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.

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 power. What trust so great to our hands as that of a living spirit, with its own individual nature, distinguished from all other rational intelligences, and with capacities for a peculiar development of intellectual and moral strength; in short, a new character in the universe of God, and a fresh candidate for immortality! With what a reverent, sober, trembling sense of responsibility it should be received! What office that men crave and strive for is so high in rank, so great in opportunity, so large in patronage, or susceptible of good, with such hope and fear, promise and menace, wrapped up in it, as this parental office! What expanding of outward nature, or unfolding of earthly policy and ambition, is really so grand and affecting as that of an undying soul; as we see intellectual animation flow by such subtle degrees into the countenance, and ever-added expression beam from the features; as thought wakens after thought, and feeling after feeling, to take their place among the lines and motions of every trait and member; as the will plays, it may be at first rashly and capriciously, with its new-found, but soon to be mighty sceptre, on its little throne in that slender breast; as the kind affections come out to cling to us and tame childish waywardness, while the conscience, too, begins to assert its lordship, and the dawning idea of God, the greatest that can visit the mind of man or archangel, with its majestic authority, subdues disobedience to the laws of righteousness and truth!

No changes of material growth, of splendid seasons and solemn spectacles, can equal this. The record is not on paper only, or in the friendly observer's eye, but within our throbbing breasts. It is a record of overrunning and unspeakable gratitude for what no publicity celebrates, no mention attempts to do justice to, and no stranger intermeddles with. Day by day lengthens it out. It makes the purest inspiration of love; it turns self-sacrifice into a pleasure; it converts watching into rest; it plies the inventive faculties with all knowledge and wisdom to provide for the beloved object; it draws the mind into long foresight of its benefit and improvement; and, by the force of mingling filial and parental communications, exalts the soul to a perception of the relation of all to Him who is the common Father.

Life's record, then, as we read it, is not all of gloomy change, of dwindling strength, of wan and pining existence, and irreparable privation, but of strength enhancing, existence renovating, and of new possession. The cradle overbalances the grave; and even that feeble hand, stirring so faintly in it, points through the tomb, threatening, as with gigantic might, to turn its dark portals for the entrance of that which is life only and forever. The record of birth and growth-while we read it, let our fidelity and Christian training secure that it shall be a record, not of dishonor and sin, but of increasing virtue with increasing years. And let the sacred dedication we may make of our offspring to God