in need of future hopes to support me in the discharge of present dnty. But so it is-I am far, I know, very far from being perfect in christian love, or any other divine attainment, and am therefore unwilling to forego whatever may help me in my progress. COWPER. THE PROMISE OF REST TO THE CHRISTIAN. WHEN We consider the conflicts and the trials of the conscientious, watchful, praying Christian, we shall estimate aright the value of the consoling promise of that eternal rest from his labours, which supports him under them. And though rest is one of the lowest descriptions of the promised bliss of heaven, yet it holds out a cheering prospect of relief and satisfaction to a feeling being, who is conscious of the fallen condition of his mortal nature in all its weakness and imperfection. Rest, therefore, is of itself a promise sufficiently inviting to make him desire to depart and to be with Christ, even independently of his higher hope. The joy unspeakable, the crown of glory, and all those other splendid images of the blessedness of heaven, exalt and delight his mind. But it is, though with a higher, yet with a more indefinite delight. He adores without fully comprehending the mighty blessing. But the promise of rest is more intelligible to the heavy-laden Christian; he better understands it, because it is so exactly applicable to his present want and feelings:-this is not our rest. It offers the relief longed for by a weary, frail, and feverish being. He who best knows what man wanted, promised to his disciples peace and rest, and His Divine Spirit has represented the state of heaven under this image more frequently than any other, as being in more direct contrast to its present state-a state of care, anxiety, and trouble, and a state of sin, the cause of all his other troubles. Perhaps this less clevated view of heaven may occur more rarely to persons of high-wrought feelings in religion, yet to the Christian of a contrary character, it is a never-failing consolation, a home-felt solace, the object of his fervent prayer. What a support to be persuaded that the work of righteousness is peace, and the effect of righteousness is quietness and assurance for ever!' H. MORE. THE WITHERED LEAF. A WITHERED leaf, is this day to be our preacher. What are some of the truths it proclaims, and in which it is wisely adapted and mercifully intended to instruct us? It instructs us in the following:1st. The frailty and shortness of life. What object in nature is frailer than a withered leaf adhering to the bough by a single thread, and ready to be carried away by the first and feeblest breath of wind. Not more frail, however, is the withered leaf even, than is man that is born of a woman. Consider him in infancy: what object more frail than a human weakling-the infant in the cradle-the babe at the breast! Is it not the very type of all weakness and all frailty-full of wants, yet without the smallest power to supply them or to make them known; exposed to dangers which he does not foresee, and which, if he did, he could not control? If others do not feed him, he must perish of hunger; if others do not give him drink, he must perish of thirst; if others do not clothe him, he must perish of cold. Surely on the whole earth there is not a creature more frail and more helpless! Consider him in the pride and vigour of manhood: even in this period of life, how like a leaf wasted and driven by the wind! When he imagines his mountain stands strong, and that nothing can move him-when he exalts himself as a god, how weak, indigent, and insufficient-subject to every breath and to every blast! Is he on the sea?-see how its waves whirl him where they will! Is he on the land?-see how the winds scorn his bidding, the storm how it mocks his prospects, the hurricane how it lays his dwelling in ruins! thus, even when standing, is he not liable to fall-when rich to become poorwhen strong to become weak? In life is he not every moment liable and ready to die? Thus poor is man in his best estate; thus sure is it that "each man is vanity." Consider him in old age is the withered and wasted leaf of winter more withered or more wasted? His eyes how dim, his ear how dull, his limbs how shrunken, his breathing how short and how difficult; how like a walking shadow, a living death; the evil days have come upon him, he is fallen into the "sere and yellow leaf!" Such is man, in infancy, manhood, and old age; nor is he thus frail, but how shortlived as well as frail! To denote the shortness of man's existence, it is Jeremy Taylor, we think, who remarks that the wise men of the world have contended, as it were, who should denote its shortness by the fittest figures. By one it is likened to a shadow; by another to the shadow of a shade; by another to a vapour; by another to the swift ships; by another to the eagle that hasteth to its prey; by another to the weaver's shuttle: the day casts it to the night, and the night to the day, till the web of life is spun, and cut from the beam of time. By the prophet it is compared to a leaf. Short is the duration of a leaf: such, however, is the life of man-as short in its duration as it is frail in its texture and fading in its kind. In the withered leaves, then, that at this season of the year are strewing your path, see, my brethren, the emblem of your condition. Think not more highly of yourselves than you ought to do: look to that withered leaf; like it you are frail, and like it you are fading, and like it you will soon be carried away for ever. If you shall be more deeply impressed with these truths this day than you have hitherto been; if you shall form a truer estimate of your condition than you may have hitherto done; if you shall be instructed more fully in, or be impressed more deeply with, the frailty and shortness of life, this leaf will not have faded and fallen, nor shall we have discoursed from it to you this day, in vain. But not only does the withered leaf instruct us in the conditions of life, it instructs us also in the conditions of death; and this it does, First. In the nature of death. A leaf that, having withered on the tree, has fallen to the ground, is a separated, a disunited thing. It is disunited from its parent tree, it is separated from its sister leaves. Such is death. It is a separation, a disuniting; it is the separation, first of all, of the soul and body. As the union of soul and body constitutes natural life, the separation of soul and body constitutes natural death. This separation every man living must undergo fatal to man is the neglect of this great truth. Neglect it not, my brethren: when you see a leaf separated from its parent tree, let it remind you of the separation that must one day take place between the body and the soul; let it remind you that you shall not always, as you now do, see through the medium of the eye, and hear through the medium of the ear, and think through the medium of the brain. There is a spiritual world: to that world you belong; in that world as pure spirits you shall exist; on the verge of that spiritual world you are at this moment standing; upon it you are soon to enter; in that world you shall continue to see, but not through the medium of the eye; you shall continue to hear, but not through the medium of the ear; you shall continue to think, but not through the medium of the brain; then all that is in this world as to you--the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, shall come to an end. Now, if it should be the case that your happiness is now consisting in the seeing of the eye, or the hearing of the ear, or the gratification of the senses-in the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and in the pride of life; if your happiness consists in, and is dependent on what is material, what is to become of you in that world that is spiritual? If your supreme happiness consist in aught that is earthly, in what shall it consist, when the world in which you are to dwell, and you yourselves, shall no longer be of the "earth earthly," and when from all that is earthly, its possessions and its enjoyments, you shall be torn away for ever? If your happiness is connected with time, and the things of time, in what will you find happiness when time and the things of time shall be no more? Think of this, ye who are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; think of this, ye |