generations which have gone before us, neither can our children by possibility get rid of the influences of our generation; so it is most natural and most wise that the past and present and future should be linked to one another in a chain not to be broken; that in every age the dead should still, in a manner, be present amongst the living; that their words and actions should still have force, and share with our own in the disposition of us and

ours.

These considerations are each of force to make us consider the making a will as one of the most solemn actions of our lives. For the power of making it is given us by society, which entrusts us with what we never could have taken to ourselves, and allows us to extend our life in a manner far beyond its natural bounds, in the confidence that so great a privilege shall be exercised in a becoming spirit; that having a second term of existence given us, we should use it worthily. And again, thinking of what we write in our will, as written for that time when we shall be actually abiding God's judgment, with no power whatever to repent of or undo any foolish or wicked thing that we may have said or done; we shall thus also consider carefully what we are doing, and take heed not to commit sin in such a matter, where, by the very necessity of the case, there shall be no place left for repentance.

Yet with all this, wills, as I have already said, often exhibit the saddest marks of sinful passions; so that there are cases in which we should think worse of a man from the spirit shown in his last will, than from any thing that he had been known to do or say in the course of his life. This arises no doubt from the practice, in itself reasonable and good, of making our wills when we are in full health and strength; when we have no distinct sense at all of the period for which we are making them. And again, the great abuses formerly practised by superstition or by fraud, when the priest beset the dying man, and persuaded him to leave his money to what were called spiritual uses, and which were neither always really spiritual and Christianlike, nor recommended on just and Christian reasons; these abuses have left such an impression upon men's minds, that there is often a shyness in the clergy of speaking upon the subject, either personally in their visits to the sick, or publicly in the pulpit. Yet to speak of it in the pulpit, at least, can by no possibility be open to abuse; and it may be something to lay down generally, and when there can be no particular application intended, such rules as a Christian ought to follow in a matter so solemn.

First of all it may be right just to observe, that a will in all its directions and bequests should be

free from extravagance and folly.

There are instances of wills in which the testator has seemed to indulge some strange fancy, as if he wished to excite astonishment, or exercise a capricious power even after he is dead. But when society enabled us to live on in a manner after our death, it meant that our reason and principle should so live, and not our folly. And what sense can he entertain of death and judgment, who, in the very preparation for both, indulges in some absurdity such as would be ill fitted for the graver moods and better tempers even of our common life? But as this is not the commonest fault in wills, I need not do more than thus briefly allude to it.

A worse feeling, which sometimes appears in a man's will, is that of resentment or revenge. There is a pleasure felt in remembering old slights, in vexing or disappointing those who may once have offended or neglected us. And with such feelings unrepented of, nay, gloried in, and exercised, so to speak, after death, we appear before God to ask that we may be forgiven. Surely every such will is no other than a horrible record, written and signed and sealed by a man's own hand, of a man's eternal condemnation. By it, he, being dead, yet speaketh, to say that he is indeed dead, body and soul. For what hope can the fondest charity entertain of such a man's repent

ance, when he tells us himself that up to the very latest minute of his life he did not repent, and would not?

But this also, it is to be hoped, is a fault comparatively rare. By far the commonest evil feelings manifested in wills are covetousness and ambition. The desire of leaving a name, of making a family, of conferring enormous wealth and consequence on ourselves as living in our posterity. Thence the spirit of tying up property for as long a period as we can, that our own power may be the longer felt, and the idol which we worship may not pass away. How often is the peace and mutual love of a family broken by such wills as these; when brothers and sisters are put in a wholly wrong position with regard to each other; one unduly exalted, the rest unduly made dependent. But here, too, the thing which is most plain on the face of a such a will is, that it could not have been an act done in the name of the Lord Jesus. For if there be such sins as covetousness and ambition, and worldly mindedness, I know not how they can be more shown than by thus retaining them to the last, and declaring that riches and worldly rank are things far more precious to us than love for our children individually, or their cherishing towards one another the natural feelings of brotherly confidence and affection.

Another point, harder to touch upon, and on which one cannot give any universal rule, yet requires, I think, to be noticed. There are, I believe, some parts of Europe in which no will is valid unless it contains some bequest to the poor. This is evaded, as such rules are apt to be, by making the sum so bequeathed to the poor merely nominal. Yet the feeling which dictated the rule was founded on truth; that in the last act of his life a man should regard not only justice, but charity; that he should remember those whom Christ so often and so earnestly has recommended to our care. And that our church shares the feeling may be seen from one of the rubrics in the service of the Visitation of the Sick, which says that "the minister should not omit earnestly to move such persons as are of ability to be liberal to the poor. Certain it is, that bequests for charitable and public purposes are far more rare than they were formerly, in proportion as those wills of covetousness and ambition have more abounded; the spirit of charity and of Christ has departed, and the spirit of pride and selfishness and mammon has come in its place. And certain it is also, that there are some purposes both of public usefulness or ornament, and also of what is more directly called charity, which in every man's immediate neighbourhood require to be promoted. Such objects, let them be of what particular kind