and with senses to enjoy it? Was it not the God of your fathers? And Him, just Heavens! Him ye would postpone to the sordid interests of your grovelling passions! Ye would seek meat and drink and raiment, the lust of the eye and the pride of life-all before your gracious benefactor! For these you would employ your six days, for these you would spend nine tenths of your substance, and ye imagine that the rest will suffice to purchase heaven!

"And do ye not so employ the six days, and do ye not so spend nine tenths of your substance? Answer to your own hearts, and let your hearts record the answer. Say what are your thoughts when ye rise up, and what your hopes when you lie down. Say what are your daily occupations, what the themes of your conversations, and what the chief objects of your desires. And if truth dictate the answer, will ye not confess that for one hour consecrated to God, and for one talent devoted to his service, there are ten hours and ten talents devoted to this world and its vanities?

"While careless youth and buoyant health are yours, ye may evade the question, or reply to it falsely. But a day of reflection will come―ay, and a day of retribution. When age and sickness press upon ye, when ye hear a still, small voice, calling ye to your long home, ye will pause-alas! too late. Your conscience will tell you, that ye lived for this life, and scarcely cared for the next. It will tell you, that every moment of your lives, every thought of your hearts, every emotion of your souls, every portion of your property, every exertion of your faculties, every effort of your industry, OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN GOD's; and it will tell you that they were not God's.

“If six days only of every week were consecrated to religion, and nine tenths only of your substance devoted to her service, while the seventh day and the tenth of your worldly goods were spent in earthly pursuits, well might the Deity complain that he was robbed by the creatures of his hand of a portion of that which belongs exclusively to him; and well might ye be taxed, like Ananias and Sapphira, with iniquitously keeping back a part of God's heritance; and well might ye be reminded, even then, that ye gave to the care of the body that which ought to have been given to the care of the soul alone. But how shall I find words to paint the sordid impiety that fills this vain earth, day after day, with worldly thoughts, and worldly cares, and worldly hopes, and worldly enjoyments? Ye

punish with disgrace and death the man who robs a fellow creature of his miserable substance; how shall those sacrilegious robbers be treated, who steal from the Deity, day by day, and year by year, the time and the property that is His. Ye treat with indignant scorn the wretch that should be entrusted by a mortal benefactor with worthless, worldly riches, and should basely betray the trust. In what terms will ye curse him, whose impious ingratitude betrays the trust of our immortal Benefactor, and appropriates to secular purposes the talents that were lent to him, that he might win a place among the happy in paradise?

"But ye need not punish, ye need not curse the wretch. Punishment and curse are already meted out to him. Already is the eternal flame kindled; already does the pit yawn for its victims! And soon shall those victims feel what it is, to be tormented of God!

“ Have ye ever thought-poor, sinful worms-have ye ever thought what it was, to feel the Almighty's vengeance; to feel the fiery worm gnawing at your maddening hearts; to feel the burning pulse throbbing through your glowing veins; to pray with phrenzied impatience for death, yet not to find it; to long, with a lover's longing, for annihilation, yet not to obtain it; to cry through millions of centuries for one moment's respite from your racking pains, and to know assuredly that millions and millions of such periods shall approach, and arrive, and pass away, yet never bring that one mitigating moment; to feel that a hope of relief so distant, that your reason refuses to comprehend the intervening period-to feel that even such faint hope would afford you extatic bliss, and then to know that you can never-never hope again!

"Soon shall ye feel and know what it is. before you.

The great gulf is

The precipice opens at your feet! I see it! I feel

its hot breath! Great God !"—

He

Excess of emotion stopped the preacher's utterance. covered his face with his hands, and sunk back in the pulpit. A cold shudder passed over his audience. The men gazed round them in vacant terror; the women sobbed aloud. Susan, who, in the excitement which the stranger's oratory produced, had involuntarily stood up, that she might not lose a syllable which fell from his lips, now sunk back: and, scarcely conscious of what she did, clung imploringly to her scarcely less terrified partner. At last, with an almost convulsive effort, she whisper

ed to him, "Oh! take me home!" "I cannot," ejaculated Darby, "I cannot. See! he is going to speak again!"

The wild piercing tones of the orator's voice sunk to an expression of softness and compassion, as, after an interval, he proceeded.

66 Poor, perishing, lost sinners! My heart yearns towards ye. My spirit mourns for your fate. I see ye hurried onward, as a lamb to the slaughter, unconscious what ye are, unconscious whither ye go. I see ye stand on the very brink of your eternal destiny. A breath, a touch-and your earthly footing will crumble from beneath you, and ye will sink down, despairing, to unearthly, unending torments. I see ye careless, cheerful, smiling; and oh! too well I know the change that shall come over that careless cheerfulness, and turn these thoughtless smiles to sighs of agony. It breaks my rest, that harrowing thought; it clouds my brow; it wounds my heart. Shall I sit down in peace, and think that when the angelic messengers bear my spirit to the realms above, I shall look across the great gulf and witness your tortures? It may not be; in heaven I may lose the sympathy that binds me to beings of nature like to my own; but on earth I can never cease to feel, to mourn, to warn, to pity them.

"Ye might yet escape. Weak, sinful as ye are, ye might yet, perchance, save your imperishable souls. Ere ye reach your long homes, ye might yet turn aside. But alas for ye! wo for your earthly passions! wo, yet more, for your lukewarmness and your inconsistency! How straight is the gate, how narrow the way, how hard is it to enter the kingdom of heaven! And oh! how vain the attempt to call worldly spirits off from worldly pursuits, and fix mortal thoughts on the concerns of immortality!

"Nor may ye halt between two opinions. Expect not that earth and heaven can both be yours. Choose between them; and stand to your choice. Well did the Son of God know your hesitating frailty, ye children of this world! carefully did he reprove, and pointedly did he denounce it. Hear his own words, as recorded by the evangelist Matthew:

"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. "Is not this plain language? Does it not tell ye, that if ye will be God's children, ye must labor in his service alone, not

one day in seven, not one hour in each day, but through all the hours of every day of your lives? And lest ye imagine that worldly cares are still permitted ye, Jesus proceeds yet more explicitly:

"Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than

meat, and the body than raiment ?

"Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they.

"Alas for ye! How does every action of your lives, and every thought and care of your hearts offend against your heavenly teacher! Do ye not daily, hourly, take thought for your life? Are ye not cumbered and troubled about many things, thinking what ye shall eat, what ye shall drink, and what ye shall put on? And is not this expressly, positively forbidden by Jesus Christ himself? Eternal perdition on your busy selfishness, that blinds your eyes to the law of the Most High, and closes your ears to the gracious words of our merciful Saviour! But read farther; listen while he repeats the heavenly precept, which ye are so dull to hear and so slow to obey:

66 Why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; yet I say unto you, that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe ye, oh ye of little faith?

"Therefore, take no thought, saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed? (for after all these things do the Gentiles seek.) But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

"There are those who exhort ye to carnal industry, and who bid ye labor that ye may eat. Ask yourselves if these be God's command? Hath not Christ said, 'Labor not for the meat that perisheth?' Hath he not promised, 'that God will clothe ye? And will ye, oh ye of little faith, will ye persist in

laboring to feed, and to clothe yourselves? Will ye sell heaven for a mess of pottage, or a garment to cover ye? Infatuated and blind! Is God a man that he should lie, or are his commands but empty words, that ye should despise and neglect them?

"Your life and your death are before ye. Yet again I bid ye choose between God and Mammon. Will ye leave all and follow God? will ye forsake earthly cares, and abstain from worldly labors? will ye cease to lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust corrupt, and thieves break through to steal? will ye think and labor for the one thing needful alone, commencing your spiritual journey without scrip or staff, and casting your care on him who careth for you? will ye trust to Him who clothes the lilies of the valley, and feeds the sparrows of the air, to clothe and to feed you? and will ye, in return, devote your souls to His worship, and your bodies to his service? Will ye thus win yourselves a place in God's holy favor, and a seat in His glorious paradise ?-Hold to God, then, and despise Mammon. Live a spiritual life, and

touch not the unholy thing.

"Or will ye cast contempt on the divine law by keeping his own from the Lord; by spending your time in temporal labor, and your money in temporal comforts; by caring for your bodies when ye ought to care for your souls alone; and thus making Him a liar who has promised to provide for ye, if ye will but seek his kingdom-then take your portion. Drink the cup ye are raising to your lips. Bitter-bitter and poisonous are the dregs; but to the last drop ye shall drain them. And the hot fire which their poison kindles in your veins shall burn on, unquenched, unquenchable, from henceforth and for ever!" The preacher's lips refused to utter the horrible "Amen!"

It is a grievous think to behold the blighting traces of ignorance, and to witness the ravages of superstition. Had you known Darby and his thrifty partner, in their days of worldlymindedness and temporal prosperity, it would have pained your heart to revisit them after a few short years, in that quiet cottage of theirs. It stands there still, by the village green; and the gay honeysuckle still clings to its humble walls. But alas! the spirit of its inmates is gone. Susan-the gay, light-hearted, bright-eyed Susan, the merry songstress, the notable housewife, the laughing villager-alas! for that Thursday evening-it