the name of the Lord Jesus. But there is one act which I would wish now to consider in this double form; an act which ought, it should seem, to be all but an act of direct religion; and yet which is many times done under the influence of worse motives than almost any other of a man's life; the act, I mean, of making a will.

"A testament or will," says the Epistle to the Hebrews, "is of force after men are dead." Therefore I said that it might seem to be properly all but an act of direct religion. For the very notion of our last will and testament implies the notion of our death: what we write, is absolutely written only for that time when we shall be no more in the land of the living. There is something exceedingly solemn in writing words which shall not be read till we can write and read no more; in sealing a paper which shall not be opened till we are laid in our graves. And thus one would think that the bare thought of making our will, the mere consciousness of writing and sealing an instrument so full of death, if I may so speak, in every line, ought in itself to be the most impressive of ser

mons.

There is another thing in the act of writing a will, not nearly so obvious as what I have just noticed; not known perhaps, certainly not considered, by all of us; but yet which deserves our notice. We are so accustomed to hear and talk

of men's wills, that we regard them as matters of course; as what always has been and must be. Yet it is a great power to be able to act when we are dead; to dispose at our pleasure to this person or to that, on such or such conditions, of lands, money, goods, over which we can exercise no control, and which we can by no possibility enjoy. And thus history and law tell us of a time amongst several nations, when wills were either unknown, or were but a request of the dying man, which might after his death be either granted or refused. A state of things is on record, when the succession to all property was fixed by a general law, and a man's power over his own ended when, to speak properly, it was his own no longer. And in one sense of the word, this state of things was the natural one; natural according to that perverted meaning of the term, by which we lose sight of our own proper nature, and speak of that nature only which we have in common with the brutes. For in so far as we are creatures who, in a few years, must cease to be, and, when dead, can do nothing and enjoy nothing in this world, so far is it natural that all our will and all our power should end with us in our grave. But in so far as we have another nature than this, even as far as regards this world; as we are connected with our fathers and our children with us, and we can in no manner get rid of the manifold influences of the

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