dainest. The reproof of friends thou disregardest. The reproach of conscience thou despisest. GOD's Word is a common book to thee,-no more not a living presence and a power,―the very power of GOD unto Salvation; but a collection of histories, psalms, prophecies, precepts, which give thee little pleasure, and to which thou lendest only a careless ear. Well, this is the harvest season, the time of harvest hath again come round; and a great representation is being transacted in the Harvest-field which it concerns thee in the highest degree to lay to heart. "Lift up thine eyes," then ;-and if thou wilt not be taught out of God's Word concerning Death and Resurrection and the Day of Judgment; at least "look on the fields;" and read there the parable of all things which are most surely destined hereafter to come to pass. "Lift up thine eyes, and look on the fields;" and behold there in emblem what must most surely, pass a few short years,-happen unto thee!

Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.

THE HARVEST AND THE REAPERS.

S. MATTH. xiii. 39.

The Harvest is the end of the World, and the reapers are the Angels.

It is not impossible that this thought might have struck you or me, even if our LORD had never put it into our minds. At the close of the year, when all things are drawing as it were to an end, and the brightness of summer is over, and the fruits of the earth are being gathered in ; it is not impossible that a thoughtful man, after surveying the reapers and the Harvest-field,―might have been guided to remark, in the spirit of our LORD's declaration, that he beheld in the Harvest an image of the end of the World,-and in the reapers, an image of the Angels.

But you are requested to observe that what makes these words so striking on His lips, is the fact that it was He who spake them ;—that

X X

yea

the great Husbandman, the LORD of the Harvest, rather the eternal Judge of quick and dead, is the speaker. Our SAVIOUR knows what will be at the end of the World. The future is all spread out as completely in His sight as the past and the present. And He, out of the fulness of His knowledge, describes in these few words what will be hereafter. It is not a probability therefore, but a certainty: not a human. comparison, but a Divine prophecy. The Ancient of Days, who is described in S. John's vision as sitting on a white cloud, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle,

-while a loud voice cries from the Temple, "Thrust in Thy sickle and reap, for the time is come for Thee to reap, for the Harvest of the earth is ripe and He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth; and the Earth was reaped :"--the Ancient of Days, I say, who sees the end from the beginning, tells us in these few words how it will fare with us all in the last day. He guides our attention to a harvest-field in autumn, and pointing to the reapers as they move up and down among the yellow corn, He declares that "the Harvest-is the end of the World: and the Reapers-are the Angels."

The solemn certainty then, that the end of

the world will bear a striking resemblance to a sight with which, for weeks past, the eyes of all here present have been familiar; this solemn certainty, I repeat, it is which gives to our LORD's words their peculiar force and point. They become nothing less than a Revelation. And because they are certainly to be viewed in this awful light,-are worthy of all credit,and relate to an event which will concern every one here assembled so very nearly, I have thought the matter quite worth bringing before you, and urging upon your consciences and upon my own. I propose that we confine our attention exclusively to the great lesson which the text contains,-viz. that a Harvest-field is a true image of what will be at the end of the World.

1. And here, the first point of resemblance which strikes one is the certainty of the event. Consider, when you survey a corn-field ripening in the sun, how certain you feel that the day of Harvest will come at last. Is the wheat still standing? It can only be because it is not yet ripe, and therefore unfit for the sickle. When it is ripe, then will come the end, of course. It is so with every harvest-field; it will be so with the harvest of the earth.

Now, this is a solemn matter for a careless

generation. O busy trader, who art as busy with thy trade as if that trade of thine were to go on for ever!-O anxious wife, who art so occupied with the cares of thy house, that thou canst scarce find time for the things of GOD!O thoughtless youth, who rejoicest in thy strength as confidently as if no Angel would ever come to reap thee down!-O giddy girl, who behavest as if thy day of reckoning were never to arrive! O remember, one and all of you, that the history of the World may be summed up in this, that it is ripening for the Harvest! All the events of History,—all Inventions and Discoveries, are but tokens of the perfecting of After many days cometh the End,— and it will come as surely as the Harvest cometh in the close of the year.

the corn.

2. Next, We shall all have to do with Angels in the last day. There is no mistaking our LORD's declaration on this head. He repeats it so often,-and indeed we are so frequently reminded in Scripture that ALMIGHTY GOD employs His Angels to carry out the designs of His providence,-that we are even prepared for the assurance that the transactions of the great and terrible Day will be entrusted to angelic hands. I invite you then to contem