we borne by other hands at last; of our fellow pilgrims, some will follow after, some have gone before, a few, leaving no mark whereby to trace the path that they pursued, others, erecting some humble memorial to guide the wayfaring man, to tell him the life they spent was not spent altogether unworthily; that they possessed some virtues, exercised some charities; there were some kindly affections cherished and indulged, some social duties not unaptly performed; and they tell him too to prepare to meet his God. Who that has ever knelt at the side of some loved being, when the shades of death have been closing fast around, remains untouched and stubborn, when the eyes that were wont to shine are dim and lustreless, the cheek wan and hollow, the frame exhausted and worn out, as if the soul, wearied of its bonds, were struggling to be free; if then, perchance, some parting admonition falter on the lip, lives it not in the memory?— lingers it not on the soul? And when that form has lost its loveliness, and corruption spread itself over the mortal part, and the spirit is before the God that made it, shall not the lettered stone echo to fellow dust the warning voices of the dead? Should thoughts like these fling a gloom around us?-must sadness and sorrow abide in the habitation of our God? Think again,-has not our Redeemer promised, "where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them?" He is in the midst of us now; his eye, his hand, are on each and every one of us. Would we stand before him with all the frailties and infirmities that flesh is heir to, with no one sin reproved, no guilty inclination stifled, no lust repressed? Would we not rather stand before him now, as we would hope to stand hereafter, treading down the passions which degrade our being, checking, if not subduing, the lusts which war within us, chastening every guilty thought, banishing every evil suggestion, and, to perfect us in the work we have begun, imploring the assistance of that divine grace, without which all our ex ́ertions are vain and insufficient? And as in this our enterprise, a sincere and honest disposition prompts, so may the immortal spirit, shrouded for some short space,—who can tell how short a space, -from our view, assist, strengthen, and confirm us!-To whom, &c. SERMON IV. ON THE SABBATH. LUKE xiv. 1. And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, that they watched him. OUR Saviour's life and conduct was so very different from the life and conduct of those with whom and among whom he lived, that without considering the remarkable gifts he exercised, and the peculiar authority he laid claim to, these circumstances alone were quite sufficient to draw down upon him the hatred and jealousy of those who may have felt their own, to say the least, careless and irregular demeanour silently but severely reproved in his innocent and blameless one. We must not, however, indulging in a kind of self-complacency, seem to ourselves to stand, as it were, on some high ground, from whence, conscious of the excellencies that adorn our own age, we may look down with something of pity, something more of pride, on the defects of past generations. No; bad as the Jews may have been at that day, they were not a whit worse than many Christians, in the variety of worlds within worlds, which fill up our vast existence, have been and still are. But to proceed: "As he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, they watched him." The moment our blessed Lord entered on his public mission, proclaiming the repeal of the old law, and the commencement, in his own person, of a new and more perfect covenant, that moment suspicions darkened around him, every eye was |