something, for the consideration of his creatures, awful in its character, altogether unforeseen and unlikely to transpire from previously existing circumstances, and big with consequences resulting or probable, which all would feel interested in contemplating if known to be at hand, we certainly are summoned to more than usual watchfulness for the divine will, in its immediate influence upon our souls: our attitude then most especially becomes that of-" Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." (1 Sam. iii. 9.)

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That the present times offer those considerations as an intended lesson of spiritual usefulness, I feel myself quite called upon to assert; and I also feel that it is not a difficult assertion to make good. But, in putting before you what appear to myself manifest signs of the times" to this end, I again repeat the caution I have already given, that we shall do better to avoid all matter merely speculative, and with humble and teachable hearts to seek of God that lesson only which it is intended we should learn. All other ways of regarding God's dealings are dangerous and presumptuous, and oftentimes lead to evil, and injure the cause of our most holy faith.

With this view of our own times before us, I cannot question that there are " signs of the "times," which God shows for purposes of spiritual good; that we may "be ready" against whatever shall occur, amid all the uncertainty of human life, in the less extended interests of individuals, as well as in the destinies of nations.

If we regard the events which have passed over the heads of those among us who have lived during the last thirty or five and thirty years, we cannot but perceive in them much which characterizes them as peculiar. I would not say, in the events of national incident, that other ages have not also exhibited some of the features of eventful circumstance which have marked our own. But I shall not be judged rashly to speak, when I say that I am quite sure that no period, since the world began, can present in the page of history such a combination of events generally, and such events at all in some instances, as have transpired in quick succession over us during the period named, and which, in many of their manifest characters, are still passing before our eyes. They are some of them of a character so evidently marked as " signs of the times," that (however

I might and do shrink from the very positive interpretation put upon them, as preludes, by some warm-hearted Christians of the present day) I hold their ardent zeal herein, though it carry them, for the present at least, somewhat too far, much less injurious to themselves or others, than its opposite,-that cold, careless state of mind, which regards all events with equal indifference, whether it be the thunder of power, the alarm of terror, or the still small voice of persuasion, that calls man to consider his soul.

There appear six different features which in themselves, individually and collectively, give us abundant warning that they are" signs of "the times;" and that, therefore, we are called upon, in solemn inference from our blessed Lord's words in the text, to "discern" and consider them. I will name them now in order. But as the matter which they will necessarily bring before us, even in a very general contemplation of them, would lead me much beyond a single address from this place, I shall treat of them successively, on other occasions, as God shall permit you to hear and me to speak. And this I shall endeavour to do, not to gratify in myself, or to excite in you,

a vain and idle curiosity, but that I may be blest, through such instrumentality, in awakening both in you and in myself more serious thoughts and expectations of the certain future; more regard to our own souls; more earnest watchfulness for the present use and final accomplishment of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; and more anxious single-eyed dependence upon him under the awful assurance of his Word, that in our relationship to time and to eternity, we "know not what a day may "bring forth."

These six, which I would venture to put before you, are as follow:

1st. The great, sudden, and unusual change in the kingdoms and nations of a large portion of the habitable world at and since the period of that tremendous concussion in civilized Europe, which ended in the overthrow of the monarchy of France.

That events of this character are intended to be ever looked upon as important, is seen in the imagery under which they are spoken of in the Word of God: "The stars of Heaven, and the "constellations thereof, shall not give their light the sun shall be darkened in his going "forth, and the moon shall not cause her light

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"to shine." (Isaiah xiii. 10.)

While the

Prophets of God speak thus of the downfal and changes of human empire, when such dispensations are before us, we are surely called upon to regard them as "signs of the times."

2dly. The general abhorrence felt and openly avowed, and in a large portion of Europe acted upon, in regard to what was once the open practice, and ever will be the eternal disgrace, of Christian countries, in their public marketing for human slaves.

Though the rejection of the Slave Trade might be ranked by political economists as no other than the sign of an improving civilization and due order in social habits, as a congregation professing to believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we are bound to consider any great result, which Christian principle is the sole cause of eliciting from the world, as among "the signs of the times:" and as such it may be scripturally wise to mark the general abhorrence which our own times have felt, and very powerfully expressed, of the accursed traffic in the African Slave Trade.

3dly. The undoubted change which has taken place in the once unqualified recognition of Papistical errors, and the apparently impending