the same class with him in the school, who were preparing with him for the same confirmation, -how can his sudden call fail to set you on a heartier and more awful obedience? I do not prize the mere chill of feeling, the mere shock of half-selfish sorrow that comes on the heart when we first hear of such an event. This soon This alone is worth nothing, perpasses off.

haps less than nothing.

No; feel it in your duty; feel it in your obedience; feel it in your diligence; feel it in your next Sunday's communion; feel it in your confirmation; feel it in your purity; feel it in your holy words; feel it in your prayers. Do not omit, no, not one among you, do not omit to pray God to give you grace to lay to heart this act of His merciful and righteous judgment, that you may be holier, and obey Him better in the state of life to which He has been pleased to call you. Bless Him, in that by sparing you, He has given you time to obey more perfectly, and to repent more fully; and pray that you may not mis-spend those additional years, or months, or weeks, or whatever it be, in returning to former evil, or in fresh imperfection of duty, but that by His grace you may be enabled now, and in all your lives, to do His holy truth.

And may God of His great mercy grant that

all who now hear me, young and old,—that all of us together,-baptized alike, taught alike, sacredly fed alike, hoping alike,-may alike reach our everlasting inheritance, alike enter into that blessed kingdom of which we are all joint-heirs in Christ!

SERMON XX.

FIFTH OF NOVEMBER.

ESTHER ix. 27, 28.

The Jews ordained, and took upon them, and upon their seed, and upon all such as joined themselves unto them, so as it should not fail, that they would keep these two days according to their writing, and according to their appointed time every year. And that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, every family, every province, and every city; and that these days of Purim should not fail from among the Jews, nor the memorial of them perish from their seed."

THE deliverance of the Jewish people from the design of Haman the Agagite was in no respect more signal or more clear a manifestation of God's providence and care, than the deliverance of our Church and nation which took place as on this day. He had sought to destroy all the Jews that were throughout the whole kingdom

of Ahasuerus, even the people of Mordecai. His design had prospered so far that he had received the king's ring in token of his assent, and ten thousand talents with which he was to pay those who were employed in the work of massacre. No impediment could be foreseen which should prevent the king's first minister, the man whom he had delighted to honour, from carrying his purpose into execution. But God had raised up a defence; and by the influence of queen Esther the destruction which had been prepared for Mordecai and his people, recoiled upon Haman and his friends.

Not less remarkable in its circumstances, and signal in its greatness, was the deliverance of our own country from the more secret and treasonable attempt, the defeat of which we still yearly celebrate on this day. The plan for destroying the king and parliament was laid with the utmost skill. The conspirators were bound to faithfulness and secrecy by the most sacred obligations. Solemn promises and oaths, ratified by the repeated communion of the Holy Eucharist, (so strangely and blasphemously can men blend the highest sanctities of religion with the most dreadful designs of guilt,) appeared to put discovery out of the reach of all ordinary chances. The time drew near for the execution, and as

F f

far as man could see or judge, nothing could arise to save the country from the most awful destruction which had ever been perpetrated or designed in the world.

But God was pleased to frustrate the scheme so skilfully laid, and so carefully guarded; and by a somewhat similar instrument to that which had defeated the policy of Haman. A touch of human kindness, a spark of natural love and affection, induced one of the conspirators to wish to save a friend from the impending ruin. A mysterious letter on the one part, and a sagacious conjecture on the other, were the only instruments of detection, and thus the wisdom of the wise was made folly, and the subtlest designs of man were frustrated by the providence of God.

And our fathers, like the Jews in the Feast of Lots, did not doubt that this great deliverance of their Church and country was to be attributed to the immediate mercy of Almighty God. So they instituted a sacred feast of thanksgiving and joy, that this day should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, every family, every province, and every city; and that this day should not fail from among us, nor the memorial of it perish from our seed.

The feelings of immediate joy and thankfulness for this great mercy have, of course, long