melodious and romantic than before. How then does the child of God, after long sickness, rejoice to come once more into the temple! Yes; but think with what still greater joy does he return to the full pleasure of ordinances, who had lost it long, not by physical, but by spiritual sickness: by-soul-declension: when the temple had ceased to charm, when the sermon only accused him,

when the Bible was a sealed book, and the Lord of life and favour seemed to hide his face for a time. Brethren! in any view it is delightful to enjoy an ordinance, after for a time we had lost it. Think with what pleasure the pious Jews returned from the land of Nebuchadnezzar, after their long captivity, to worship God in their own country once more! I could imagine the aged Jew, while his eager grand-children hung upon his robe playfully, I could imagine him looking up with his keen black eye, under impending brows, as he took down his harp from the willows on Babylon's streams; and how would he tell his children of the temple's pristine glory!--and how would he unwreathe from the silencing foliage that harp that had slumbered long, whose masterchord was broken-and how would he wake its! ecstacies once more and how, with all the host, would the journey homeward seem short and easy, while the mind was almost rioting in delightful anticipations! Such, my friends, is our joy, when we turn our feet towards the temple, and leave the world for an hour.

4. Caution. After the soul has been greatly humbled, there follows a great tenderness of conscience a fear to offend again. My brethren, while you fear sin you will never fall into it. I have observed even in cases of illness, where a child of God has been brought back again to the family, restored from the gates of the grave,-I have observed, in such cases, an amazing tenderness of conscience: a wish to live nearer to God than before; and in coming down into the family once more, a scrupulosity in doing this or that, as if the soul would now say, Cannot I do something more for the glory of God than this will be? So, after spiritual recovery, there will be a great dread of lapsing again. What must have been the feelings of St. Peter, when they came and told him of Judas's death? Apostle was perhaps engaged in tence, shut in from the world with tearful eyes, while perhaps he heard at the moment the axes of the artificers hewing down the three crosses, on the middle one of which Christ had died,yea, perhaps at that very moment the soldiers might be carrying away on their shoulders, with blasphemy and halloing at each other, the very cross on which the Saviour had expiated sin,perhaps it was just then passing under his window, still clotted with purple gore .

When the great prayer or peni

when some of his brother-disciples came in, all aghast, and said, Have you heard what has happened?—Alas! he would say, I can hear of

nothing I can think of nothing but my own apostasy. Oh! say they, have you heard that Judas has thrown down the money in the temple, and is now a corpse by his own hand?-that hanging himself, he fell down in the midst, and is gone to his own place? Think, if you possibly can, what must have been Peter's feelings at the sudden and unexpected recital! What! he would say, Judas the treasurer!the orator! And am I spared? Judas sold his Master!-I denied him! O miracle of grace!-to him, severity: to me, goodness! Ah, sirs, with what awe-struck gratitude would he hear of this, distinguishing grace and how would he dread a second aberration!

I will now only notice-

IV.

The Directions

Which this subject requires, or rather suggests to those who, having been recovered by divine grace from a state of declension, and comparative deadness, are desirous of enjoying, in future, greater nearness to God, and of maintaining, in the highest sense, the privileges of a life of faith. Be cautions, then as it regards→→

1. Preachers. Take heed what you hear. There is more meaning than any of us suppose in that language of the Holy Ghost: Like people like priest. If we be spiritual, we shall seek a spiritual preacher. When God shines forth there,

Drone of light-not else: where the light is. I cannot Cut sun, if I look for him in a et my face turned away from the in which he burns. But eacher you may sit, however

wia a sagelical he may be,-remember

the Holy Spirit: while the

I can

ng, let the people be praying; hed his sermons into prayer. ng me awfully grand, and yet age than a whole congregation eviA to God, while some faithful apting to declare in the midst of table riches of Christ.

w/q-These exercise á great influence ious books: but let them be

espiritual. Why should we shedding eye-ball, by admitting inthe brain, which can be of no

G What a thesis of solemn rearnish to review, seriously and hay of our past perusals, and to the portion of time we have given spiritual readings! I mean, to

than the number of pages we have mporal, and then of works spi

wishing to see how much the Ay the quantity of ideas that pass

Awwish the sandy stream of science

and of secular life to roll by, because it cannot be avoided, and the riches it leaves on the mind's surface must perish with itself; but the vast ocean of eternity, as it flows in upon us from time to time, though ebbing daily, will leave, at every interval, the saturated soul covered with the gems and the gold of another world!

may

3. Company. Let us be anxious to associate only with those who are truly pious. Indeed, in any other society we are but surrounded with demons. What have we, in common with men who abhor the Saviour, and who are, in truth, abusing privileges which fallen angels never enjoyed? Yet I think more harm arise from the society of those who are only theoretically religious, than from the openly profane. Of the latter we are aware: of the former we are not; they are like whited graves, over which we walk unwittingly. The open blasphemer we rebuke; and of him and his party it cannot be said that "Christ is wounded," as he is by the others, “in the house of his friends." It should be remembered, that of other circumstances into which the mind comes in contact, the influence must be more limited; but in the question of society it is mind with mind-soul mixing with soul. True it is that matter may operate on mind, and thus change its acts, and affect its habits. This may occur, and lamentably, while yet the mind's principles are not altered; but it is the collision of