Samaritan, seeing his distressed, and tired, and almost despairing look, extends his cup to his parched lips, but still he haughtily refuses. He has resisted many such kind offers on his journey, till at length, wearied in spirit, and completely overcome in soul and body, he sinks down upon a stone by the road side, and weeps and tears his hair, and cries, "O that I had listened to the kind advances which were so freely made to me! Fool that I was to let my cursed pride reject such generous offers! How lightly I might have tripped along, but for my stiffnecked haughtiness! Now I must lie down to die!" Lie, down to die! Nonsense, man! Get up and urge your limbs along a little further. Your lamentation is true enough; you were a fool, and worse than a fool, to despise the kindness that was offered you; but if you really mean it, don't lie roaring there, but gird your loins and take your staff once more, and plod a little further, and try if you cannot walk better without your pride than with it. Perhaps you will pass some other halting place, bye and bye, where you may find a welcome-why, even now, you may see a light in yonder window-we are almost there. What is that written up above the door? "Knock and it shall be opened." Don't be afraid! Never mind the memories of your past ingratitude, which come crowding in upon you on the threshold. Why, here is the kind host actually opening to you, ere you have summoned up the heart to knock. What is it that he says-"Be off, I've nothing for you, we have so many beggars here, we can't assist them all?" No, I did not understand him so, certainly; he could not have said that with such a beaming smile upon his face. Listen once more, for he speaks more earnestly than before, as though he feared you would pass by without attending to him. See how he beckons you to approach; why, there are tears of entreaty coursing down his cheeks. O, unstop your ears and listen! Do you hear him now! "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest, and him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out." Does that apply to you? are you weary and heavy laden? do you feel the need of rest? Then the invitation is for you. You have only just to take it, and be eased of every load, and be forgiven every sin, and bear through all your future pilgrimage, the yoke which is easy and the burden which is light. The past cannot be recalled. Let us show, then, the sincerity of our regrets for what has been evil in it, by improving the present, and working while it is called to-day, by accepting the oft-rejected offer of mercy at once, not overshadowing the brightness of the future with the darkness of the past, but irradiating the present with the borrowed brightness of the coming day. Let us not be turning the precious hours of the present into the wasting twilight of expiring hope, but seek to have them changed into the gathering dawn of an eternal noon. "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near." Turn ye to the strongholds, ye prisoners of hope, for behold, now is the accepted time, to-day is the day of salvation. Now one parting word. Last Sunday I took the liberty of personally addressing those who were old in years as well as sin. The subject of to-day warrants me in repeating that appeal. I have perhaps addressed many whose grey and hoary heads tell of an opening grave. Some of these have fought the battle of life and the fight of faith well. To them I dare say nothing, only leave them to hear their Lord's "Well done," and pray for grace to follow them myself. But some who are verging toward the grave, may, all through life, have been heedless about their souls, and even yet be careless about their eternal destiny. My friends-it may be the last time you and I shall meet on earth. I cannot let you go without With you "the day is far spent and the night is at hand," and on your stunned and heavy ears the echoes fall in dull and muffled accents. You have left behind you a long, long train of footsteps-all printed on the treacherous soil of Satan's paths. And those footsteps are stained with blood. It is not your own. It is blood that might have washed you clean and made you spotless as a new-born child-it is the blood of the Son of God who died for you, which you have trampled under foot. But I will not call before you the list of your byegone sins. I will only implore you to look over the threshold of the tomb, upon whose brink you totter-into the long black future. There seems there but a gloomy prospect for you. But even now, at this late season-although your head is gray, your step is feeble, and your brow is furrowed-it may not be yet too late to turn. Behold, thou reverend veteran in guilt-I lift before you the cross of Christ-and, even yet, in His name I say unto you, "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." It is a sad sad thing, I know, to put repentance off so late-but it is better to repent late than to repent never. may, indeed, be too late to recall the unblighted joy of a long Christian life-but it is not too late to grasp the nail-pierced hand of Jesus. Better had your infant voice first lisped the accents of a Saviour's love-but better now than never. 'Tis true a word of warning and entreaty. It the sun will beam more often and more brightly on the young and tender blade-'tis true, its genial breath will sigh upon it with a more reviving and more fostering power. But still there are times, even when the overhanging cloud that sits upon the mountain's brow, and shrouds its lofty summit in a gathering pall, is rolled away before the vernal breeze and the brightening beam-and Phoebus dallies with her fairest rays among the snowy locks of grey Mont Blanc, and as her lavish hand rests softly on his head, the snow flakes gently melt and trickle down in tears. Full many a livelong day and moonlight night the herdsman and the mountaineer have cast a wistful eye towards that lofty peak, but it has been veiled amidst the curtaining ether. But now-the glow has come at last, and only see how blazing and how dazzling the frosty summit beams! The snowy cap gleans like a warrior's helmet or a conqueror's crown, and the white old head, so often draped with the fading tapestry of gloom, is pillowed like a wanton on the ample bosom of the orb of day! So shall thy hoary brow, my aged fellow-sinner, long overcast with clouds and doubts-perhaps for three-score years and ten become the resting-place of the Sun of Righteousness's selected beams-so shall the hand of pardoning love enfold you with its largesses of grace and glory-so shall the drops of mercy fall as the rain, and distil as the dew about your drooping head— if you will but lay the hand of faith upon the great propitiatory. If you will but take the arm of Christ to hold up your faltering steps-if you will but dissipate the clouds upon the breath of prayer-and woo the sunbeams with the eye of faith. "Ye, no more your suns descending, Freedom! A LECTURE BY THE REV. A. MURSELL, IN THE FREE TRADE HALL, NOVEMBER 22ND, 1857. 66 THERE is something exhilarating in the word Freedom, which sets the whole soul in a warm glow, like that a man feels after a shower-bath. The abstract idea of Freedom is one of unmingled exultation. And the concrete reality is generally regarded as altogether glorious. But still there are aspects in which even Freedom looks repulsive; and, just as some fair and lovely child can, in a capricious whim, contort his handsome features into an ugly or grotesque appearance, so, too, can Freedom's visage darken into a shadowy scowl, or distend into an offensive grin. In short, beautiful though she be, Freedom can make herself disgusting. For example-I fancy there are few of our patriotic and highsouled platform orators who talk about "the despot's chain," and a nation's wrongs," who would not be offended at the easy and familiar freedom which would invade his plate-chest, and make free with his spoons, and knives and forks. There is a "free and enlightened republic," the other side of the Atlantic, in which the little bantling, liberty, has been somewhat spoiled; and where it "takes liberties" of its own, which rather border on the disagreeable. I do not allude here, to the amiable freak of buying and selling human nature like ribs of beef or horse-flesh, nor to the bartering and swopping of mothers, sisters, and daughters. I do not allude to the tearing of babies from a mother's breast; or the severance of husbands from wives, and fathers from children. I do not allude to the traffic in souls and bodies, or to the seasons of commercial prosperity or panic, caused by fluctuations in the price of men and women; nor do I allude to the buying with dollars, at the nod of the salesman, |