the means afforded us for its improvement; that however splendidly in life the sun may shine upon us, its beams will only serve "to light us to the tomb;" that when once conducted to that place of shadows, the world is powerless to bid "these dead bones live," until the Son of God shall appear again, as before the grave of Lazarus, and breathe on them the breath of life, and clothe them with a glorious body, and paint them with the bloom of immortality. Impressed with this conviction, may we turn in timely caution our wandering steps to Him, without whose preventing grace all labour is useless, all endeavour vain; may we obtain from Him, that the last painful hours of our existence, may be cheered by an assurance of divine pardon and protection; and as the day withdraws and the shades of night fall thick around us, may the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world, grant us on earth his peace, and in heaven his mercy.

And it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth till about the ninth hour. And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. 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.

You have heard, My Friends, in the lesson of this morning, that such were the preternatural appearances which attended the dissolution of our blessed Saviour, and such was his behaviour. in the last agonies of a painful death, that the Roman officer appointed to superintend the execution, who probably knew little more of the Messiah than the crimes alleged against him, could not forbear the exclamation of "truly this was a righteous man." It is with a mixture of feelings which it were difficult to analyze, that the pious Christian enters into the history of his Redeemer's humiliation; it is with a deep and solemn interest that he reflects on the human de

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pravity which required an expiation so tremendously mysterious; and while his heart dilates with joyous exultation, and responds to those celestial harmonies, those loud "hosannas in the highest," with which the angels heralded their Sovereign's incarnation; while with the favoured virgin, "his soul doth magnify the Lord, and his spirit hath rejoiced in God his Saviour," he must mourn over the melancholy conviction that his ancestral taint of sin has brought sorrow on his benefactor, and that for his amongst a world's offences the immaculate Lamb was sacrificed.

Christ came in the fulness of time. In the fulness of time he was offered up. From the period of his divesting himself of the brightness of his divinity, and taking on him the form of a servant, to the hour of his crucifixion, his biography will afford an example applicable to every walk of life; and from this very circumstance we may perceive the expediency of the lowly state in which he was presented to us. In reading the narrative of St. Luke as far as to my text, we have seen distinctly related, by one "who had perfect understanding of all these things from the very first," his birth, his miracles, his piety, his sufferings, and his death; and advancing a little farther into his history, we are made acquainted with his " glorious resurrec tion and ascension." We find the imbecility and impediments of humanity laid aside, and the

same identified body, in which was recently enshrined a natural and human soul, we behold animated by the spirit of the Godhead, by an act of personal volition and power, breaking forth from the prison of the grave, and ascending into the highest heaven, "leading captivity captive, and sending good gifts unto men.". But though this may be considered as the crown and consummation of his victory, though he had now "put the last enemy under his feet," yet we may account him triumphant at an earlier date; even at that period which to human apprehension witnessed his deepest humiliation. In the hour of his agony in the garden, Christ knew and foresaw the manner of his triumph. True, his pangs were so piercing as to invoke the assistance of a ministering angel; true, he had before his eyes the ensigns of his corporal sufferance, the scourge, the nails, the spear, and the cross; true, there now vibrated in his prophetic ear the shout of derision and the hiss of scorn; but these could not shake the determined purpose of his soul; and while with the dreary feeling that he was forsaken by his God," he trod the wine-press alone," and prepared to drain to the dregs his appointed cup in all its bitterness, he sorrowed only for his persecutors, and wept over the fated city of the deluded wretches, whose cry was "crucify him!" He had seen however in mysterious vision" Satan

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fall like lightning from heaven," and "in that hour he rejoiced in spirit." "He saw of the travail of his soul and was satisfied." He saw his religion going abroad, as it were, on the wings of the wind, and bearing penitence and peace to many a lacerated bosom. Carrying the instrument of his execution, he walked from the judgment hall to Golgotha, mocked and reviled, bleeding and sinking under his burden; the women of Judah followed, and pitied, and lamented him. O what a heart suggested that memorable reply, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but for yourselves and for your children." In the contemplation of their woes he forgot his own; He ascended the hill, he was nailed to the cross, and between two common robbers, "despising the shame," was the Son of God and man, lifted up and "numbered with the transgressors." "It was about the sixth hour," and a miraculous darkness instantly overspread the land, so that nature seemed to sympathise with the sufferings of her God. But the universal darkness prepared the way for universal light, and Christ knew that he "must so suffer to enter into his glory." That glory

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was already beginning to appear. hill of Calvary it dawned on a desolate and selfabandoned world, and from the cross, amid the awful darkness of that hour, Jesus saw "the day spring from on high go forth," shedding a moral