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A man asleep in a burning house, or with his neck upon the block of the headsman, or laying before the mouth of a cannon, is not in a more dangerous case than thou art. Oh bethink thee, ere desolation, destruction and damnation, seal up thy destiny, and stamp thee with despair!

Be sure, also, that thou consider thy latter end, for it is thine whether thou consider it or no. Thou art ripening for hell; oh, how wilt thou endure its torments! Ah! if thou wouldst afford a moment to visit, in imagination, the cells of the condemned, it might benefit thee for ever. What! fear to examine the house in which thou art to dwell? What! rush to a place and fear to see a picture of it? Oh let thy thoughts precede thee, and if they bring back a dismal story, it may induce thee to change thy mind, and tread another path! Thou wilt lose nothing by meditation, but rather gain much thereby. Oh let the miseries of lost souls warn thee lest thou also come into this place of torment! May the day soon arrive when thou canst cry after the Lord, and then even thou shalt be delivered!

IV.

JESUS PARDONING.

"The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin."1 JOHN i. 7.

"I will praise thee every day,
Now thine anger's turn'd away:
Comfortable thoughts arise
From the bleeding sacrifice.
Jesus is become at length,
My salvation and my strength;
And his praises shall prolong,

While I live, my pleasant song."

LET our lips crowd sonnets within the compass of a word; let our voice distil hours of melody into a single syllable; let our tongue utter in one letter the essence of the harmony of ages: for we write of an hour which as far excelleth all the days of our life as gold exceedeth dross. As the night of Israel's passover was a night to be remembered, a theme for bards, and an incessant fountain of

grateful song, even so is the time of which we now speak, the never-to-be-forgotten hour of our emancipation from guilt, and of our justification in Jesus.

Other days have mingled with their fellows till, like coins worn in circulation, their image and superscription are entirely obliterated; but this day remaineth new, fresh, bright, as distinct in all its parts as if it were but yesterday struck from the mint of time. Memory shall drop from her palsied hand full many a memento which now she cherishes, but she shall never, even when she tottereth to the grave, unbind from her heart the token of the thrice-happy hour of the redemption of our spirit. The emancipated galley-slave may forget the day which heard his broken fetters rattle on the ground; the pardoned traitor may fail to remember the moment when the axe of the headsman was averted by a pardon; and the long-despairing mariner may not recollect the moment when a friendly hand snatched him from the hungry deep: but O hour of forgiven sin! moment of perfect pardon! our soul shall never forget thee while within her life and being find an immortality.

Each day of our life hath had its attendant angel; but on this day, like Jacob at Mahanaim, hosts of angels met us. The sun hath risen every morning, but on that eventful morn he had the

light of seven days. As the days of heaven upon earth-as the years of immortality-as the ages of glory-as the bliss of heaven, so were the hours of that thrice-happy day. Rapture divine, and ecstasy inexpressible, filled our soul. Fear, distress, and grief, with all their train of woes, fled hastily away; and in their place joys came without number. Like as terrors fly before the rising sunlight, so vanished all our dark forebodings, and

"As morn her rosy steps in the eastern clime,
Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl,"

so did grace strew our heart with priceless gems of joy. "For, lo, the winter was past; the rain was over and gone; the flowers appeared on the earth; the time of the singing of birds was come; and the voice of the turtle was heard in our land; the fig-tree put forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape gave a good smell, when our Beloved spake, and said, 'Arise, my love, my. fair one, and come away."" Our buried powers, upspringing from the dark earth, where corruption had buried them, budded, blossomed, and brought forth clusters of fruit. Our soul was all awake to gladness; conscience sang approval; judgment joyfully attested the validity of the acquittal; hope painted bright visions for the future; while imagination knew no bounds to the eagle-flight of her loosened wing. The city of Mansoul had a

grand illumination, and even its obscurest lanes and alleys were hung with lamps of brilliance. The bells of our soul rang merry peals, music and dancing filled every chamber, and every room was perfumed with flowers. Our heart was flooded with delight; like a bottle full of new wine, it needed vent. It contained as much of heaven as the finite can hold of infinity. It was weddingday with our soul, and we wore robes fairer than ever graced a bridal. By night angels sang"Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, goodwill towards men; and in the morning, remembering their midnight melodies, we sang them o'er again. We walked in Paradise; we slept in bowers of amaranth; we drank draughts of nectar from goblets of gold, and fed on luscious fruits brought to us in baskets of silver.

"The liquid drops of tears that we once shed

Came back again, transform'd to richest pearl;"

the breath we spent in sighs returned upon us laden with fragrance; the past, the present, the future, like three fair sisters, danced around us, light of foot and gladsome of heart. We had discovered the true alchymist's stone, which, turning all to gold, had transmuted all within us into the purest metal. We were rich, immensely rich; for Christ was ours, and we were heirs with Him.

Our body, too, once the clog and fetter of our

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