are seen to be born for immortality, and destined to have a dwelling on one or the other of the outstretched continents which mortal eyes do not behold, that the energy of those motives is felt which bring out and develop the power of true religion. Objects and ends everywhere multiply, then, that are worthy of toil, worthy of sacrifices that seek no indemnity save in the benevolence they express and gratify, and in the approbation of the great Witness and Judge. You never heard a spiritual and heavenly-minded man "complain of checks or interruptions to toil arising from his strongest impressions of things that are eternal." On the other hand, no difficulties discourage, no sloth ensnares, the man who looks not on the things that are seen. His powers of body and mind, his time, his influence, his property, which, when compared with the things of time, he husbands or withholds, in view of eternity seem as dust in the balance. He gives them freely; his only regret is that the offering is so poor and feeble. Had he crowns or kingdoms, or centuries instead of years, he would value them only to be consecrated to God. His benevolence is not a spirit. that is inflated by the contemplation of its own imaginary excellence, and which finds its highest incitement in selfapplause, or in the applause of his fellow-men; rather does it seek concealment from the public eye; it is unostentatious and noiseless, and suffers no diminution when every earthly consideration is withdrawn. What will be seen to be most important when earthly things pass away, a due estimate of eternal realities regards as important now. The visible becomes, as it were, invisible, just in the proportion in which the invisible becomes visible; while in the same proportion in which the future becomes present, the present becomes like the forgotten past.

Would that the mind, both of the reader and the writer, were more deeply imbued with these things! That man has not a little to learn of the "sin that dwelleth in him," who has not yet learned that the things of earth are a snare to the soul. All the tendencies of a nature so partially sanctified, are on the wrong side of the question, when the question is, this world, or the world to come. Oh, it is melancholy proof that our race is "exiled from heaven," that even good men find it so hazardous to come in contact with earth, and that, in so doing, so many are cast down and degraded below their high destiny! Supreme in the hearts of wicked men, this love of earth is never wholly eradicated from the hearts even of the children of God. If you would have it more and more subdued, and brought into subjection to better hopes and principles, let it become more and more the confirmed habit of your minds to live near to the Cross, and there contemplate the things that are not seen. The dominion of earth and time is broken, only by establishing within the soul the empire of the Cross-the empire of heaven and eternity. "Set your affections, therefore, not on things that are on the earth, but on things that are above, where Jesus Christ sitteth at the right hand of God." Rest not until you are enabled to look more within the veil, and fix your hearts inore steadfastly on the only permanent realities in the universe. Retire within the chambers of your own mind, and there contemplate them in those hours of secret and solemn thought, where the unseen One so often speaks to the soul. Go to God's word, and you will find them there, in new and endless combinations, and the more you inspect their beauty and explore their fullness, the more will you perceive their ten thousand rays of light, all shooting upward, and guiding you to immortality. When you go to the

throne of grace, too, you will find them there, where you may have sensible intercourse with the Father of lights, and where, instead of becoming secularized with the world, you may breathe the atmosphere of heaven. In the sanctuary of God you have been wont to find them in all its instructions, all its prayers, and all its praise. But above all, and first of all, if you would behold them as they are revealed to men who are benighted and apostate, seek them at the Cross of Christ. Look, and learn of eternal things that which can be seen and learned only there. "I came forth from the Father," said that crucified One, “and am come into the world: again I leave the world, and go to the Father." There is "God manifest in the flesh;" there is heaven come down to earth; there is eternity in time. And there may mortal, sinning man behold eternal things as reflected from a mirror; and there, beholding them, be himself "changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord."

Ye sons of earth and time, too, what think ye of these attractions of the Cross? Why should ye banish from your thoughts those living and permanent realities of which you yourselves will so soon form a part? It were enough to rebuke, and diminish, and put to shame this absorbing love of earth, that it urges its claims from no good end, and allures that it may destroy. It were the worst of deaths to be dead to the worthy, and alive to the worthless; alive only to time, and dead to eternity. Forget not, I beseech you, that you are on the race-course for an immortal crown; and if the world bowls its golden fruit across your path, stop not to gather its glittering spoil. There is no annihilation beyond the grave—there is no end to eternity; yet are you hastening toward it as the eagle hasteth to her prey. Man lives in the con

tinual certainty that he must die. He cannot forget it; he cannot banish it; he cannot take a step but death meets him; he sees him draw nigh with sure approach. We are content to learn many things in the present world from experience; but it is hazardous to wait for the experience of eternity. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Lost opportunity cannot be redeemed there. Abused Sabbaths will not there return. A rejected Saviour will not there be offered. An aggrieved Spirit will not there seek to win the soul to repentance. Esau "found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully and with tears." Many is the man who has uttered the mournful thought, too late for the loss to be repaired, "Oh, how have I hated instruction and despised reproof!" The well-known exclamation of Titus is an affecting tribute of the regret of an amiable mind over lost opportunity. The Roman Prince had hopes of the morrow before him-hopes of making good his loss. But in what tones will they utter it to whom no morrow remains! What a fearful exclamation, then, "Perdidi diem!"-vitam perdidi! The die is cast; the day of life is over and eternity begun! A lost day, a lost opportunity, a lost year, a lost life, a lost soul, where "there is no work, nor knowledge, nor device "-how imperious the call to "live well and live for eternity;" to "work while it is day, because the night cometh in which no man can work!" Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation! Defer not, till the bitter lamentation shall be wrung from your bosoms, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and I am not saved!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

ALL THINGS TRIBUTARY TO THE CROSS.

THE subject on which we propose to submit a few thoughts in the present chapter, is one which is intimately connected with the great principles of Christian doctrine and practice. It is, the subserviency of all things to the Cross of Christ. I say, the subserviency of all things; and by this I mean to express the thought which the words literally convey. There is nothing within the compass of the created universe, which is not directly or indirectly, voluntarily or by coercion, made tributary to the great work of Christ. He is the master-spirit of the whole-the allpresiding Deity. "As in great maps or pictures you will see the border decorated with meadows, fountains and flowers represented on it, but in the middle you have the main design-so among the works of God is it with the fore-ordained redemption of man. All his other works in the world-all the beauty of the creatures, the succession of ages, and the things that come to pass in them, are but as the border to this main piece. But as a foolish and unskillful beholder, not discerning the excellency of the principal piece in such maps or pictures, gazes only on the fair border, and goes no further-thus do the greatest part of us to this great work of God, the redemption of our personal being, the re-union of the human with the divine, by and through the Divine Humanity of the Incarnate Word.”