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word for thy young heart. The world can give thee no such pleasures as companionship of soul with Jesus affords. Evil in its most alluring forms is not half so sweet as good. Give thine heart now to God-" come away."

"The carrier bird from Eastern skies,

When hast'ning fondly home,

Ne'er stoops to earth her wings, nor flies
Where idle warblers roam.

But high she shoots through air and light,
Above all low delay,

Where nothing earthly bounds her flight,
Nor shadows dim her way.

"So grant us, Lord, from faithless fear
And stain of passion free,
Aloft, through virtue's purer air,
To hold our course to Thee.
No sin to cloud, no lure to stay
Each soul as home she springs-
Thy sunshine on her joyful way,
Thy freedom on her wings."

CONCLUSION.

HUMAN life has been well described as but the threshold of existence. It has also been aptly denominated a parenthesis between two eternities, the eternity of the past and the eternity of the future. In that narrow parenthesis we stand.

It is an amazing thought, that we can look back to a time when we were not-the hand that now writes, once did not exist—the heart that now prays these sentences may be blessed, was once not in being.

It is, perhaps, a more amazing thought, that there will never be a period in the future, when we shall cease to possess identity and conscious existence.

An eternal duration of blessing or of woe is ours, and the veriest spendthrift on earth can neither alienate nor abrogate, one iota of this his inheritance.

Blessed Jesus, our Redeemer, in view of these wonders our souls are bowed. We pray for the

Holy Spirit, that we may estimate them aright, and be duly affected by the survey.

It is a solemn and important question, "For what end has this marvellous existence been given to us ?"

Eternity alone can fully reply to this question. A being of man's capacity, who had never visited this world, could never have conceived or supposed the variety of human life-occupations-ways which exist, the variety of life and organization, animate and inanimate, comprised upon the surface of this terrestrial ball,-and eternity alone can discover to us all the secrets of "the world to come of which we speak," in which we shall be called to share an interest.

We "know" but "in part," and respecting the futurity of man, Paul and John were enabled to "prophesy" but "in part," (1 Cor. xiii.)

Moreover, with our present powers it seems we could not fully comprehend the glories of that future state, where we shall merge into a larger and far higher mode of existence. "The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound," Isaiah xxx. 26; lx.

Great and glorious as is the blessed light con

version brings to "the people which sat in darkness," yet greater measures of light remain.

"The

path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day," Prov. iv. 18; and as (in reason) we cannot but expect to receive constant additions to our "knowledge of the glory of God," in the exalted companionship and intercourse we shall as a "family" (Eph. iii. 15) enjoy in heaven with "thrones, and dominions, and principalities, and powers," and even above all, as it is written, with the Almighty Redeemer himself, our willing instructor, (Rev. vii. 17,) it follows that the arc of the glory of the righteous, has hereafter no conceivable zenith.

We see it rising and rising, until the flooding glories of eternity hide its still upward course, even from our faintest conceptions.

With all, however, that concerns us to know in this time state, we are graciously made acquainted. Our chief end, both is and ever will be, to glorify God in our bodies and in our spirits which are his, (1 Cor. vi. 20;) to render unto him "glory, and honour, and power," since we were created for his pleasure, (Rev. iv. 11;) and if we be renewed in soul, "the love of Christ constraineth us" so to do, "because we thus judge, that it one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto

themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again," 2 Cor. v. 14, 15.

It cannot be necessary to inform the Christian that we are to live for others; we know who commanded, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," Matt. xix. 19.

Religion is unselfishness itself, for "the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but TO MINISTER, and to GIVE his life a ransom for many," Matt. xx. 28.

Again, it is our blessed privilege that "the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God," Rom. viii. 16, but no man ever retained that witnessing Spirit and selfishness. He could as possibly retain light and darkness. Such as have tried know well the result.

Bearing these axioms in mind, we remark further, that in the preceding pages it is clearly proved a great work is before the Church-a work of intense importance. In London, at our very doors, the Church of Christ is surrounded by vast and godless masses, who, considering their religious privileges, can only be regarded as living, if possible, in worse than heathen darkness.

Here is a work indeed.

It becomes, then, an important topic for selfexamination to every Christian, "What am I doing towards removing this darkness?" If the reply of

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