Pentecost, proclaimed the great truth in his epistle, that "God is love," and "He who loveth not his brother whom he hath seen cannot love God whom he hath not seen." We are indeed bound, in a deep love of men's souls, to endeavour to persuade them of the truth of that which can alone rescue us from our lost condition; but remember our Master claims a willing service: "My son, give me thy heart." He wills that all men should be saved, but He effects that blessed will, not by invoking twelve legions of angels to compel us to obey, but by breathing out His dying prayer upon the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

This hellish scheme of saving men's souls by torturing their bodies is inconsistent in every way with God's mode of action, for in all His works, even in the brute creation, He wins, but does not compel, every sentient being to follow that which is for its own good. It is contrary to His written word —it is barren of all fruit, for heresies, no less than truths, have ever been promoted instead of being destroyed by the martyrdom of those who professed them. Thus, tried by every test, it is a base counterfeit; the more detestable for its pollution of the most blessed of all truths.

The time warns me to hasten to my conclusion. But to young men I would say one word at parting of that counterfeit which has destroyed thousands from the commencement of the world, and has borne the name of Pleasure or Happiness. The true happiness of a created being is found in the fulfilment of the object for which it was created; in other words, in its obedience to the Divine will. For to resist Omnipotence is to become subject to perpetual frustration of purpose and consequent misery. The instincts of the brute creation were intended by the benevolence of their Creator to prevent any such attempt on their part. But the reasoning beingthe being endowed with the high power of rendering a willing obedience, and, by necessary consequence, capable of disobey

ing, is not compelled by instinct, but must be moved by his capacity of appreciating the wisdom and love of his Creator, to adore Him, and to love Him, to desire to know Him better. He finds in obeying Him the delight of having every wish fulfilled, because it is in accordance with the great external laws that surround him. How deep, then, the degradation of such a being, and his consequent misery, if he turn from these joys to listen to the voice of the tempter -the liar, who tells him that he can disobey his Maker and live: "Thou shalt not surely die." Nay, most deeply miserable is he, if he at last lose the very sense of his degradation. Finely has Milton said:

"And they, so perfect is their misery,

Not once perceive their foul disfigurement."

The rule of right and wrong has not been obliterated by the fall. All have some standard, however low it may be, by which they measure their conduct. All have a sensation of dissatisfaction when they fall short of that standard, and of satisfaction when they come up to it-the same in kind, though very different in degree from that which they experience on missing or attaining any other object which they desire. This instinct is sometimes called an internal, because it is an invisible monitor, but it is external, i.e., independent of our nature, a law beyond and above our will. We must experience its effects whether we will or no. The heathen were in this sense a law unto themselves, their consciences accusing or excusing one another.

Any self-devised scheme of pleasure or happiness, which contravenes the rule of right, or, in other words, transgresses the law of conscience, is a counterfeit. It will contradict also other known laws of God, and is essentially false.

Take, for instance, the so-called pleasure of indolence or self-chosen ease. Everything around us indicates the will of

our Creator, that our life should be one of activity and exertion. Our food is abundantly supplied to us, but only on the terms of labouring for it. The proper function of our appetites is to countervail that sluggish tendency which is incompatible with our very existence. The parental and social instincts show that we are formed to live, not only in the enjoyment of our own indolent ease, but for the benefit of others also. Sloth can never be happiness, even in its most refined and perilous shape, that of literary or scientific self-cultivation to the exclusion of all thought of the active duties of life: it is a counterfeit. Slothful men may delude themselves even into a fancied tenderness of heart for others

"The sluggard pity's vision-weaving tribe

Who sigh for wretchedness, but shun the wretched,
Nursing in some delicious solitude

Their tender loves and dainty sympathies;"
." #

but a time will surely come when the want of any to love or care for him who has never really loved or cared for others, will be felt as an aching void in the heart and a rankling sting in the conscience.

There is, however, an active pursuit of counterfeit pleasure worse even than slothful ease. How many thousands of our youth sacrifice health and all the holy joys of home to the indulgence of vicious and intemperate habits! How plainly contrary is their conduct to the law of their being, destroying the very flesh by which they are enslaved, and utterly incapacitating the soul for the enjoyment of aught for which its higher faculties were given.

With what solemn warning has Milton said—

"But when lust,

By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,

Lets in defilement to the inward parts,

* Coleridge.

The soul grows clotted by contagion,
Embodies and embrutes till she quite lose
The divine property of her first being.

Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp,
Oft seen in charnel-vaults and sepulchres,
Lingering and sitting by a new-made grave,
As loth to leave the body that it loved,
And link itself by carnal sensuality

To a degenerate and degraded sister."*

This fine idea is one which even a heathen was enabled to attain. It is nearly in the very words used by Plato in his Phædo, or Dialogue on the Immortality of the Soul.

I have hitherto spoken of the contrariety of all such counterfeit pleasures to the nature of things, or God's law in His works; but listen to His Word. The "worm that dieth not, and fire that is not quenched," whatever be the full meaning of those awful denunciations, are assuredly but faint types of a soul awakened from its carnal dreams, consumed with a gnawing craving after pleasure, and a fierce burning desire of happiness, yet conscious of the impossibility of their fulfilment; writhing in endless agony, and in vain striving to break the bonds it willingly subjected itself to on earth. Slave of Satan, it would none of that liberty whereby Christ would have made it free. I dare not dwell on this fearful theme. But be not deceived; the love of God has warned us to flee from the wrath to come. The misery of the wicked is always spoken of in language intimating that its duration is equal to that of the blessedness of the good.

"And with the sinner's fear our hope departs."+

The threat and promise proceed from the same infinite love, and from One who is all-true and all-just no less than He is all merciful. Finely has Danté imagined the inscription on the Asarili abode of the evil:

"I was created by Eternal Power,

By highest Wisdom and primæval Love."

Oh! what are the fruits of these counterfeit pleasures even in this life? Well may we say to their victims, "What fruit had you then (even during their miserable enjoyment) in those things whereof ye are now ashamed?" Young Christian friends, be wise in time. You have assumed a high name for your Association-walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called.

Finally, I have spoken to you of tests of truth, which I believe not even they who deny or doubt the revealed Word of God can gainsay or disprove; tests derived from laws external to us, plain and manifest to us, and so clearly the result of design, and of uniform design, that they prove the being of a God from the book of His works. But we have a more sure and certain light whereby to walk-an unerring guide, not, indeed, to physical, but to all moral truth. Wisely are we warned by Bacon not to confuse these two great Books of God-His Works and Word. They cannot, indeed, be contradictory, but that Holy Word which reveals things spiritual, yea the deep things of God, was never intended to impart any knowledge of His temporal works beyond the fact that they owe their existence to His will alone.

To this written Word appeal as your final resort on all doubts affecting your conduct in life, and you will find, as every one has found that has made the trial, that therein is truth itself in its essential glory and beauty. I have read and thought of many schemes of philosophy attempted to be formed without its guidance. Even the best of those which were devised before our Christian era, wonderful as some of the aspirations after the beautiful and good of the Greek philosophers were, wanted the one saving truth without which the knowledge they imparted was vain-namely, how the bright vision was to be realized-how power was to be