as its fruits may at times be in the mouth, there is a fountain of bitterness in the heart, which turns the sweetness into gall. But such bitterness does not profit us: there is nothing medicinal in it. This bitterness becomes more and more bitter. These troubles become more abundant, more oppressive, more deadening, but do not rouse us out of our torpour. In order that we may be roused out of this, in order that we may be delivered from the crushing weight of our daily vexations and annoyances, we need to be shaken by some great, searching sorrow, some calamity that shall shake the earth under our feet, and make us look abroad for a firmer foundation. Be assured too that such will come to you, ye who have not yet been shaken thereby. God will not allow you to pass away out of this life without some such warning. Only beware that ye do not suffer it to be wasted, to sweep over you without effecting its purpose and to that end observe and profit by the calamities which may befall your neighbours. Learn from them not to give up your hearts to this frail, perishable world. Learn from them to look forward to the time when you will in like manner be tried. Harden not your hearts, so that they shall not feel such a blow: hearts may be so hardened, that, even though a hammer smite them, they will scarcely feel it. Or they may become so corrupt and rotten, that the heaviest blow will make no lasting impression. Therefore be always ready to sympathize with the sorrows of others, to weep with those that mourn, to weep with them, and for them, and to mourn for yourselves also, while ye ask yourselves, If they do these things in the green tree, what will be done in the dry? If the pious, the faithful, the godly are visited with such calamities, what must be the terrour of the indignation and

wrath, the tribulation and anguish, which are laid up in store for the ungodly?

This year, this strange, this terrible year, eighteen hundred and forty-eight, is almost over. In a few hours it will have rolled into the abyss, which has swallowed up all the former births of Time. So will it be with all outward calamities and distresses. They will have past away: and the time will come when there shall be no more death, or sorrow, or crying, or pain, for the children of God. But one thing will not have past away,-Sin; unless it have been purged by the blood of Him who came to take away the sins of the world: sin will abide still, and the worm that never dies, and the fire that cannot be quencht. We are standing at the threshold of a new year. So, ere long, ere many years have rolled by, shall we all be standing at the threshold of a new life. The former things will have past away; and a new order of things will be beginning. From that time forward our portion will either be with the children of God, from whose eyes God Himself will wipe away all tears; or it will be in the abode of the worm that dies not, and of the fire that is not quencht. Here calamities and blessings are mixt up together; and through faith calamities may be turned into blessings, while sin on the other hand turns blessings into calamities. Let us, my brethren, strive to be on that side, on which all evil is turned into good, not on that on which all good is turned into evil. Let us labour diligently and perseveringly to build up the House of God, in every way in which He has appointed us to build it, endeavouring to raise it higher and higher with every passing year, not indeed in the vain hope of building up a tower whose top may reach to heaven, but in the assurance, that, although

the house of our earthly tabernacle, fair as it may be, will be dissolved, yet they who have laboured to build the Lord's House upon earth, have a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens, prepared for them. For in the end the opposites, which are now found mixt up together, will be separated everlastingly and they who have endeavoured in the power of faith to turn evil into good, will find their faith fulfilled in the fruition of God's eternal presence; while they who through sin have obstinately turned good into evil, will be banisht from the sight of goodness for ever.

Nor is it our own life only that will one day be standing thus on the very brink of its close. The life of England will be so likewise; yea, so will the life of the world. The times and the seasons the Father has put in His own power; and it is not for us to know them. Hundreds of years, thousands, it may be, may still have to ebb and flow, before the purpose for which God ordained this world. will be accomplisht. But the hour will at last come,

when the end of the world will be as close at hand as the end of this present year is now. Then will the heavens and the earth be shaken, with a shaking such as has not been since the creation of the world; and there will be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars. Then again will the sign of the Son of Man be seen in the heavens; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn; and they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven. with power and great glory. Then too will God take His servants, whom He has chosen; and they will be sealed with the sign of the Son of Man, with the seal of the Living God. The angels of destruction will hear the voice crying, Hurt not the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, till we have

sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. And they who are thus sealed shall stand for ever before the Throne, and before the Lamb, crying, Salvation to our God who sitteth upon the Throne, and to the Lamb. Amen.

SERMON IX.

THE ANGEL'S MESSAGE.

LUKE xi. 10, 11.

And the angel said to them, Fear not for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people: for to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.

THIS message, you well know, was first brought as on this day by the angel to the shepherds who were watching their flocks by night in the field by Bethlehem: and this, my brethren, is the very message which I have to bring this day to you. To you, my brethren, I say, in the very words of the angel, am I also ordained to bring good tidings of great joy, the tidings that to you is born as on this day a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. This is the blessed message, which in all parts of the earth is on this day sounding in the ears and gladdening the hearts of Christ's people. Thousands, and tens of thousands, ay, hundreds of thousands of voices are on this day taking up the very words of the angel, and proclaiming the same good tidings, some in one language, some in another, in all parts of the earth; and millions of hearts are rejoicing to hear them. More than eighteen centuries have rolled away since this message was brought to the shepherds of Bethlehem. Some sixty generations of mankind have lived through their span of life, and have gone to their graves, and been gathered to