their appointed course. Continual operations are going on in the earth, and in the waters. Nothing stands still. All is alive and stirring throughout the universe.-In the midst of this animated and busy scene, is man alone to remain idle in his place? Belongs it to him to be the sole inactive and slothful being in the creation, when he has so much allotted him to do; when in so many various ways he might improve his own nature; might advance the glory of the God who made him; and contribute his part to the general good?

Hardly is there any feeling of the hu

man heart more natural, or more universal, than that of our being accountable to God. It is what the most profligate can never totally erase. Almost all nations have agreed in the belief, that there is to come some period when the Almighty will act as the Judge of his creatures. Presentiments of this work in every breast. Conscience has already erected a tribunal, on which it anticipates the sentence which at that period shall be passed. Before this tribunal let us sometimes place ourselves in serious thought, and consider what account we are prepared to give of our conduct to Him who made us. "I placed you," the great Judge may then be supposed to say, “in "a station where you had many occasions "for action, and many opportunities of "improvement. You were taught, and you "knew your duty. Throughout a course "of years I continued your life. I sur"rounded you with friends to whom you might be useful. I gave you health, ease, leisure, and various advantages of situa"tion.Where are the fruits of those "talents which you possessed? What good "have you done with them to yourselves?

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"What good to others? How have you "filled up your place, or answered your "destination in the world? Produce some "evidence of your not having existed al

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together in vain."--Let such as are now mere blanks in the world, and a burden to the earth, think what answer they will give to those awful questions.

II. The idle live not to the world, and their fellow-creatures around them, any more than they do to God. Had any man a title to stand alone, and to be independent of his fellows, he might then consider himself as at liberty to indulge in solitary ease and sloth, without being responsible to others for the manner in which he chose to live. But on the face of the earth there is no such person, from the king on his throne to the beggar in his cottage. We are all connected with one another by various relations; which create a chain of mutual dependence, reaching from the highest to the lowest station in society. The order and happiness of the world cannot be maintained without perpetual circulation of active duties and offices, which all are called upon to perform in their turn. Superiors