sitions; and our duty to ourselves is but another name for obedience to God, for our interest and happiness depend upon it. But leaving speculations of this kind out of the question, ‘time is short' when we actually contemplate what we have to do, for man is a being formed for unceasing activity; and there is not a moment of his life which is cut loose from the obligations of positive effort, mental or bodily. If this be so, then every moment of time is actually filled up with responsibilities; and by no species of reasoning, or alchemy, can time be lengthened out beyond the period of actual positive obligations. For this reason it is, that at the day of judgment an account will be demanded of all our time; and it is for this reason that the waste of a moment is criminal

Throw time away,

Throw empires, and be blameless

Moments seize,-heavens on their wing

A moment we may lose, which worlds want wealth to buy.'

He who employs every moment of his time in his duty to God, his neighbour, and himself, will find that time is short' to accomplish all he must do;

and yet not short, because all filled up profitably. He who has time to waste, will find that it must be dreadfully accounted for.

'Time is short,' compared with any man's expectations of life. There is one thing in which very few feel disposed to derive any advantage from the lessons of experience. We see men die

daily. We are aware that the sentence is inevitable, Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.' We notice that here one is cut off in advanced years; there another in the vigour of manhood; here one, apparently in health, suddenly cut down; there another sinking under the slow, though certain advances of infirmity and disease. Here we see the youth just coming to his prime, quickly disappearing; and there the tender infant, passing, as it were, from its mother's arms to the bosom of eternity. And yet there is scarcely an individual who learns the lesson of his own liability to be cut off, and perhaps with little or no warning. All look for lengthened years, and though not one in ten can, in the whole analogy of his experience of others, have a reasonable hope of living even thirty years, yet every individual

supposes that he will be that one exempt, while the nine are by death disposed of as he pleases. It is obvious that nine out of the ten must be disappointed; and yet, instead of asking, 'Is it I?' and acting upon the possibility that it may be, every one concludes-it is not I, and acts upon that conclusion. There is no living man whose time will not be shorter than he expects it to be; and for this plain reason, that he never anticipates the period of his death. It is placed by him merely among remote probabilities. Reader, is it not so with thyself? When, then, you take into the account your expectations of life, you may well say, 'How short my time is.'

There is but one view more of the subject which we will present. Time is short,' compared

with eternity.

Here we are at once overwhelmed.

Eternity baffles all our comprehensions.

Com

parisons do not even bring the subject within the

view of our minds.

A powerful writer has said

There is a great difference between one drop of water, and the twenty thousand baths which were contained in that famous vessel in Solomon's tem

ple, which, on account of its matter and capacity,

was called the sea of brass; but this vessel itself, in comparison of the sea, properly so called, was so small, that when we compare all it could contain with the sea, the twenty thousand baths, that one hundred and sixty thousand pounds weight, appear only as a drop of water. There is a great difference between the light of a flambeau and that of a taper; yet, expose them both to the light of the sun, and the difference becomes imperceptible. like manner, eternal duration is so great an object, that it causeth every thing to disappear that can be compared with it. A thousand years are no more before this, than one day, and these terms, so unequal in themselves, seem to have a perfect equality when compared with eternity. We, minute crea

In

tures, consider a day, an hour, a quarter of an hour, as a very little space in the course of our lives; we live without scruple, a day, an hour, a quarter of an hour :—but we are very much to blame; for this day, this hour, this quarter of an hour, should we lose even a whole age, would be a considerable portion of our life. But, if we attend to the little probability of our living a whole age; if we reflect that this little space of time, of which we are so

profuse, is the only space we can call our own; if we seriously think that one quarter of an hour, that one day, is the only time given us to prepare our accounts, and to decide our eternal destiny, we should have reason to acknowledge, that it was madness to lose the least part of so short a life. But God revolves (if I may so speak) in the immense space of eternity. Heap millions of ages upon millions of ages, add new millions to new millions, all this is nothing in comparison of the duration of an Eternal Being.'* Compared with eternity, then, how short my time is.'

But short as it is, it is long enough to do the great work of preparation for eternity; and he who wastes it, loses his soul. Reader, how are you taking advantage of this short time? Are you

seeking to use it to the purposes of salvation? Young has eloquently said—

'On all important time, through every age,

Though much, and warm, the wise have urged; the man

Is yet unborn, who duly weighs an hour.

'I've lost a day'-the prince who nobly cried,

Had been an emperor without his crown;

Of Rome? say rather lord of human race!

He spoke as if deputed by mankind.

* Saurin.