ceive how the principle so finely and so copiously illustrated in this chapter, may be brought to meet the infidelity we have thus long been employed in combating. It was nature-and the experience of every bosom will affirm it—it was nature in the shepherd, to leave the ninety and nine of his flock forgotten and alone in the wilderness, and betaking himself to the mountains, to give all his labour and all his concern to the pursuit of one solitary wanderer. It was nature and we are told in the passage before us, that it is such a portion of nature as belongs not merely to men, but to angels-when the woman, with her mind in a state of listlessness as to the nine pieces of silver that were in secure custody, turned the whole force of her anxiety, to the one piece which she had lost, and for which she had to light a candle, and to sweep the house, and to search diligently until she found it. It was nature in her to rejoice more over that piece, than over all the rest of them, and to tell it abroad among frierids and neighbours, that they might rejoice along with her-and, sadly effaced as humanity is in all her original lineaments, this is a part of our nature, the very movements of which are experienced in heaven," where there is more joy over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance." For any thing I know, every planet that rolls in the immensity around me, may be a land of righteousness; and be a member of the household of God; and have her secure dwellingplace within that ample limit, which embraces his great and universal family. But I know at least of one wanderer; and how wofully she has strayed from peace and from purity: and how in dreary alienation from him who made her, she has bewildered herself amongst those many devious tracks, which have carried her afar from the path of immortality; and how sadly tarnished all those beauties and felicities are, which promised, on that morning of her existence when God looked on her, and saw that all was very good-which promised so richly to bless and to adorn her; and how in the eye of the whole unfallen creation, she has renounced all this goodliness, and is fast de

parting away from them into guilt, and wretchedness, and shame. Oh! if there be any truth in this chapter, and any sweet or touching nature in the principle which runs throughout all its parables, let us cease to wonder, though they who surround the throne of love should be looking so intently towards us, or, though, in the way by which they have singled us out, all the other orbs of space should, for one short season, on the scale of eternity, appear to be forgotten-or though, for every step of her recovery, and for every individual who is rendered back again to the fold from which he was separated, another and another message of triumph should be made to circulate amongst the hosts of paradise or though, lost as we are, and sunk in depravity as we are, all the sympathies of heaven should now be awake on the enterprise of him who has travailed, in the greatness of his strength, to seek and to save us.

And here I cannot but remark how fine a harmony there is between the law of sympathetic nature in heaven, and the most touching exhibitions of it on the face of our world. When one of a numerous household droops under the power of disease, is not that the one to whom all the tenderness is turned, and who, in a manner, monopolizes the inquiries of his neighbourhood, and the care of his family? When the sighing of the midnight storm sends a dismal foreboding into the mother's heart, to whom of all her offspring, I would ask, are her thoughts and her anxieties then wandering? Is it not to her sailor boy, whom her fancy has placed amid the rude and angry surges of the ocean? Does not this, the hour of his apprehended danger, concentrate upon him the whole force of her wakeful meditations? And does not he engross, for a season, her every sensibility, and her every prayer? We sometimes hear of shipwrecked passengers thrown upon a barbarous shore; and seized upon by its prowling inhabitants; and hurried away through the tracks of a dreary and unknown wilderness; and sold into captivity; and loaded with the fetters of irrecoverable bondage; and who, stripped of every other liberty but the liberty of thought, feel

even this to be another ingredient of wretchedness for what can they think of but home, and as all its kind and tender imagery comes upon their remembrance, how can they think of it but in the bitterness of despair? Oh tell me when the fame of all this disaster reaches his family, who is the member of it to whom is directed the full tide of its griefs and of its sympathies?-who is it that, for weeks and for months, usurps their every feeling, and calls out their largest sacrifices, and sets them to the busiest expedients for getting him back again?-who is it that makes them forgetful of themselves and of all around them?-and tell me, if you can assign a limit to the pains, and the exertions, and the surrenders which afflicted parents and weeping sisters would make to seek and to save him? Chalmers.

Christ's Agony.

Christians! what an hour was that, which our Saviour passed in the garden of Gethsemane! In the time of his passion, his torments succeeded one another. He was not at the same time betrayed, mocked, scourged, crowned with thorns, pierced with a spear, extended on a cross, and forsaken by his Father; but here all these torments rose before him at once: all his pains were united together; what he was to endure in succession, now crowded into one moment, and his soul was overcome. At this time, too, the powers of darkness, it should seem, were permitted to work upon his imagination, to disturb his spirit, and make the vale through which he was to pass, appear more dark and gloomy.

Add to this, that our Saviour having now come to the close of his public life, his whole mediatorial undertaking presented itself to his view; his eye ran over the history of that race which he came to save from the beginning to the end of time; he had a feeling of all the misery, and a sense of all the guilt of men. he looked back into past times, what did he behold? The earth a field of blood, a vale of tears, a theatre of crimes. If he cast his eyes upon that one in which

If

he lived, what did he behold? The nation, to whom he was sent, rejecting the counsel of God against themselves, imprecating his blood to be upon them and their children, and bringing upon themselves such a desolation as has not happened to any other people. When he looked forward to succeeding ages, what did he behold? He saw that the wickedness of men was to continue and abound, to erect a Golgotha in every age, and by obstinate impenitence to crucify afresh the Son of God; he saw, that, in his blessed name, and under the banners of his cross, the most atrocious crimes were to be committed, the sword of persecution to be drawn, the best blood of the earth to be shed, and the noblest spirits that ever graced the world to be cut off; he saw, that for many of the human race all the efforts of saving mercy were to be defeated; that his death was to be of no avail, that his blood was to be shed in vain, that his agonies were to be lost, and that it had been happy for them if he had never been born; he saw, that he was to be wounded in the house of his friends, that his name was to be blasphemed among his own followers, that he was to be dishonoured by the wicked lives of those who called themselves his disciples; that one man was to prefer the gains of iniquity, another the blandishments of pleasure, a third the indulgence of malicious desire, and all of you, at times, the gratification of your favourite passion to the tender mercies of the God of peace, and the dying love of a crucified Redeemer. While the hour revolved that spread forth all these things before his eyes, we need not wonder that he began to be in agony, and that he sweated as it were great drops of blood. Logan.

The Deluding Influence of the World.

My brethren, the true source of all our delusion, is a false and deceitful security of life. Thousands pass their accounts around us, and we are not instructed; some are struck in our very arms-our parents, our children, our friends-and yet we stand as if we had shot into the earth an eternal root. Even the most

sudden transitions from life to dust, produce but a momentary impression on the dust that breathes. No examples, however awful, sink into the heart. Every instant we see health, youth, beauty, titles, reputation, and fortune, disappear like a flash. Still do we pass gaily on, in the broad and flowery way, the same busy, thoughtless, and irreclaimable beings; panting for every pleasure as before, thirsting for riches and preeminence, rushing on the melancholy ruins of one another, intriguing for the employments of those whose ashes are scarce cold, nay, often, I fear, keeping an eye on the very expiring, with the infamous view of seizing the earliest moment to solicit their spoils.

Great God! as if the all-devouring tomb, instead of solemnly pronouncing on the vanity of all human pursuits, on the contrary, emitted sparks to rekindle all our attachment to a perishable world! Let me suppose, my brethren, that the number of man's days were inscribed on his brow! Is it not clear, that an awful certainty of that nature must necessarily beget the most profound and operative reflection? Would it be possible to banish even for a moment the fatal term from his thoughts? the nearer he approached it, what an increase of alarm! what an increase of light on the folly of every thing but immortal good! Would all his views and aspirings be confined, as they now are, to the little span that intervenes between his cradle and his grave; and care, and anxiety, and miserable agitation be his lot, merely to die overwhelmed with riches, and blazing with honours?

No! wedded to this miserable scene of existence, our hopes are afloat to the last. The understanding, clear in every other point, casts not a ray on the nature of our condition, however desperate. Too frequently it happens, that every one around us at that awful moment, conspires to uphold this state of delusion. They shudder for us in their hearts, yet talk to us of recovery with their lips, from a principle of mistaken, or to give it its proper name, of barbarous lenity. The most important of all truths is withheld, till it is of little use to impart it. The consequence