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the darling object of his great enterprise, the vast western continent might yet have been unknown to us, and instead of being the cradle of a new-born civilization, and the home of Christ's religion, might still have had its unshorn prairies echoing with the barbarian's yell, and its shores glaring with the unholy fire of superstitious rites. The racer on the course ever stretches towards the goal with earnest effort. Now, in the Christian course, the starting post and the goal are the same-we start from the cross, and we come in at the cross. That cross is nearer to its ultimate triumphs than it was before. What have we done to push those triumphs? Let us draw fresh hope and animation from it, ere we set forth again; and again starting from this self-same cross, let us in all our future race be increasingly impelled to effort by the recollection of it. Let us try to pick up stragglers on the way, and bring them to it, ere we come round again. Let us be ever looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

We cannot pause to discuss this verse in a methodical and consecutive mode. It certainly offers a most tempting opportunity to the imagination to dwell upon the magnificence and grandeur of the vision, to the emotion to linger in the contemplation of the solemnity and sublimity of the oath, and to the mind to pause over the importance and the awfulness of the asseveration. But we must deny ourselves this opportunity of an excursion into the sublime, and try to bend our thoughts upon the simple lesson which the words contain. It is a very simple lesson the value and importance of time-the purposes for which it is given the objects to be attached to its right use-and our duty to improve it as our best possession, our most precious wealth, as the casket which contains the element of eternity, and as the fecund and upspringing seed of a coming immortality. I can simply throw out these lessons without any enlargement, and leave the eloquence of the scene described to produce its own effect upon your imaginations, and the solemnity of the moral it contains to speak its own warning to your hearts.

To assist your own private reflections upon this theme (and it is more a subject for private thought than for public exercitation), suffer me to point out, and then leave them with yourselves, three plain considerations, which are, directly or indirectly, suggested in the text.

It first implies that time actually exists. The present moment is our own, and all that we can call our own, and it behoves us to turn it to the best account for our own benefit, and that of our fellow-men.

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It further implies that time is in a state of perpetual flight, or continual lapse, that it is an ever-flowing stream. Let us, then, catch the passing moments, and mark the successive stages of our lives, by our advances in the Divine life, and by our growth grace. And let us bear in mind the account we shall have to render of its use and application.

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And, lastly, this verse asserts that the period shall come when time shall be no longer. It will inevitably rise, that sun which shall dawn upon the riven tomb and the reanimated clay, that hour, when the jarring interests, the grasping ambition, the stormy passions of mankind, shall be swamped and lost in one unmingled awe. The day, indeed, will come to which no morrow shall succeed, the stars shall fade before its inextinguishable light. That light shall be eternal as the throne whose glittering base it girdles. The angel's voice shall shout the "crack of doom," ana the fearful conscience and agonizing guilt confess the presence of its Judge. How many that day will cover with shame and everlasting contempt! On how many slumbering souls will it come as a thief in the night! Thus will it steal upon the man of pleasure, upon the libertine in his midnight orgies; thus will it startle the man of business, steeped in care and worldliness, or the easy voluptuary, who says, "soul take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." Thus will it dash the brimming wine-cup from the drunkard's fevered hand, and seal the curse half risen to the scoffer's lip. Thus will it burst upon the hard despiser of the Son of Man, and show the haughty pharisee, who has trampled down the cross, that his foot is dabbling in blood, which, instead of speaking mercy, now cries out for vengeance. To the true believer, however, it will come as the harbinger of peace, and as the breaking of the dawn; to him it will come, not as a thief, but as a welcome guest. And, my friends, how shall it come to us? Are we prepared to take leave of the scenes of time and sense? are we ready dressed in the garb in which we can approach our Judge? Are we prepared to meet him now, this year-this month-this week-this day-this hour? O, what do we know of the coming moment! If now these walls should rend, this roof should cleave, and the thrilling clarion of the last trumpet were to pierce our ears, and agitate our hearts, how, even in this hour of worship, would our hearts and thoughts be found? Would not some of us be caught listening to mere words, with tarping and with critical ears, anxious to condemn or to approve the mere fabric of a lecture? Would not some of us be caught counting on the chances of loss or gain awaiting us on the morrow? How many would be found with hearts uplifted

before God, and with willing souls, ready to depart and to be with Christ? How many, as they saw their Saviour in the air, would be ready to meet Him, and cry, "Come Lord Jesus?"

My friends, you and I as individuals, have lost much time we might have improved, we have all left undone much that we ought to have done. We cannot recal the past; a sincere repentance for abuses is all that we can exercise; but we can improve the future, as a guarantee of our regretfulness for the past. Remember, time is short, and the Judge is at the door. Go forth, then, ye workers in the vineyard of the Lord-go where the crowd is thickest-go where the homes are foulest-go where the oaths are loudest-go where hell is blackest, and float a Gospel message on the feculent air. Go where Satan's hoof has been most firmly planted, and God's fair image trampled into foulest seeming. Go to the dismal haunts, where devils trip it jauntily, and play their direst havoc with the souls of men. Go to the dreary walks, where death and hell go hand in hand together, and the sickle of the one mows down the victims, broadcast, to fill up the other. Go where the monster holds his darkest carnival, and point his victims to the Lamb of God. Go where the surges of damnation rise and dash upon the stony hearts of men, and lift the trident of the cross, and whisper, "Peace, be still!" For, hark! the pillars of the earth are shaking, and the distant trumpet sounds the alarm of doom! The restless earth begins to sicken of the putrifying bones which it conceals, and vomits forth its dead; and, swooping down from heaven, there comes a flying angel, clothed with a cloud, a rainbow round his head, his face all beaming like the sun, and his feet like pillars of celestial fire. Within his hand he bears an open book. Que fiery foot he sets upon the earth, the other he plants upon the sea, and the first utterance of his mouth awakes the volleying roar of seven rolling thunders, and as their hoarse vibrations die away, and the big meaning of their sound is sealed, at the mandate of the potent messenger, the angel lifts his awful hand to the attentive heaven, and swears by Him that liveth for ever and ever, that there shall be time no longer.

How soon this vision shall be realized, God only knows. It may be myraids of ages ere it bursts upon the earth: but it will be the end of time with us, in a few short years at most, and perhaps in a few short weeks or days.

To those, then, who are engaged in any way in doing good to the souls of men, or in seeking the promotion of the glory of God, or the kingdom of Christ, we would say, let the fleetness of time stimulate you to fresh and renewed effort. The night is lower

ing in the sky, it spreads its sable wing already in the looming horizon, it gathers and contracts, the circle narrows, and the light is waning fast; "the night cometh when no man can work." The stroke of death awaits you, and the heart that throbs with sympathy, the lips that speak in love, and the hands that work with zeal, must stiffen and grow cold. Then let the flight of time incite you, and the end of time encourage you. Upon its rushing wings myriads of deathless souls are being hurried into perdition. If you have ever put forth in pity a hand to pluck them from the burning, put forth yet stronger efforts in the time to come. For every single effort you have made, make ten, for every prayer you have presented, put forth fifty. "For they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever." Let the end of time, I say, encourage you. For at that great day, when time shall glide into eternity, and death be swallowed up in victory, when the corruptible shall put on incorruption, and the mortal shall put on immortality, the benison shall await you, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord." The crown of life shall be placed by God's own hand upon your brow, and the everlasting doors thrown open for your entrance "through the gates into the city."

But I cannot dismiss this verse without one earnest effort to press it plainly home to the sinner's heart. The end of time ! Just think of it. The end of all your tricks and follies—the end of all your thoughtlessness and sin-the end of all the opportunities of grace-the end of all the overtures of mercy. What will the end of time be to you? Not your introduction to eternal life and happiness, but the end of all your peace, and joy, and comfort, the beginning of a ceaseless cycle of unutterable woe. Oh, my friends, my dear, dying brothers, I have often said the same thing before, but I must say it again, on an occasion like this, and I must pray you, in the name of Christ, as a dying man speaking to dying men, to lay it to heart! make up your minds to come to the cross. Remember that there is but one time and that is now! Now is the accepted timenow is the day of salvation. My fellow-sinners, you have one foot in the grave already, and the earth is crumbling from beneath you, and soon you will have glided in, past all hope, past all friendship, past all warning. Oh, look! the lamp is dying out-see how it flickers and grows dim-the silver cord is loosening-and the golden bowl will soon be broken! Don't talk of to-morrow. Boast not thyself of to-morrow. I say,

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to-day, to-day if you will hear his voice harden not your heart.
O fool! fool! fool! why wilt thou die? I leave this part of
our theme with that one little word ringing in your ears-NOW!

may it haunt you till it drives you to the cross. Now begin
to lay hold on eternal life. Now begin to flee from the wrath
to come. Now begin to wrestle with God for the application
to your accusing conscience of the blood of sprinkling. Now
begin to hymn the anthem that shall engage your voice through-
out eternity. And O! let time see at least the commencement of
those divine pursuits which shall be the saint's unspeakable
delight, when time shall be no more. Don't stop your ears to
the invitations of the cross-don't steel your heart against the
pity of the Saviour. O look at him as he bleeds, and listen to
him as he pleads! See him in all the agony of compassion, and
ask yourself, what more could even such a Saviour do for you?
Is it not enough that he has died, the just for the unjust? Is it
not enough that he has for your sake become poor?

"View him prostrate in the garden,
On the ground the Saviour lies,
On the bloody tree behold him,
Hear him cry before he dies,
It is finished.

Sinner, will not this suffice?"

1. The other verse I spoke of was this:-"For the time past of our life may suffice to have wrought the will of the Gentiles." -I have a word or two to say about this.

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These words take cognizance of our natural tendency towards worldly and carnal pleasures, and they do this in a spirit of forbearance and tenderness, which, by winning upon our sensibilities, is eminently calculated to induce that humiliation of spirit which must follow upon conviction of sin. are not rudely accused of vicious and ungodly dispositione -but are quietly left to the whisperings of our own conscience within us, as to how far we are to reproach ourselves, or to take home the reproof it involves. It takes it for granted that we are ourselves well aware of our own corrupt and evil tendencies, and that we know that, while we are fulfilling the natural desires of our own hearts, we are doing violence to the higher and nobler instincts of our better nature, and outraging alike the prescriptions of God's law, and the tender advances of his mercy. There are many profligate and licentious men, who pretend not to see the vile and crying evil and ingratitude of the courses to which they are prone-men who

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