when He was most showing His love, these words express the most fearful amount of misery which the human mind can possibly conceive. For they declare of an immortal being, that it would have been good for him if he had never been born. Now consider what immortality is, consider what is conveyed to us in the words "never ending;" and it will be plain that if it were good for a man that this never ending being should never have been begun, it can only be because it will be to him a being of never ending misery. For let the misery last ever so long, yet if it has any end at all, the eternity of happy existence which follows that end must make it not bad, but infinitely good for us to have been born. Thousands on thousands of years of suffering, if that suffering is to end at last, must be infinitely less to an immortal being, infinitely more vain, infinitely more like a dream at waking, than one single second of suffering compared to threescore and ten years of perfect happiness.

There was one for whom it would have been good if he had never been born. But if this were all, if it were no more than a particular truth relating to one particular man, better a great deal that we should turn away our minds from a subject so dreadful rather than fix them on it; for why should we pain ourselves, why injure the calm tone of our feelings by presenting to them images

of gratuitous horror? What I have said already would have been far too much, if this were so. But if it be no particular truth, but a general one; if there have been many of whom it might have been said no less truly that it were good for them if they had never been born: when above all it will be truly said of our very selves,-of us now sitting here,-of us, most of us so young and so happy,—of us, so full of hope and of enjoyment, -when I say it will be true of every one of us that it were good for us if we had never been born, unless we cross over from death unto life, and so strive, and so watch, and so pray, as many of us now perhaps can hardly fancy themselves doing, -then it is no useless horror, no unnecessary exciting the feelings, but a work rather of soberness, and truth, and loving kindness, to open the eyes of any on that gulf of infinite darkness into which he of whom Christ spake once fell; on whose edge, unconscious of our danger, we ourselves in many cases are now standing.

There is no occasion to dwell on the particular sin of him of whom the words in the text were spoken; for we know that except we repent we shall all likewise perish. Otherwise we might remember that they who sin against their Saviour are expressly said to crucify Him afresh; their guilt being thus made directly of the same sort as well as degree with his of whom Christ said that it had

been good for him if he had never been born. It is not the particular sin, however, with which we are concerned, but rather the general state on which this fearful doom was pronounced. It was the state of one who with many opportunities long offered to him, had neglected all; who had brought himself to that condition that he might despair, but could not repent. Now if this condition were wholly ours, then it were vain to speak of it; if we had so long and so obstinately hardened our hearts that there was no place left for repentance, then indeed we might sit down and cross our arms as helplessly as the boatman when he feels himself within the sure indraught of the cataract, and that no human aid can save him from being swept down the fearful gulf. But if the boat be not so surely within the grasp of the current, if yet, though it be fast hurrying downwards, it may by a vehement effort be rescued, if the shore of certain safety be not only near, but by possibility accessible, who cannot conceive the energy with which we should struggle under such circumstances? who cannot feel of what intense efforts he would then be capable, when on the issue of a few moments of greater or less exertion, life or death were hanging?

The words of the Scripture which I have been dwelling on are known to the ears of us all; they stand ever before us, with a truth no less awful at one moment than at another. Yet we are so

formed, that truths, at all times equally important in themselves, present themselves to our minds under some circumstances with greater force than others. It seemed to open to me the full force, the full magnitude of the truth of our Lord's words, when I heard them read this morning. For when

should the importance of every moment of trial be more felt, than when we witness cases of trial ended? When should we all feel more deeply what we have to do here, the infinite evil of neglect, the infinite blessing of Christian exertion, than now at this moment, when so many who have been long amongst us have just been removed from us, when on all of these one scene of trial has passed for ever, improved or wasted; when to one of this very number not this scene of early trial only, but the time of all trial is gone, and even at the very moment when his companions are removed to another field of labour, he has been taken to his eternal rest?

And then how flashes upon the mind along with the awful truth of Christ's words to Judas, the accompanying truth as blessed as that is awful,-how good it is, good beyond the power of tongue to speak of, for Christ's redeemed to have been born! How bright a light is thrown upon this earthly life when we so look at it! How good is it for us to be here; how thankfully, how joyfully, may we feel the consciousness that we are alive, if having joined

ourselves to Christ, and walking in His faith and fear, we know that this life shall be for ever!

So then on both sides the importance of our time here, of every day of it and of every hour, is brought out, not with exaggeration, but simply without disguise or concealment, when we are looking as now upon trial ended. We judge of things then as God judges of them; for an instant our view of earth and earthly things is like His. For when I came yesterday from witnessing all but the very death-bed of him who has been taken from us, and looked around upon all the familiar objects and scenes within our own ground, where your common amusements were going on with your common cheerfulness and activity, I felt that there was nothing painful in witnessing that, it did not seem in any way shocking or out of tune with those feelings which the sight of a dying Christian must be supposed to awaken. The unsuitableness in point of mere natural feeling between scenes of mourning and scenes of liveliness, did not at all present itself. But I did feel, that if at that moment any of those faults had been brought before me which sometimes occur amongst you; had I heard that any of you had been just guilty of falsehood, or of drunkenness, or of any other such sin; had I heard from any quarter the language of profaneness, or of unkindness, or of indecency; had I seen or heard of any signs of that wretched folly