distinct consequences of diverse characters are espe cially marked, as men advance in life towards old age; and the rewards and retributions already bestowed seem to anticipate the judgment-day. With the old man whose aims have been worldly alone, see how object after object that has engaged him fails, or the passions that sought them are worn out; and the wearied, uninterested soul, having laid hold of nothing but what was sublunary and crumbling, lingers out the wretched remainder of earthly exist. ence, with fading hope and declining strength, weak, objectless, irritable, and remorseful, to an ignoble end! How different the case of the old man who, through all his pilgrimage of years, has trusted the word of God, has believed in the realities it reveals, and has acted with daily reference to them! His faltering footsteps but indicate his drawing near to where the road rises up to heaven. The whiteness of his hair seems to come but from the light of that glorious world, falling more directly upon him. His ever-increasing affections contradict the infidel's idea, that mental decline runs parallel with bodily decrepitude. An earthly crown of glory is placed on his hoary head, prophetic of that which God shall place to rest there for ever.

As I walked through the lanes of yonder growing forest, on our beautiful common, the dry leaves crushing under my feet, and the sinking sun taking his last look at the bare boughs of the trees, I met a man on whom the blow of grief had descended as sorely as upon any, and with oft-repeated stroke. A new sorrow had just fallen on his gray head, and

long-diseased, emaciated frame. While I approached, he was slowly eying the setting sun. As he turned his face towards me, I looked to see the marks of deep, uncomforted sadness wearing mournfully in upon his features. But no: not a trace of trouble in that eye which had so often looked on death in the forms of those he had most loved. His vision gleamed as though a light beyond that of the setting sun had fallen upon it. He spoke; and now, thought I, the secret melancholy will peradventure come forth, and mingle in the tone, though this unnatural excitement be kindled in the eye. No: pleasant was the voice, without one plaintive note. He spoke of faith. He spoke of loyalty to God and duty. He spoke of heaven as though it were near. He said nothing of being hardly dealt with, nor hinted aught about not understanding why he should be selected for such trials, but seemed to think there was nothing but God's mercy and kindness in the world. He bore a staff to support his drooping limbs. But he seemed to me, as I looked upon him, to have an inward stay that would hold him up when all earthly props had fallen to the ground. He was a Christian believer; and, though prospered of God in this world, he said, "The riches we think so much of gathering together are nothing in comparison with the better portion that rich and poor alike may attain." We parted; and as I walked alone again among the fading, rustling leaves, which had been expounding to me the text of this discourse, they took up new eloquence of meaning. The bare, cold ground, the gray, chilly sky, and the long shadows,

that told of the lengthening night, seemed beautiful - yes, pleasant and beautiful- to my soul; more beautiful even than the herbage and balm, and long, long sunny hours of the enlivening spring. For once, the contrast between earth and heaven was revealed to my mind; and the dissolving emblems of mortality under my feet, and the cold, shifting mists over my head, were transformed from sad tokens into symbols of hope and joy.

So let the season speak, not mournfully but cheeringly, to our hearts. Let gladness breathe upon us in the sigh of the autumnal breeze, and consolation be traced for us in the furrows of the dead, exhausted earth. Let all that is dark and disappointing in this world but set off the brightness and expectation of heaven. Let the gloom that settles down over our earthly scenes and prospects be but the background of a splendor from the sun that never sets. Then shall we turn the principle of contrast which God has so wisely inwrought into the constitution of our minds to its true, intended use. Successive seasons and years shall but find us farther advanced on the way to a blessed destiny. And when the curtain of death is drawn over our eyes, as the curtain of night over the landscape, like that curtain it will reveal above more glory than it conceals below.

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DISCOURSE XXVII.

RECORD OF THE YEAR.

Ezra vi. 2. - AND THERE WAS FOUND A ROLL, AND THEREIN WAS

A RECORD THUS WRITTEN.

THE record here referred to was of what had been done for the house and service of God. It was a religious record, such as I propose we should now read of the past year. The recorder and the actors concerned in that ancient memorial, the parchment that was unrolled to be read, and the so solid and splendid temple it described and celebrated, have all sunk under that monument of dust which outlasts all monuments of marble and brass, and have left no tangible relic or remembrancer on earth but this sentence of our text, written on a frail leaf, though a leaf perishable only in the last fire. Records and recorders of mighty and mean events have, for more than two thousand years, fallen beneath the same wasting mortal fate; the space since they flourished, occupied in the world's history, being but a space, so far as they are concerned, in eternal destiny. We, in our turn, stand up awhile on this little plot of ground, to read from the book of our experience;

hoping in God's mercy, that, by what the finger of his providence has written on our past condition and action, we may be made wise to eternal life.

Records are made of changes, of what is altering from day to day in that great empire of change, of which we are all subjects. This law of change is often considered and spoken of as a melancholy law, a dreadful necessity stretched over us, ordaining that no lot we attain to can long abide, but we must be unfixed from every quiet posture, and hurried on by a remorseless hand to an untried condition. But is this an unhappy doom? No: it is the decree of growth and progress. It is the ordinance of escape from old limitations, and the impulse of rising to new stages of life, to gain, as we are dislodged from our nests of ease and comfort, fresh energy of thought and will; continually nearing the grave indeed, but travelling, if faithful in the use of our privileges, towards an existence to which this is but lowness, poverty, and distress. A state of sameness and immobility would be, in truth, a wretched doom. Nor is the record of any year, which we may read together, a record of sadness or decay alone, even as respects this world, but very much of delight and advancement.

Its first opening chapter, that I shall venture to read to you, is a large one, of blessed meaning. It is of new being, birth and growth. Not with careless levity of feeling, but with all the solemnity of devout regard, it is to be noted how many houses, during this year, have been made the scenes of holy gladness by the gifts of God's creative and inspiring