and indolence should be the result, there are still considerations which it is hard to bear. Every man has some sense of what God and the world require of him some consciousness, however indistinct, of the purposes for which the mighty advantages of nature and fortune were given and to every man, Time as it passes, has a voice which no mortal heart can forget. It seems to ask us, What we have done? and what we are doing? and, in every periodical return, it leaves inevitably, "that bitterness or joy which "the heart alone knoweth." It is painful to us all, we know, to lie down at night, and think that the duties of the day have not been done. It is more painful to

close the year, and to think that it has been wasted in idleness and folly. But what, alas! must be the feelings of those who lie down at last upon the bed of death, and look back upon their past

lives with no remembrances of goodness; --who can recall only riches wasted, and power abused, and talents misemployed,

and see that grave opening to receive them, upon which no tear will be shed, and no memorial of virtue raised.

In what I have now said, with respect to this unhappy species of character, I have considered its consequences only as they relate to present life, and as they affect the honour and happiness of present time. To us, my Christian brethren, there are greater things, and there are considerations applicable to us of a deeper and a nobler kind. There is an hour, we know, which must arrive to all,-to high as well as low, to rich as well as poor, that important hour, "when the "silver cord must be loosed, and the gol"den bowl broken; and when the spirit "must return to the God who gave it." Over this scene, indeed, there is drawn

in mercy an impenetrable veil; yet it is sad to think of those who enter it without any preparation ;-to whom all the good things of time have been given to no

-

purpose; and who, of the many talents which they have received, have put none to use. It is solemn.to read the sentence of the "unprofitable servant;" and to hear from Heaven the great and equitable truth pronounced, "that of them to "whom much is given, much also will "be required."

Let it then be remembered, even in the midst of youth and of prosperity, that life hath its duties as well as its pleasures; and that no situation can exempt the Christian from the obligations of labour and of exertion. Let it be remembered, that weakness is ever the parent of vice; and that it is in the genial hours of youth, that all those habits of thought and of conduct are acquired, which determine

the happiness or the misery of future days. Let it lastly be remembered, that all the honours of time and of eternity belong only to wisdom and perseverance ; that it is by their fruits alone that the real followers of the Saviour of mankind are to beknown; and that they who are to inherit the mighty promises of his Gospel, are those alone who, in every different condition of mortal life," have pressed for"ward," with firm step, " to the prize of "their high calling, and who have con"tinued patiently in doing well."

SERMON XVII.

ON STABILITY OF CHARACTER.

LUKE, xix. 16, 17.

"Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy

pound hath gained ten pounds. And "he said unto him, Well, thou good ser"vant, because thou hast been faithful "in a very little, have thou authority 66 over ten cities."

THE words of the text describe a Character of a very important and a very noble kind. They represent the character of firmness and stability, the charac