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IV. There is fragrance in flowers, and much more in some than in others. The scent is also sweet in some, in others it is sickly and offensive. Let this remind us of that moral influence which all men exert more or less upon others. We carry with us in all our movements in human society an influence which, like the fragrance of the flower, always surrounds us. This is less in some than in others. Station, talents, wealth, and force of character may give to some greater influence than others either for good or evil. Yet all alike have a measure of influence; every human flower scents to some extent the social atmosphere. In some the influence is sweet, reviving, and hallowing; in others it is poisonous and soul-destroying; some carry God with them, and they diffuse a divine influence whithersoever they go; others, alas! carry Satan with them and in them, and by their foul and foolish talk, and "their pernicious ways," they corrupt and destroy. Our influence while under the power of the carnal mind" is for evil, we live to alienate men from God. Until possessed of decisive piety, we gather not to Christ, but scatter abroad, keep souls away from the refuge and the rest of guilty man. But when the flower becomes well baptized and penetrated with the dews of the Spirit-when the breath of the Lord passes through and purifies it, then its poisonous properties are destroyed, and it ceases to send forth its deadly exhalations. Then "if we live we live unto the Lord, and if we die, we die unto the Lord, living or dying we are the Lord's."

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It was the happiness of our young friend to have been born of God" at an early period of life, and this blessed change prepared him to exert a good influence upon those with whom he was associated. When "Christ 99 became "formed in him," the flower sent forth a gracious fragrance. It was felt by the young

men with whom he was associated in business, several of whom he had a share in leading to salvation while he lived in the establishment from which he retired to die.

The fragrance of a flower ofttimes increases in dying. And so it is with the Christian; as he approaches his end while the hand of death is upon him, he exerts a more powerful influence than through life-"Go into the chamber where the good man meets his fate," and it seems filled with heavenly fragrance. Very obtuse indeed must his sensibilities be who does not deeply feel the influence which the dying Christian diffuses around his death-bed. It is at once perceived and felt by those who are spiritual. A solemn, unearthly influence which awes and melts the heart. It was oft felt by those who visited our young brother during his late affliction

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"His final hour brought glory to his God."

V. The fading of the flower is inevitable. Perish it must. Place it in the most favorable position and yet you cannot preserve it; seek for it a nook where it shall be sheltered from "the wind's unkindly blast," as well as from the sun's directer ray," and yet "the momentary glories will waste, the short lived beauties will die away; cover it with glass, train and shelter it in the conservatory, and yet you cannot long conserve its frail life. The flower after all your care will perish. How strictly applicable to man whose death is no less certain than the fading of the flower. Attend to health with the most scrupulous care, surround yourselves with all the guards against disease and accident which human device and ingenuity may call into existence. And yet, after all, beyond the boundary which God has assigned to us, we cannot pass-"For is there not an appointed time for man upon the earth seeing his days are deter

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mined, and the number of his months are with God! He hath set him his bounds that he cannot pass." The Great Author of our being has fixed at least the maximum of our stay on earth. Beyond this we cannot go; though, alas! we may come short even of this. Hence we read that "the wicked shall not live out half his days.' The death of the flower is so certain, that you can name a period when you know it shall have occurred; you cannot, it is true, name the precise moment when the last particle of life shall have left the flower; but it would be an easy matter for you to name a time when you know it must be dead, and when "the place thereof shall know it no more." Even so, the period of our departure is to us unknown, nothing can be more uncertain. The time and the circumstances under which we shall breathe our last are wisely concealed from us; yet it would be easy to name a time when not one of us shall be left on earth. The days of our years, are three score years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be four score years, yet is their strength then but labor and sorrow, so soon passeth it away and we are gone. So that each may say with Job in his affliction-"When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return."

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Lastly, "The flower fadeth; because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it." The meaning is "the wind of the Lord;" the same word in Hebrew as in some other languages, having the signification of wind and of spirit. Bishop Lowth renders the words "the wind of Jehovah bloweth upon it." The allusion is doubtless to the hot winds which prevail in the east, blasting and consuming every green thing over which they pass. The Psalmist evidently alludes to this hot wind-(Psalm ciii. 15, 16.) "As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind

passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more."

The flower fades and perishes when a wind under the control and direction of God passeth over it. And thus would we connect the providence of God with the removal of our young brother, whose wasting some of us have watched during the few last months. If "a sparrow falleth not to the ground without our Father," how much less can a Christian, a child of God, be smitten down by the hand of death without his cognizance and permission? "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints," and the death which is thus "precious" in his sight can be no chance work. Hence Job"I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living;" thou who hast the keys of death and of Hades. It was the hand of a Friend, his Almighty and Everlasting Friend, that led our brother down to his quiet resting place in the dust. The consuming disease by which the frame was wasted, was only the wind of the Lord destroying the life of the flower. "He shall blow upon them, and they shall wither."

When we see a young man sicken and die, as the result of a cold, over-exertion, or hereditary tendency, we are in danger of so interpreting the whole as to exclude. the immediate and special providence of God. But we should remember that God veils himself behind secondary causes; for the trial of our faith," for the exercise of which there could be no room, if he worked manifestly in the sight of our eyes. And if we walk by faith, and not by sight," we shall recognize the interference of an allwise God in the removal of this amiable and useful young man, from whose ashes we are endeavoring to extract lessons that shall fit us to pass with a triumphant courage like his, "through the

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valley of the shadow of death." O no, lovely youth, it was not chance that removed thee, it was thy Master's voice that said unto thee, "It is enough; come up hither!"

IMMORTAL LIFE.

REV. JAMES SMITH.

SOUTHWARK, ENGLAND.

"Who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel."-2 TIMOTHY i: 10.

IMMORTALITY naturally and essentially belongs to God alone, and that is said by the apostle, in his first epistle to Timothy, referring to the Eternal One— "who only hath immortality, &c." And in another part of the same epistle, we find him celebrating Jehovah as the immortal-"unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God." God is naturally and essentially immortal, but immortality does not naturally and essentially belong to any creature.

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By Life and Immortality," in the language of the text, we simply understand immortal life, or existence incapable of decay. Adam was not, in the sense of our text, possessed of immortal life-of existence incapable of decay; but the Gospel has brought to light this glorious fact, that there is an existence in another state, for creatures such as we are, incapable of decay.

It is an existence without sin; for in sin is involved and included all the elements of destruction, and nothing can remove the elements of destruction, but the removal of sin. The state of existence, to which we are destined as believers in Christ, is a state of existence without sin; when all that is intended by depravity, and pollution, and corruption, and transgression, shall be

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