A very celebrated poet and nobleman, who died some years ago, was in the habit of attending a prayer-meeting in the country village where he lived, and where a few poor people were accustomed to assemble to seek the presence of the Divine Majesty. It was at first customary for these humble persons to make way for him, if he happened to come in a little after the appointed time; but he expressed his unwillingness to receive these marks of attention and respect, and said, he should be contented if he were left to occupy the lowest station. In other places he claimed for himself, and thought he had a right to claim, the distinctions of his rank; but there he felt himself in the same situation with themselves. In this state of mind he entered into the genuine feelings of christianity. He delighted to come into the presence of that Being, who levels all distinctions; He who smites the proud with a stroke which can never be survived, and has declared his judgement of the humble and contrite in terms which can never be forgotten.

They who cherish other sentiments are forgetful that it is the same Great Being who is the protector of all his poor, and who regards with contempt those who despise others that are permanently afflicted with adverse fortune. In the divine presence each of these distinctions is alike lost sight of; and all true Christians will at last be brought to feel their relation to one common Father, as heirs of the same inheritance. There is "one faith, one Lord, one baptism, one God and Father of all.” They embrace each other as fellow-heirs of the

same eternal inheritance. Let us, therefore, enter into the presence of God more under the influence of christian sentiments. Let the poor forget themselves as poor, and consider themselves as rich in being children of God, and heirs of heaven. Let the rich recollect his wealth only as a trust with which he is charged. Let him forget all but his responsibility, and that will constitute a motive to humility in the presence of Almighty God. The utility of divine worship in this case appears most evident. The sentiments which it calls forth, are such as hinder our running into the excesses to which we are exposed: and nothing is more salutary or wholesome, than that temporary suspension of undue notions of rank, which is derived from an approach to that Being with whom all are on a level, whose majesty fills heaven and earth, and in whose presence nothing can be exalted, except as he draws it towards himself. As I see the time is advancing, I shall not enlarge on these considerations, but advert very briefly to one or two remaining particulars. I will add,

IV. That the rich and poor meet together in the circumstances of their entrance into this world, and in the circumstances of their exit out of it. We have beheld the identity of human nature, notwithstanding the artificial disguises which these distinctions bestow for a time. Look at the great man in his origin. Look at him as he comes into this world, and say whether you can detect the least difference between the offspring of the peasant and of the prince. They come into the

world under marks of the same destitution, and weakness, and misery. Both alike enter with cries expressive of distress, as if conscious of their arrival in a valley of tears. Both would close their eyes in darkness, were it not for the breasts that give them suck, and the knees that sustain them. Both are indebted to that aliment which nature has administered to the mother for the support of her children; and both, by the tenderness excited by their cries and tears, gain access to a mother's care, and to a father's heart. The Deity has provided no outward physiognomy to distinguish the rich and the poor: and no inquisitive eye can discover to which of these classes any newborn infant is likely to belong.

Let us here trace the progress of their being farther, until we come to their final exit, and to their departure out of this world. In some of the most important particulars they entirely coincide as to the circumstances of their departure hence. At the moment when they quit this state of being the poor man lays aside his poverty, the rich man lays aside all the appendages of riches, his grandeur and dignity; all are alike deposited by the possessor before he passes to the mysterious and eternal bourn. No man goes into the invisible world, no man retires to the sepulchre, without dropping the distinction of riches and poverty. The rich man, it is true, is carried to the tomb by mourners, whether real or artificial; and though survivors endeavour to maintain the distinctions of rank and elevated station in the regions of destruction and mortality,

yet all is in vain. They wage a fruitless war with corruption and decay. The inscription first disappears; then the monument moulders into ruin; the dust itself is scattered or mingled with surrounding earth, and the last place that knew the dead, "knows him no more for ever." The very names of those who have most disturbed the peace of society, and have been a terror to their species while living, are heard of no more. It is left to the antiquary of a future age to speculate upon the import of the remaining letters that composed a part of their names. Where are the men of genius that lived before the flood? They have retired from the memory of mankind; history records of them only that they lived and that they died, and leaves all the rest to be filled up by conjecture and imagination.

V. This subject reminds us of that period when all the pomp and distinctions of the universe shall coincide in one point, melt into one entire mass, and present themselves in one vision. The time is coming when the rich and poor will not only meet as to the circumstances of their dying hour, but as to their allotted state and condition of being. We have seen both going to the grave. Alike they occupy the place appointed for all living; alike they seek kindred with corruption, earth, and worms. But they will appear again; and they will appear again for purposes that were never accomplished before. They will appear for the purpose of undergoing a serious review by the Master that created them, who fixed their class, and appointed their station. They will appear to account" for

the deeds done in the body." Then it will be found, that many a person has occupied a station which he was not fitted to occupy; that he possessed talents which he was not willing to employ; and that he wore a character which he was not qualified to sustain. Then the Great Governor of the whole will take a review of his creatures; he will recast their parts; he will suffer none to appear but in their proper character; and the distinction of his approbation will, in no degree, turn on the transient distinctions in their present circumstances as rich and poor. The poor who has been the servant of the Most High will be made rich. No obscurity will be felt, but his lustre will be as the sun shining in his strength. Instead of persecution and oppression, he shall receive" a crown of life that fadeth not away." The rich man who was a despiser of God, shall, at the same time, so far from obtaining an interest in the favour of the Great Sovereign of the world,-if he looks back on the talents which he has perverted, on the opportunities he has lost, and on the force of his influence which he has not employed for the great ends of his being in serving God, and in serving his generation, he shall curse his wealth, which was the source of crime to himself and others; and will see in it a weight only sinking him lower in perdition.

The rich who have been the persecutors of the children of God, will then, in the utmost agony, lament their crime, and will "call upon the rocks and mountains to hide them from the wrath of the Lamb." The purpose for which the Divine Being