around find the water getting daily lower and lower in the well, and harder to procure, they take the alarm, and fly from the reach of danger. Now, my brother, I tell you again, you are standing by the parched and burning crater of a fierce volcano. The wand of justice is eager to stir up the boiling element, and make it spout forth in a fountain of unquenchable vengeance, and overwhelm your naked and defenceless soul. Satan stands glowering by, panting to lash the lambent fires into resistless. fury, and only one hand interposes a shield between you and this living death-it is the hand of Christ which holds back the uplifted arm of justice, and keeps his foot upon the neck of Satan. A little longer parloy, and that hand will slacken in its grasp, and that foot shall set the foeman free. Look down into the wells of earthly consolation, whence you have been wont to draw your comfort-the water is receding fast, and soon the fountain will be dry. O, take it as a warning that the fire will soon burst forth, and flee from the wrath to come! Dig other wells of comfort in a distant land, within the sight of Christ and Calvary. Fire! Fire! Fire! Once more I give you the alarm, and point you to the water of life, to extinguish its most angry flame. The springs of worldly joy are dry, and you have nothing now to quench your thirst, or lave your heated brow. Fly while yet you may to deeper wells of joy, that never can dry up. Bathe in the streamlets that course down from beneath the great white throne. Erect within your cottage walls an altar to the Lord, and as your wife and children, and yourself, surround it, on your bended knees, a bubbling and upspringing fountain shall burst forth, like the descending stream of water in the desert, at the mandate of the prophet's rod. It shall play in cooling and refreshing effluence upon your fevered head, it shall drop like summer rain upon your parched and panting heart, it shall distil like morning dew drops on your thirsty spirit, and shall quicken your enfeebled energies into new and immortal life. Do you ask again where are these joys to be found? say, Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world," for in him ye shall have life. He bids all welcome, and in his name I bid you all to come to him. Whatever else I may be charged with, none shall say I ever dared to hold back a gospel invitation from a single sinner out of hell. My master called to all, and died for all, and, as his humble messenger, I bid you welcome. I 66 To-Morrow! A LECTURE BY THE REV. A. MURSELL, IN THE FREE TRADE HALL, NOVEMBER 8TH, 1857. LAST Monday morning, feeling rather lazy, I threw myself into an easy chair, and began very deliberately to enumerate the engagements of the week. Now, when a man takes a little slip of paper, and writes out very neatly and carefully everything he has to do during a week-taking great pains with the dates, with the handwriting, the punctuation, and the upstrokes and downstrokes, it is a convincing proof that he is very indisposed for earnest work, and is only putting off time, by trying to persuade himself that he is getting his engagements into proper training an ingenious little bit of self-deception, which is only dispelled by time. So it was with me at the beginning of last week. I began to think when I should begin to prepare this address. "O, that will do to-morrow," I said to myself. Tuesday came, but to-morrow had not yet arrived; for when conscience gently suggested the propriety of setting to work, inclination rudely cried, "Pooh! to-morrow will be time enough for that." Wednesday morning found me just preparing to begin, putting on a very loose coat, a turn-down collar, pulling off my neckerchief, and, in short, making the most elaborate preparations for doing something alarming. Just as I had got myself up as much like Lord Byron, during the operation or shaving, as anything I can think of, and was rolling up my eyes in a fine frenzy to catch the divine afflatus as it beat upon my soul, a knock at the door announced the arrival of somebody, who turned out to be an old friend and college-mate. He was rather astonished at my appearance, and asked me if I was going to fight. I told him I had too much respect for his friends to give him a good thrashing then, so I put by pen and ink, and came out with my visitor, exclaiming that my work would do well enough to-morrow. Thursday morning came, and with it the approaching prospect of Sunday's duties; but I was getting desperate by this time, and on the pretext of making a few necessary calls, (which, of course, could not possibly have been made before,) I laid aside my work once more, resolving to go at it like a Turk to-morrow. On Friday morning, instead or beginning at once, I took up a book where I read a story something like the following:-"A traveller in the back woods of Central America happened one evening to lose his way. He had penetrated somewhat deeply into one of those vast prairielike swamps which lie upon the banks of the great American rivers. As night drew on apace, and the rising mist came wreathing up from the marshy surface of the morass, the traveller, who had expected long ere this to have reached some village or human habitation, becomes alarmed and anxious. He looks nervously around him, uncertain where to turn. At length, when he has almost given up in despair, his straining eye discerns in the far-off horizon a glimmering speck of light. His heart leaps with joy at the sign of the vicinity of human beings, and he makes straight for the light. He calculates upon reaching it in half an hour, and he walks, and sometimes runs, nimbly in its direction. A full half-hour has passed, but the light seems full as far off as ever; and after an hour's tedious striving he seems no nearer. Still there it is before him, and no mistake; and he is resolved to follow after it. It seems brighter and distincter now; and now it begins to move. There must be some one carrying a light. He's close upon it now. 'Hillo! there, show a light this way!' It is gone, and he can sec nothing but the gloom and mist, and hear no sound except the howling wind. Poor fellow! Tired and footsore he sits down upon the ground, and as he shiveringly awaits the blushing of the morning light, he remembers having heard in childhood of strange and dancing lights which rise upon these swamps, and decoy the pilgrim into fruitless errands, which the schoolmaster used to tell him were called ignes fatui-light born amongst the feculence and damp of vegetable corruption, and beckoning their deluded followers into a dangerous chace after an asylum they shall never reach." I shut up the story, for it had taught me a lesson. I thought to myself, "and is not this exactly the way in which I have been chasing after to-morrow? Have not I been plodding day by day after a tantalizing phantom which has receded as fast as I have advanced, and still held out the scroll it clasps within its spectral fingers, with "to-morrow' blazoned on the page? I see it now; to-morrow is a day that " never comes; to-day's my time, so here goes for work before to-morrow makes a fool of me again. I don't know that it is an indispensable rule of good breeding that human beings with real flesh and blood should be expected to be particularly polite and respectful to goblins, spirits, and spectres. Now, there's something in to-day; he's a substantial, unmistakeable sort of fellow, and ought to be treated as an honoured guest; but to-morrow's a humbug! There's no such thing as to-morrow; he is always coming, and never come; an ephemeral giant "looming in the distance;" a quack doctor, whose letters are to be addressed to the post office, and who is never at home; he rises like a ghost "to push us from our stools," and needs to be repelled in the language of the affrighted Thane: "Avaunt! and quit my sight. Let the earth hide thee. Thou hast no speculation in those eyes Which thou dost glare with!" No, let us make the most of to-day, and let the morrow take thought of the things of itself. I promised to try to blend as well as I could the subject of "How-when and where"-which was omitted last Sunday, with the title of to-day. I don't know that this will be a particularly easy matter-but promises must not be broken. Well, how to do it is the first question. It is a very important question this "how?" A question which ought to be asked deliberately and honestly, before any great step is taken; a question which cannot be considered too often or too deeply. The consequences of its too-hasty or ill-judged consideration may result in the entire failure of an important scheme. Look at the instances we have had of this lately. A few weeks ago, a mighty idea was conceived of laying an electric wire beneath the Atlantic Ocean, to enable John Bull to whisper into. Brother Jonathan's ear three thousand miles off, and to give Premier Palmerston and President Buchanan the opportunity of playing their diplomatic cards without getting sea-sick. Of course the question arose-how is this to be done? and clever men began to lay their heads together to hit upon a plan. The plan was resolved upon, and away they sail, with the cable running out at the ship's stern like an interminable tail; but some 500 miles from land snap goes the cable, and the experiment has failed, and John Bull and Jonathan are as far apart. as ever. Again, the other day, the papers were full of suggestions as to how the Great Eastern steamer should be C |