80.

Would that an angel, as with a flaming sword, might stand on the border to repel them! The Almighty Spirit can do this for us.

Here may arise a further reflection in the form of a question;-what would have been our situation, if the whole of the year had not been given to us? Would less have sufficed as to the supreme purpose of life? Can we go back in thought, to points and periods of it and say,-there, in its earlier months, or there, at the middle, our time might have closed, and all would have been well? or, if near the end, or yesterday, or to-day, our time had closed, all had been well? But if there be not ground for a humble confidence that all would have been well, the year closes ill. And can there be a mightier admonition for the commencement of another year.

One more consideration may be, that our year has been parallel, (shall we say ?) to that of those persons who have made the noblest use of it. We can represent to ourselves the course of the most devoted servants of God through this past year, in various states and modes of employment. Now we had just the same hours, days, and months as they. Let the comparison be made. Why was the day, the week, the month, of less value in our hands than in theirs? And do we stand for ever dissociated from them upon this year? How desirable that we may be associated with them during the next, if God prolong our life?

Another reflection may be, on our further experience of mortal life, and the world. We have seen it-tried itjudged it, thus much longer. Has the estimate brightened upon us by experience ? Have we obtained a practical refutation of the sacred oracles that have pronounced "Vanity" upon it? Now the results of experience should really stand for something in our views of this mortal state, -and in the degree of our attachment to it. And besides,

what should be the effect of this further knowledge of the nature and quality of this mortal state? There should be some effect from the mere circumstance of one year's diminution of our occupancy of this state. Our interest upon it is contracted to so much narrower a breadth. At first we may be said to have had vital ties to the whole extent of this mortal life;- -an interest in each portion of it as it was coming to be ours. We held to life by each year of the whole allotment. But each year withdrawn cut that tie, like the cutting in succession of each of the spreading roots of a tree. The consumption of this last year has cut away another of these holds on life, these ties of connexion and interest. Now there should in spirit and feeling be a degree of detachment in proportion.

In whatever way we consider the subtraction of one year from our whole allotment, it is an important circumstance. It reduces to a narrower space the uncertainty of life's continuance. At the beginning we might, for anything that could be known, live but one or a few years;-yet we might live fifty, sixty, or seventy years. But now, as to many of us, there is no such wide range of life. It brings us nearer to see what we are likely to be at the end! It has increased the religious danger. It tells us of too much that now can never be done. It has added very greatly to the weight of every consideration that ought to impel us to make the utmost of what may remain.

end, and after the danger, if there be

As the last reflection we may suggest, that the year departed may admonish us of the strange deceptiveness, the stealthiness of the flight of time. There have been a prodigious number of minutes and hours to look forward to, and each hour, at the time, did not seem to go so wonderfully fast; and yet how short a while they now seem to have been, in all vanishing away! It will be so in what is

to come. Each day will beguile us with this deception, if we are not vigilant; and will leave us, still to be done, that which it should have done. Therefore every period and portion of it-the ensuing year, and each part of it—should be entered on with emphatically imploring our God to save us from spending it in vain.

December 30, 1822.

LECTURE XXIII.

THE CONTEMPLATION OF HUMAN LIFE.

ECCLESIASTES viii. 9.

"I applied my heart unto every work that is done under

the sun."

THE writer of these words means, by "applying his heart," the exercise of his attention and his judgment. He observed, thought, and formed opinions on the works of men, spread over the earth. If we did not know who says it, a kind of question might arise, the man that could speculate so widely, could he have much on his hands of practical business? He had the affairs of a kingdom to manage.

There is no reason why a practical man should not be also an observant and thinking man. There are numerous reasons why he should be so. And if he be such, and that, too, under Divine instruction, he may be the wiser man for being involved in the active business of the world.

Every work that is done under the sun." There is one Being, and only one, that can observe and judge literally every work." The wise man means-works of all kinds, that came within his view. He was a general observer, with an exercise of his judgment.

We have taken this passage as an introduction to a few observations on a topic of considerable interest. We are placed in a very busy world, full of "works," transactions, events, varieties of human character and action. We wit

ness them-hear of them-think of them-talk of them. Now, it is a matter of great importance that we should do this wisely, so as to turn these things to a profitable account. Do it, in one manner or another, we certainly shall. We shall, indeed, all acknowledge the duty, to every one, of minding his own business. But very few will be disposed to circumscribe that duty so, as to preclude a great deal of attention to what the rest of mankind are doing. There may be a very few, here and there one, that do endeavour to limit the sphere of their attention by a very strict and narrow boundary. They have a stress of care and employment immediately and constantly upon them,—of a nature not much spreading out into connections with the surrounding world. And they are naturally not inquisitive. They willingly, therefore, keep their attention closed in, and occupied on strictly their own business. We mean not to censure this, excepting as an extreme.

There is another small class (formerly more numerous), that may be called pious recluses; persons who are not pressed and harassed by the exactions of worldly business, and of a retired, devout, and meditative spirit. They feel that much looking on the world would disturb and distract the calm tenor of their thoughts and affections. They feel as if their spirits could not ascend toward heaven, but by being drawn in from the earth. They endeavour to forget the world, in order to be exempt from its evil influences, and the more devoted to its Lord. They have found (they say,) that the world can do them no good, and they can do it none, except by their prayers. Neither on this class do we wish to pronounce a censure, excepting in particular instances. There have been instances in which such a mode of life has been a mistake and a desertion of duty. There was in the century before last, a very remarkable man, of the name of Nicholas Ferrar, the account of whose life one