and while you follow in. dread pursuit the spirits of those who have gone before you, ask yourselves in what mansions these different characters ought now to dwell? When you follow the path of the first, of those who have devoted here all the powers of understanding to the discovery or the support of those truths by which God is glorified, and man made wiser and better, your imagination assumes the confidence of faith, and you see them now the companions of the just whose spirits are made perfect, the associates of the wise and good of every age, -the friends of the angels and the archangels who bear the errands of mercy amid unnumbered worlds, and surrounding the throne of Him, whom, through the veil of mortality, they dared to seek, and whom now "they see, not darkly, but as

If you follow the path of the second,

of those who have prostituted the noblest gifts of nature to the purposes of their own selfishness; and who, in raising themselves to the distinction of an hour, have trampled upon all the most sacred and genuine truths of their being,-where is it, my brethren, that the conscience of your imagination leads, and who are the fit companions of such spirits? Your eye, perhaps, recoils from the prospect; yet, remember, my friends, that the fundamental principle of nature is justice ;that "what a man soweth, he must also "" that of those to whom much " is given, much must be required;" and that learning and genius, while they carry with them the highest honours of which man is capable, carry with them, at the same time, the deepest responsibility which his nature can either contract

reap;

or pay.

On that magnificent career, my young

friends, you are now entering. Science is opening to you all her stores of honour and of usefulness, and the prayers of parents and of friends are following you, when you are unconscious of them.Pause then, I beseech you, in the calm morning of your day, and form to yourselves the high resolutions by which it may be afterwards distinguished. Look back with the eye of memory to the past, and see on what foundations all the lasting honours of men are founded :-Look forward with the eye of faith to the future; and, while you see the different issues of moral being, ask yourselves to which of these classes of existence you wish to belong. But first, and most of all, let the dawn of your being be sanctified by the devotion which becomes those who are called to be the servants of God; let the first fruits of your understanding be offered to the service of Him whose in

spiration gave it; and while you look forward to the final issues of your existence, let it never cease to be your prayer. that you may think and act like all the wise and good that have gone before you, that so your "latter end may be like

"theirs. "

SERMON XV.

ON THE GENERAL FAST, FEBRUARY 9,

1809.

St MATTHEW, xvi. 3.

"Can ye not discern the signs of the

arrogance

IN these words, our Saviour replied to the national prejudices, and to the national of the Jewish people. It was with them (even under their peculiar dispensation) as it is with mankind in general. They valued themselves as being the favourite people of Heaven: they conceived that no errors or vices of their own could ever forfeit the covenant made