How far, then, this deprivation, which casts so very heavy a gloom over our national prospects, may indeed be a political evil, it is not for us to prognosticate. That would be to travel beyond our own sphere, and lose ourselves in the regions of wiid conjecture. For, what can we ken of the secret purposes or plans of an inscrutable Providence? "Fools will rush in, where Angels dare not tread:" but, "hear ye now what the Lord saith-be still, and know that I am God: for my ways are not your ways, neither are my thoughts your thoughts; for, as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." It is, however, to be feared, that this inflictive. visitation has been provoked by the complicated vice and wickedness of the land; of which we shall not fail to take some seasonable notice in its proper place.

Now then, men, brethren, and fathers, admitting—as we all hope and trust-that the beloved object, whose decease we so generally mourn, is happily translated from a world of sorrow, trial, and conflict, to the blissful mansions of everlasting life, and peace, and joy-how do you suppose her beatified spirit would wish me to be employed in this solemn hour-in which we are assembled in the temple of the living God? Certainly, not in pouring forth lavish eulogiums on those faint rays of religious or virtuous excellence with which the Giver of all good might have endowed and beautified her character; but, undoubtedly, in devoting the slender abilities we may possess in improving her demise to the noblest of all purposes. To this valuable end, a few striking and awful words have been selected, which must come home to every man's bosom; because they are of universal concern: and be it carefully observed, that they were originally spoken by the eternal God himself; and spoken to you-to me-to all; and what do they say? They say to every one of us, high or low, rich or poor, young or old,

"Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return."

Sermon by the Rev. Howell W. Powell, preached at the Parish Church of Ripley, Yorkshire.

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PSALM cii. v. 11, 12.

My days are gone like a shadow; and I am withered like grass; but thou, O Lord, shalt endure for ever."

YES, my friends! the tenderest ties of love and friendship are soon dissolved-often when we least expect it. Earthly honors and distinctions, however justly merited, partake of the perishable nature of those who confer or receive them.Pleasures, as we too frequently call them, are not only transitory and deceitful, but are often followed by long and bitter repentance. Riches are taken away from us by the injustice and violence of men, or escape our anxious grasp through their own instability. Glory and reputation themselves are doomed to be soon lost in the depth of eternal oblivion. Thus the torrent of the world flows on, whatever pains may be taken to stop it. Every thing is hurried along, by the rapid flight of moments as they pass; till by this constant revolution we arrive, at last, often without thinking of it,—at that fatal point, where time is at an end, and eternity begins!

The shortness and uncertainty of life are truths felt and acknowledged by all. They are themes familiar to every bosom, to every tongue,-although, God knows, they are not always improved to the best of purposes. No descriptions of them, however, with respect to force and beauty, are any where to be met with, equal to those we find in the Holy Scriptures.

"My days are gone like a shadow, and I am withered like grass but thou, O Lord, shalt endure for ever!" Thus spake the man after God's own heart, when his declining days and increasing infirmities brought him within view of the grave, and left him merely time enough to feel his weakness and his fall, and to adore the greatness and the mercy of his everlasting Father. He looks upon his life, sometimes like

the smoke which vanisheth as it ascends the air-sometimes as the shadow that departeth-sometimes as the grass which withereth in the fields-sometimes as a flower, which loses its morning freshness at noon-tide, and dies under the very rays of that sun, which had just kindled it into life and beauty! How many sorrowful ideas of this kind presented themselves to the mind of the Royal penitent! How many sensible images did he find at every step, descriptive of our inconstant pleasures, and transitory greatness!

Sermon by the Rev. Jerome Alley, A. B., preached in the Parish Church of Saint Mary, Islington.

Joв, chap. xxxiv. v. 18, 19, 20.

"Is it fit to say to a King, thou art wicked? and to Princes, ye are ungodly? How much less to him that accepteth not the persons of Princes, nor regardeth the rich more than the poor? For they all are the work of his hands.-In a moment shall they die, and the people shall be troubled at midnight, and pass away: and the mighty shall be taken away without hand."

VARIOUS are the examples in Scripture of man's entire submission to the divine will. What a severe trial did the Patriarch Abraham undergo, when it pleased God to put his entire obedience to the test, and to prove which was predominant, his love for a child, or his faith in him, and consequent submission. "God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham, and he said, behold here I am." Hitherto he had been accustomed to receive declarations of favour; what, therefore, must have been his feelings, when he was called upon to take "his son, his only son Isaac, whom he loved, and to go into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt-offering." What, I say, must have been a father's feelings at such a command as this! when God said, "take now thy son;" Abraham must naturally have expected he was about to declare, by what means he would make him

a father to many nations; how agonizing then must have been his sensations, to be thus commanded to shed the blood of his own offspring! However, his firm conviction of, and reliance on, the divine goodness and mercy, prevailed; and, without a single murmur, we are told," he rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt-offering, and went unto the place which God had told him." But God, having put his obedience to a trial by this severe and most heart-rending requisition, was too merciful to prove it further; and seeing he would not "withhold" even his only son Isaac, he spared him, and provided another offering.

What a shining example have we here, of humble submission to the divine will!-What a confidence, that every thing the Almighty orders is for the best, to those who love him, and keep his commandments! for some great and good purpose, known only to himself. Let us, therefore, in what has, and may hereafter befal us, even in the hardest and most afflicting trials, bow with humble submission to the all-wise will of God. Firm trust in the mercy and goodness, and submission to the divine dispensations, is the best mode of passing through this world with comfort; and after our best endeavours through Christ, with hope-were it not for the hope which we have in Christ Jesus, better were it for us we had "never been born."

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Sermon by R. Chatfield, LL.D., preached at Chatteris.

Rev. chap. xx. v. 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the Earth and the Heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works-And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which

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were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.-And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."

THE sinner's conscience, too, is a book whose leaves no time nor ci.cumstances shall erase. Sin carries with it a memorial not to be forgotten-a sting, which no medicine can heal. We may compare the pleasures of sin to the rose, fair and fragrant to the sense, but, which conceals a thorn beneath its leaves to tear and goad the hand that plucks it. It is one of those apples of Sodom, delectable to the view, but bitter in the taste; it is one of those fabled perfumes that kill with the very scent. It is a serpent, whose bright scales and changing colours may please the eye, but will poison upon the touch. But, if the sinner's conccience should not speak, the law would speak; the book of the Scriptures, the rule of life would speak, or, that other "book, which some would interpret, is the rule of God's eternal decrees or counsels; or, as St. Chrysostom and others, the record of our lives, our qualifications and demeanours, and our deportment more especially at the hour of death."

But, not to enter into difficulties, let it be the rule of the Scriptures, these we know shall never pass away; the heavens and the earth may and shall-these never-no, not one jot or tittle, for this is the rule by which the hearts and lives of all men shall be tried.

Then, lastly, comes the cause; and oh, what is it, not a mere question of disputable and perishable things! not a question of life or death, of mere worldly riches or power, of honour or reputation, or opinion, but of eternal life or eternal death, of eternal glory or of eternal pain.-Our works are to be proved, our works to be examined; what we have done in the body, what we have done before men, either with their privity or without, what men may never have seen, but, what God has; the works of secret villany, the works of silent artifice or guilt, the works of lust, of envy, and malice, and cruelty,