course to prayer, earnest effectual prayer -prayer alone can bring you pardon and forgiveness;-and do you, whose god-fathers and godmothers have promised and vowed three things in your name, consider what these three things are: hearken to your teachers, follow their instructions, fear God betimes, speak the truth, love every one. at maturity, and have taken your vows upon you, reflect often and seriously what those vows require from you; endeavour to keep them truly; in any trial pray for strength to bear it, and strength will be given you; and may he, who alone can guide us in our path, and supply a lanthorn to our feet; may he, our fastest friend, direct and enlighten each and every one of us in the ways of pleasantness, and in the paths of peace! Now to God, &c.

You who have arrived

SERMON II..

ADDRESSED TO YOUTH.

Preached at Banham, Norfolk.

ECCLESIASTES xi. 9.

Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth'; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.

THREE thousand years have passed away since the admonitory voice of the wisest among men was hushed in silence; the race to whom he addressed himself, the nation amidst which he lived, the dominion he exercised, have ages back ceased to exist; but nature survives the wreck of nations, and of kingdoms;

each period of our existence now exhibits the same weaknesses, and is deformed by the same vices which marked and degraded it then. Are the young of our own time less careless and improvident than the young of old? Do they rejoice less in their youth? Are their hearts less gay and cheerful? Do they walk less in the ways of their own hearts, and in the sight of their own eyes? Have the instructive lessons of the son of the psalmist, which must once have touched many a cheerful heart, and spoken home to many a youthful breast, lost all their force and virtue? They have lost not a tittle" Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee, in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes," Go, (as might thus be paraphrased the language of the preacher,) go, pursue thy course of giddy pleasure; mingle in the false, the delusive gaieties

of life; indulge every sinful inclination, accomplish every unholy thought; bid the heart, which should glow with love and devotion to its Maker, kindle a strange and unhallowed flame; the ear, shut to the voice of admonition, be open to the scorner; the lip breathe idle words; the whole man be given up to be the servant of ungodliness; be these the occupations of your age; "but know thou, that for all these things, God will bring thee into judgment." What is the nature of the threat that is denounced? Is it something light and trivial? a penalty which may be evaded? a sentence which can be recalled? It is to stand a criminal before the tribunal of the Most High-it is eternal condemnation-it is to pass into that fearful state of existence, "where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth;" tears that may never be dried up, anguish never to be subdued; where "the worm dieth not, and the fire is not

quenched." This brief space run over, the earthly worm will prey on our earthly part, and, having preyed, will perish by the body which supplied it with aliment; the fire that did once consume the ashes of man, died away with the fuel that kindled it, but that worm so terribly described, shall prey and prey on, and never take its fill; that fire shall glow, ages on ages, as fiercely as it burnt at first. What, then, is the rich possession, valued at so dear a rate? Is it sensual indulgences, and all their train of calamitous consequences?—is it the "lust of the eyes," and the "pride of life?"—is it a round of frivolous amusements, which weaken the body, pall on the taste, and ruin the mind? Is it for all, or any of these things, that ye would venture so much, endure so bitterly? Some, perhaps, of those whom I address here, earning their daily subsistence by the working of their own hands, have little leisure time, but they,