more, I would serve him better. I would consecrate my whole being to Him who gave his life for me. I would resist even unto blood, striving against sin.' I would enlarge my heart and my sympathies towards those objects which are dear to him. I would emerge more and more from the sordid selfishness of my nature. I would die to sin.' I 'would be crucified to the world.' I would reach the measure of the fulness of the stature of Christ.' I would purify myself even as he is pure.' I 'would be stedfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as I know that my labour shall not be in vain in the Lord.'

Such was the alacrity with which this good man, this fervent follower of Christ, pressed forwards in the pursuit of his own salvation!

My brethren! is the condition of man altered since the days of the apostle? Is the path of the Christian less dangerous? Is the delusion of sense less fatal? Is the treachery of the heart less operative? Is the world more favourable to truth and holiness? Is the malignant agency of Satan less efficient and destructive. Are constancy, and courage, and patience, and self-denial, become virtues of spontaneous growth, or of less difficult culture? If we then are in pursuit of salvation, it becomes us to form the same estimate of its value which the

apostle himself formed. It is worth as much to us as it was to him. If he gladly "counted all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ," that knowledge has lost nothing of its value, through the lapse of years. The gospel of Christ is still " the power of God unto salvation." Our happiness is alike bound up in the friendship and mediation of Jesus Christ. We can look with comfort beyond the grave, only as we are sustained by faith in the Son of God! Bereft of the hopes which he excites, all is dark and cheerless in our prospect. To us, as to the wanderers of past days, he is the " way," as well as "the truth, and the life." "Other foundation can no man lay but that which is laid." Other access to God can no man find! "He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son hath not life." Be it then ours to esteem every thing but as dross, that we may win Christ, and be found in him! Be it ours to feel, and to exclaim, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world!"

And if this be our estimate of Christ's salvation, it is our duty and wisdom to pursue its fuller attainment with the ardour and alacrity manifested by the apostle. This one thing I do." The pursuit of eternal

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life, ought to be to us the supreme, the absorbing pursuit. Let there be in our case, as there was in his, a consistency between aim and effort. Whatever objects of inferior importance may present themselves to our regard, let this ever occupy the first and largest place in our anxiety and affection. Let it be our incessant language, "this one thing I do." The work of sanctification, of meetness for celestial blessedness, is as difficult now as in former days. Still "the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." Oh my Christian brethren, how short a distance have we advanced towards the sacred object which God has presented to our view! How shallow is our repentance, how weak our faith, how dull our hope, how cold our charity! Well may we indeed forget the past, and press forward to the future! Well may we blush that our gratitude to Christ has been so imperfectly marked, because so inadequately felt! Well may we resolve to throw ourselves afresh into the heavenly combat, as in the presence of the Captain of our salvation, to meet at length our foes with constancy and strength! He waits to succour us. He is ready anew to teach "our hands to war, and our fingers to fight;" and to make us more than conquerors, "through the power of his grace." He is ready "to administer unto us abundantly an entrance

into his everlasting kingdom," and to enrich us with all the gifts and the felicity which belong to its enjoyment! Let us press forward to higher pleasures, to holier affections, and to more consistent efforts than we have yet felt or made! His service whose name we bear is generous and productive. The prize of glory warrants the preceding struggle. May we be faithful even unto death!

But there may be those here present, who have never yet viewed religion with real interest; to whom salvation is a thing unknown and unfelt. "This one thing they leave undone." The world, with all its inferior enjoyments and pursuits, is every thing to them. "The lusts of the eye, the lusts of the flesh, and the pride of life;" the gains and losses of external wealth; the pursuits of science, or the pleasures of social and domestic life, or the excitements of ambition and honour; these form the range along which their thoughts and anxieties move. They live to themselves or to others, but not to God. They may pay an occasional tribute of homage to God, when the payment interferes with no other and more pressing claim. But the history of the cross, the deep sympathy and the dying love of Christ have hitherto awakened no interest in their bosoms! Eternity is forgotten-time is every thing! Their endless felicity or woe

never arrests their attention! Their habits of thought and action would be little changed, were Christianity proved a fable, and immortality a dream! spiritual claims of religion they heed not! They live without God, and look exclusively to the world for the sources of their enjoyment! Oh ye who thus separate yourselves from God, and encircle yourselves with the delusions of sense, contemplate your fearful condition! Yet a little while, and these delusions will become but too apparent! yet a little while, and in the dark shadows of the grave they will all expire! Yet a little while, and your souls will stand unsheltered and dismayed before the tribunal of God! "It is appointed unto all men once to die, and after this the judgment." Yes! we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, to receive the things done in the body, according to that we have done, whether it be good or bad! At that moment the laughter of the irreligious, and the sneer of the scorner, and the science of the wise, and the wealth of the prudent, these will be but as the daydreams of the credulous and the insane! Before the scrutinizing glance of God, all these pretensions will wither away! Seek ye then, my brethren, while yet the opportunity is yours, a better and more enduring heritage! Be assured there is neither sense nor manliness in

The high, and noble, and