already done, do you believe it could be happy? Would you be willing, were the decision left to yourselves, to be "re" warded according to the deeds which you have done in the body!"

Many youths of your own age, many still younger than you, and some of them numbered among your companions and friends, have, during the past year, gone down to the land of silence, finished their probation, and entered upon the recompense of reward. What has become of them? Have not some of them been cut off in the midst of their sins? Have they not in all probability met that Saviour as their Judge, whom they disbelieved, denied, and contemned to the last? Has their retribution, in your view, been probably of such a nature that you would be willing to make it your own? Was their conduct here such, upon the whole, that without apprehension, without trembling, you now dare to follow them in your thoughts to their present habitation? If they, if any of them have been cut off in the midst of their sins during the past year, where is your safety during that which is now begun ?

Among the sins which may contribute largely to your reprobation, and may peculiarly provoke God to destroy you in the midst of your days, your procrastination is probably not the least. Few things are more provoking, or less cheerfully forgiven by mankind to their fellow-men, than procrastination. A fraudulent debtor is scarcely regarded by his creditor with stronger feelings of censure, and rarely with equal contempt or hatred, as he who is continually resolving, and promising, and yet never pays. The workman who gives you the promise, or the encouragement of doing a piece of service for you, and from time to time postpones the performance, while he still continues to promise and encourage, soon becomes an object of absolute loathing. A child who, when reproved and punished for his forwardness, or treated perhaps with induldence and tenderness, from the fond hope that he may amend, engages from time to time, but never begins to reform his life, becomes an inexpressible weariness to his father, and an insup

portable "heaviness to his mother." All these characters you unite in one; and, like them all, postpone your duty, your repentance, and your reformation to a future time. These things you have postponed from time to time through life. The past year, given to you for the very purpose of bringing you to repentance and reformation, and thus conducting you to endless life, has rolled all its days and nights over your heads, and seen all these invaluable purposes unaccomplished. What a dark and melancholy chapter must that be, in the history of an immortal being, which, through the best year of his probation, records not a single effort to gain the blessings of immortality? What an afflicting story must that be concerning such a being, which is made up of impiety, rebellion, ingratitude, unbelief, impenitence, evil thoughts, evil designs, evil conversation, and evil conduct? What a dreadful blank must that volume of life be, in which there is found not " one good thing "towards the Lord God of Israel;" which records no service done for God; no voluntary beneficence to mankind; not a solitary attempt to oppose sin; not a single exercise of gratitude or faith towards the Redeemer? With what emotions will you see this volume opened, and yourselves about to be "judged out of the things which are written" on its pages. How guilty, how deplorable, how pernicious will your procrastination then appear, and how will your hearts die within you to find it all perfectly known, and perfectly abhorred by your Judge.

But is there not the most affecting reason to fear, that the whole year has passed by you without witnessing even a single attempt to renounce your sins and turn to God? Are you not now conscious, that not even one solitary prayer has ascended from your lips for the forgiveness of your sins, and the sanctification of your souls; that God has not been even asked to remember you with mercy; that not a single wish has started up in your minds for immortal life? What a melancholy year must this then be to be remembered by you beyond the grave. With all these solemn reflections before your eyes, let me, in the

Fifth place, Exhort you most seriously to consider in what manner the present year ought to be employed. The present year may, without any improbability, be your last; and, if not, it may be the last of your accepted time. Should you survive it, as most of you probably will, God may say of you, if another year should find you still hardening your hearts, and postponing your repentance, as he said of such as you are, by the mouth of the prophet, "What could have been done " more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Where"fore, when I looked, that it should bring forth grapes, " brought it forth wild grapes? And now go to; I will tell " you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away the "hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down "the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down. And I will " lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there " shall come up briers and thorns. I will also command the "clouds, that they rain no rain upon it." These things were written for your admonition. They are indeed awful things; and, however stout-hearted, however far from righteousness you may be, they ought to force you not merely to hearken, but to tremble. How dreadful would be your situation should God execute them upon you!

Fasten your eyes then upon this year, as to you the golden season of life. Feel the uncertainty of living to another. Tremble, lest another, if it should arrive, should find you given over to hardness of heart. Awake out of the lethargy, by which you have been so long benumbed. Say no longer, "A little more sleep, a little more slumber, a little more fold"ing of the hands to sleep." Mark the progress of your past conduct. What has it produced? Hardness of heart, blindness of mind, and guiltiness of life. What will it hereafter produce? The same blindness, the same hardness, the same guilt. In what will it end? In everlasting lamentation, mourning, and woe.

Prize then the present year, as of value literally inestimable. Enter upon it with solemn resolutions, formed with an affecting remembrance that God is a witness of them to consecrate it to his service, your own duty, and the attainment of life eternal. Your are now living. There is now hope concern

3

ing you. God is now waiting to be gracious. Pardon is still proffered. Christ, with infinite tenderness, still invites you to repent and be saved.

How delightful to a benevolent mind is even the thought, how much more delightful the hope, that induced by these considerations, or by any considerations, some of those who are now before me will, during the present year, enter the way to heaven; that some, who never uttered a prayer, will have it truly said of them, " Behold they pray!" How charming an object to the eye of compassion to see the Bible, hitherto left on the shelf, unread and forgotten, seriously and daily opened to find the words of eternal life? Who, although an obstinate sinner himself, can fail, from natural tenderness only, to rejoice in the thought, that that sacred book will solemnize, enlighten, and allure even a little number of those to whom it has hitherto spoken in vain ? What a glorious prospect must it be in the view of Christians, to see the kingdom of heaven enlarged from this congregation? Realize with me for a moment the transporting nature of this mighty change. In the place of stupidity, unbelief, and irreligion, behold a sober mind; a sweet, pure, and heavenly conversation; a sanctified Sabbath, and a sanctuary solemnized, warmed, and hallowed with devotion. The miserable sinners of this assembly, so long lost in the sleep of death, awake, stand on their feet, and become living children of God. Here God is feared, loved, and glorified; the Redeemer is trusted, honoured, and blessed; and his church, no longer a wilderness, blossoms and smiles as the garden of God. Must not those ministering spirits, who are "sent forth to minister to them that are heirs " of salvation," delight peculiarly to minister here? Nay, must not these very walls rejoice to see immortal minds, in the morning of life, here dedicated to God in the eternal covenant, and mercifully taken into the arms of the Saviour? Hasten, O hasten, ye happy days, when a divine intercourse between this seat of learning and the world of life shall be gloriously enlarged; when, not from the deserted Bethel of Judea, but from this house of God, the ladder, seen by Jacob, shall ascend

to heaven, the prayers of every worshipper daily rise to that benevolent world, and angels and blessings daily descend. Fly, thou happy period, when the prophetic eye, with a rapturous anticipation, shall behold all those who here assemble for the worship of God, finally and for ever assembled in the glorious worship of heaven, and the supreme enjoyment of the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour.