contempt, who yield not to the tormenting and anti-social impulse of a fretful, querulous, or contentious spirit, but who are kind, gentle, compassionate, and affable to all around them, and who embrace with alacrity every opportunity to afford them pleasure, or to promote their interest; they, I say, (and such will be your character if you be really" renewed in the spirit of your minds,") are usually the objects of universal approbation, esteem, and attachment. But should the case be otherwise, should you meet with a return the very reverse of that, which I do maintain you have every reason to expect; should you, instead of being approved, esteemed, and loved, be censured, contemned, and disliked; should your intentions be misrepresented, your actions ridiculed, your persons insulted, you will still preserve unruffled the serenity of your souls; and in the midst of all the storms which may assail you from without, you will feel secure within, under the powerful protection of the God of heaven, on whose divine assistance you will confidently rely. Whatever your condition in life may be, you will be satisfied with it, as that which has been allotted to you by your infinitely wise and bountiful Creator, in which he designs you to work out your salvation. Your grand concern will be to discharge with fidelity the duties attached to it and, however painful or laborious they may be, the consideration of the good and powerful master in whose employ you are engaged, whose

ever-wakeful eye is constantly fixed upon you, and who will reward hereafter your diligence in his service with a liberality exceeding all comprehension, will prompt you to perform them with cheerfulness and alacrity. No anxious cares, no tormenting solicitudes, will be suffered to disturb the tranquillity of your minds. Grateful for the blessings which you possess at present, you will repose yourselves with confidence respecting future contingencies, on the providential goodness of the universal Disposer. Should your industrious exertions be crowned with success, you will bless the beneficent hand from which you will thankfully acknowledge it to have proceeded; and should they, on the contrary, terminate in misfortune, you will discover also in that misfortune a merciful dispensation from the same source, less pleasing, it is true, to the feelings of flesh and blood, but in the estimation of him who perceives at a single glance the most intricate links in the whole concatenation of causes and effects from the beginning to the end of time, more suitable to the promotion of your permanent interests. Should you writhe under the anguish of pain, or languish in infirmity on the bed of sickness, the consolations of heaven will ever be at hand to afford you relief: and should some more grievous domestic calamity diffuse around you a melancholy gloom, still you will not be left without resource. For the light of immortality breaking in upon you from that ulgent luminary the Gospel of Jesus Christ,

will gladden even the house of mourning with its exhilarating rays. Nor will death itself, should you possibly see it advancing towards you, be viewed as an object of terror and dismay. Terrible indeed it is, as well it may be, to the votaries of incredulity, since they contemplate in it the extinction of their being. More terrible still to the professors of Christianity who live in an habitual violation of its laws; for they can behold it in no other light than as the commencement of an eternity of inconceivable wretchedness. But as to the faithful disciple of Jesus Christ; as to him "who is renewed in the spirit of his mind, who has put off the old man, who is corrupted according to the desires of error, who has put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth," and who has been in the habit of walking in newness of life, why should he fear? What has he to apprehend? He looks upon Death as his mighty deliverer, as the great demolisher of those prison walls which hold in captivity his free-born spirit, and from which, having been set free, it will wing its flight to those blissful regions of immortality, where it will range and expatiate with unrestrained liberty, associated with beings of similar dispositions, and surrounded with a profusion of unutterable delights. Nor is that all; for, from the ruins of those prison walls which will be laid under ground, he foresees, at the sound of the archangel's voice, a magnificent structure rising up

before him, suitable to the improved and elevated condition of the blessed tenant of which it is destined to be the future habitation. "For this corruptible," saith St. Paul," must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. And when this mortal hath put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, O Death, where is thy victory? O Death, where is thy sting?" (1 Cor. xv. 53, 54, 55.)

Thus, my friends, have I endeavoured to show you, that by the renovation of your minds, you will render to yourselves the year on which you have just entered, not only a new year, but a happy new year. Yes, my friends, it will be to you a happy new year; it will be to you a year of jubilee, for it will be distinguished by circumstances similar to those which marked the Jewish period of that denomination. Like the Jewish jubilee, it will be "a year sacred and acceptable to the Lord." Like the Jewish jubilee, it will be a year of undisturbed repose; and, like the Jewish jubilee, it will also be a year of the remission of debts, of emancipation from servitude, and of restoration of property to its original

owner.

Of the remission, I mean, of the debts of sin, of the emancipation of the affections from the servitude of the passions, and of the restoration of your hearts to their great original owner, the living God. Finally, it will be a preparation for that great Sabbatical year of Eternity, when, resting for ever from the labours of your mortal

lives, you will enjoy without interruption that everlasting repose in the heavenly Jerusalem, which is there reserved for God's faithful servants. That to you, my friends, it may truly be a year of happiness of this description, is the sincere wish of my heart; and that this wish may be fully accomplished, I pray God, in his infinite goodness, to grant, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.