ditional life to a Parent's heart; our friends, and kindred; all that mortal man holds dear. To know the awful sentence is accomplishing; our frame already turning to corruption, hastening to mix with its native dust. No language can set forth this awful scene, this opening vision of futurity.

But, if with all the blessed hopes in Christ, all the well-founded expectations of His mercy, of Salvation through His unspeakable merits; a just man fears to die; a good man shudders at the separation of his Soul, and body-at that hour Oh! what must be the sinner's apprehensions!

Confident in himself, and careless of futurity; his evil course has been marked with blood and cruelty. He has trampled upon all laws he has openly ridiculed Religion, he has blasphemously scoffed at all her dictates; for "the Fool hath said in his heart there is no God."

But why does he now court life, why cling to his uneasy pillow; why does he ask fresh hopes of longer, yet a little longer life, from every by-stander? Death has opened his eyes at last an awful internal summons has all ed his Soul hence, and his Soul is about

to return to God who gave it. And what mercy can that Soul expect from Him whom he has denied in his life; from Him whom he would still have denied if health, and strength, remained?

His body is left for interment; his memory is lost, or remembered but to be condemned by his fellow men: his Soul is gone whither, alas! we cannot, dare not, penetrate. We ourselves may be in his sad state before another morn; our Souls may know the dreadful sorrows of futurity.

Then let us seek, while He may yet be found, the God of Truth, and Mercy. For He, "the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a living Soul."

He called man from the dust, and gave him the glorious trial of human life, by which to gain Eternity. Great, and stupendous mercy a few short years of trial, a futurity of joyful hope, an Eternity of peace in heaven!

He made man lower than the angels, that He might crown him with honour and glory. He not only made man in His own Image;

but has exalted human nature to His own right hand, in His only begotten Son, the God-man Christ Jesus.

"For since by man came Death, by man came also the Resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."

And God, as you well know, my fellowmen, and Christian brethren; has abundantly furnished us with the means of grace, in the Revelation, by Christ Jesus, of His eternal Will, and Wisdom.

Those holy records, which a just man treasures as his own Soul, make even Death less painful. They are never read with piety, and hope; but they enlarge the mind, and animate the Soul to new exertions.

They teach the dying Christian to regard his death-bed as the gate of everlasting life: to bend, without a murmur, to the will of God. Teach him to change, with less reluctance, these scenes of mortal pleasure, for the abode of the spirits of the just: there existing in joyful expectation of that great day, when Christ shall give up the kingdom to God, even the Father; and God shall be all in all.

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Knowing in his own mortal career, the ever watchful Providence of God; and blessing His Mercy for having so long spared him to his beloved Wife, Children, and friends: he cheerfully bids them farewell, hoping soon to meet again.

Sustained, in this last effort of expiring nature, by the consolations of the Holy Spirit; he points to realms beyond the skies as the eternal destiny of the just; and dies, at last, in peace.

Then does the body return to the earth, from whence it came; then does the spirit return to God, who gave it!

SERMON IV.

ON IDOLATRY.

PSALM XCVI. 5, 6.

AS FOR ALL THE GODS OF THE HEATHEN, THEY ARE BUT IDOLS: BUT IT IS THE LORD THAT MADE THE HEAVENS. GLORY AND WORSHIP ARE BEFORE HIM : POWER AND HONOUR ARE IN HIS

SANCTUARY.

THE belief in a Supreme Being has been found to exist among all Nations; for men knowing their own helpless nature, have sought for protection beyond that of this World: and even the Heathen worshipped those to whom they ascribed the power of bestowing it.

In many of the Kingdoms of the Earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars, were the