describes that destiny: "In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men." The color of that coming destiny is to be determined by the color of our present life and conduct. What is to pass through that low porch of the grave, appear in that immortal dwelling, and outlive the sea, the sun, the stars, and be the fountain of good or evil to us in the eternal career, is our character. How far it can be changed or improved in that mysterious future, we know not. But Christ and his apostles teach that our condition, on entering the world of spirits, shall be the consequence of what it has been in the past. I call upon you, then, to stand, not with rejoicing only, but with solemn awe, before your destiny, as revelation lays it bare. I call on you to stand with humility, with self-examination, with repentance before it. I exhort you to lead a good and holy life in view of it. I charge you so to listen to the proclamation of duty which conscience makes, as not to rush upon that eternity which the gospel discloses, with a worldly, sinful, and polluted soul.

The Being who is to sit at that judgment of our destiny is the same almighty, wise, true Being whom nature declares, and who is declared by Christ also, as he is intimated by our own conscience, to be a Judge just and holy, no less than gracious and kind. I pray you, my friends, to consider it; for to this point all religious instructions from all sources respecting God and duty and destiny, with accumulated weight and piercing closeness, converge. Are you living a righteous, prayerful, temperate, faithful

life? Do you cultivate good and spiritual affections in your homes, and with all your fellow-creatures? Are you promoting or injuring the virtue of your fellow-men; helping them on the way of purity and sobriety, or setting before them temptation and a snare? These inquiries are pertinent; they are imperative; they demand a reply from the sincere conviction and most watchful self-knowledge of your hearts.

Man in advancing years! have you so thought of your destiny? Has your course been tending to make that destiny happy, by tending to exalt your own and others' conduct? If not thus, but otherwise, has been the bearing of your actions, trust not to God's mercy to excuse you from the suffering to ensue. God's mercy, like all his other attributes, is pledged to the infliction of that suffering, to purge away, if it yet may be, the baseness of your motives and the rottenness of your life. The word revealed is, Your secrets shall be judged, the inmost parts of your deportment and your spirit probed, in that day.

Man, who standest in that centre-period, on that summit-level, of existence, which seems to command as a high ground of security both what is past and what is to come! do now, before God and your conscience, what will prepare for you a good destiny. Trust not to a future opportunity. You, too, in the prime of life-like one whom I have been used to meet in the ways of business and amid all the bustle of this world's interests, may be close to that

"eternal blazon," which nothing but the veil, the thin and fragile veil we wear, of flesh and blood, hides from any of us. Young man! lend not so dull an ear to the warnings that are wont to be uttered from this place: they concern your destiny.

Children! listen to the voice of God speaking to you from his word and works; listen to the dictates of conscience in your own breast, that, by the grace of God, and the deeds of duty, your destiny, lying as yet all before you, may be blessed. So may God and duty bless to us all for evermore our destiny!

DISCOURSE XIX.

BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST.

Dan. v. 6. - THEN THE KING'S COUNTENANCE WAS CHANGED, AND HIS THOUGHTS TROUBLED HIM, SO THAT THE JOINTS OF HIS LOINS WERE LOOSED, AND HIS KNEES SMOTE ONE AGAINST ANOTHER.

EVERY Scripture-narrative is set in a religious light, teaches some moral lesson, and thus deserves the title, sacred history. That we may catch the meaning in our text, let us imagine ourselves present in the scene it describes. Belshazzar was the king of Babylon, one of the most splendid cities in the world. It was built in an immense plain ; and its walls measured a circumference of sixty miles. A hundred gates of brass adorned it; and hanging gardens, terrace above terrace, clothed its regal palace with living verdure. Through the midst flowed the great river Euphrates, painting in its depths the surrounding magnificence, and shedding beauty on temple and tower, that looked boldly from its banks. Yet the crowned lord himself of this wondrous city was a worthless wretch. He spent his time in luxurious repose, pampering the baser appetites, and permitting all the glory of his great abode to be stained by the debauchery of his people. Many years he went on,

and did his pleasure. God permitted him to choose his own course, and work out his own destiny, in the station assigned.

The scene of our text is laid at the return of a certain idolatrous festival. The king had prepared a rich feast to grace it. He called in a thousand of his lords to the sparkling tables. His wives with his concubines came to join the company. And they reclined at the costly viands, spread all around in grateful abundance. Odorous lamps hung above from golden chains, and shed a sweet brilliance through the vast hall, so that the night shone even as the day. Idols, richly carved, bent upon them gracefully from the walls; and gaily those feasters greeted them in their songs. So they went on, hour by hour, intoxicating their senses, and burying their souls in unbounded revelry.

At length, heated with wine, Belshazzar ordered the sacred vessels, taken by Nebuchadnezzar from the temple of God at Jerusalem, to be brought for service in this scene of rioting and drunkenness. And they all, king, princes, wives, and concubines, used these instruments of holiness as their own goblets. They polluted them with their voluptuous lips, and poured out libations to the idols, and sang impious songs in honor of false gods. Then, suddenly, they saw the fingers, as of a man's hand, writing over against the candlestick, upon the plastered wall. Dim grew the lamps before those letters of fire. With the supernatural splendor, a ghastly paleness spread over the features that had been dissolved in mirth; and such