ancients gloriously. Lassitude and satiety are not there. They rest not day nor night. Ever new is the Song! Ever blooming is the Palm! Ever living is the pure River of water proceeding out of the Throne! Abel, with a still untiring eye, gazes on a more excellent sacrifice than his own; and though his voice first of all redeemed sinners was heard singing its solitary strain, yet has it never faltered in its thanksgiving: nor shall the million million songs of all who have since been added to him ever know decline ! All those happy saints are comprehending still what is the breadth and length and depth and height of the love which passeth knowledge. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are still sitting in Thy kingdom. They, who without us could not be made perfect, have there a place. They who have received the gift of righteousness there reign in life. Oh unsating is the Heavenly feast! Oh inconsumeable is the Heavenly fervour! Thou, O Lord, art the Lord of that Sabbath! Thy sun can measure a Sabbath such as this closing one of a single day,Thine own Eternity must circle the Sabbath which like Thyself, and Thy Mercy, endureth for ever! We sinful, lost, creatures come before Thee in the Name which gave our race their earliest hope, and which still remains their only one. But it is the name of the great God our Saviour. G It is all-sufficient! For it can remove our guilt. It can calm our fear. For this may every one pray unto Thee! What room can be left for any sinner to despair? We commend ourselves to the merits of His atonement once offered on earth, and still reflected from His Glorified but Scarred Humanity in heaven! Send down upon us Thy Holy Spirit. In our ignorance, and inaptitude, and moral death, consists the necessity of His convincing and quickening energy. We know that Thy Truth needs no aid to help, no charm to adorn, it. We know that nothing can be added, even by His power, that can constitute it more glorious and more suitable to our circumstances. Open but our eyes to it! Impress but our hearts with it! Excite the corresponding emotion and the congenial sympathy! May we taste and see that Thou art good! May our spiritual senses be exercised to discern and realize it! So may it be effectual in us who believe. So may it be engrafted in us and save our souls. May it, after all, lie as a solemn and undoubted consideration on our hearts that we are responsible for our belief and our repentance. Let us remember that these are not less our duties because of Thy promised help. Be it impressed upon us that the promise of Thy help but enlarges our accountability. Suffer us not in any wise to account Thy sovereignty as an excuse for our sloth and procrastination. Never may we fall into a temper which would abuse Thy grace, and derive from it a pretext for our unconcern and supineness. Scorn not, O God, our humble offering. The praises of Thy Israel no longer swell up as one harmony to Thine ear. In the congregations can we no longer bless the Lord. The Sabbath is drawing to its end. But we love to think, we delight to believe, that the dwellings of Thy people are still dear to Thee. We are not only bound individually to this day, but as a family also. adore Thee for Has it not been to us a source of sweetest pleasure that we could lift up our hands together in Thy courts? that we still heard well-known voices? that among the many we still were one? Did we not then dedicate ourselves as a household to the Great Master of the House? Do we not now confirm the vow? O gather our first-fruits, and bind our ripest sheaves! May the root be holy, and so too the branches! Let our Home be a Sanctuary! Let a Church be in our House! And each day prove, so purely and so cheerfully kept, as a Solemn Feast-day! Let us ponder, O Thou our Judge, how dreadful it would be to perish after such privileges as Thou hast bestowed upon us. Thou, blessed Thou hast Thou hast Jesus, hast come preaching peace. been set forth crucified among us. taught in our streets. We have not needed to bring Thee down from above, nor to bring Thee up from the dead. Thou art with us even unto the end of the world. Thou still walkest in the midst of the candlesticks. What it must be for us to hear from Thee the discarding sentence, I never knew you! Depart from me ye cursed! Ah, what shall our end be, if we obey not the gospel of God? What shall we do in the day of visitation? Our flesh trembleth for fear of Thy judgments! Mercy! Mercy! The Lord grant that we may find mercy of the Lord in that day! Bless the labours of the Christian Missionary wherever found, and by whomsoever invested. Far from his native land, yet often thinking of its fair scenes and holy mercies, he has this day gathered together his few converts, and divided among them their portion. May all who bear that beloved name be encouraged in their work, see an impression made on the heathen population around them, rejoice over a people made ready for Thee, and be made glad by the solemn and decided act of thousands, saying, What have we to do any more with idols? Their drink-offerings of blood will we not offer, nor take up their names into our lips! We now shall quickly separate to take our rest. Smile upon us and let Thy favour lighten our spirits. May our sleep be calm, and our vision of the night, if conscious of it, be pure and serene. Beneath Thy wing we must dwell in fear. So let us sleep as did Thine ancient servants whom Thou didst watch in their slumbers, and visit in their thoughts,-whose hardest pillow Thou didst render soft and pleasant to them, whose resting-place was a Bethel and whose scene of wakeful meditation was a Peniel, -sinking to repose and dreaming of angels,-or keeping vigil to wrestle with the Angel of the Covenant, and to have power with God. In the name of the One Mediator we declare our need, and would offer our gratitude. And to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, we would present the Hosannah of Time and Eternity. Amen. "The grace of our Lord," &c. MONDAY MORNING. HOLY, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty! Such is Thy great and dreadful Name! Such is the ever-resounding acclamation of Thy praise! For Thou art Holy! The heavens are not clean |