3. It is the part of true wisdom to cherish those views and feelings now, which we know we shall regard as of supreme importance when we come to die. Why should any spend life in treasuring materials for sorrow, disappointment, and despair in the dying hour? Why should any gather food for the worm that never dies, or fuel for the fire that is never quenched? If, as we draw near to death, we shall regard life as very short, and time as infinitely valuable, let us regard them so now, and be quickened to do with our might whatsoever our hands find to do. If we shall then feel that this world is a poor thing, considered as a portion for the soul, let us view it in that light now, and choose God as our portion, and heaven as our home. If a hope of acceptance with God, built on a mere moral life, will then perish as a spider's web and leave us in despair, let us renounce that vain confidence now, and build our hope on that sure corner-stone which God has laid in Zion, and which will never disappoint us. If an impenitent, irreligious life will then appear to us the greatest folly, and a saving interest in Christ the one thing needful, let us not pursue such a life any longer, but close at once with the Saviour, and follow him as our Lord and Master unto the end of our days. And if when the end comes we shall find it indeed a solemn thing to die and go into eternity to appear before God, let us regard it so now, and make that preparation which will sustain us in the last conflict, and give us peace in the day of final decision.

Look forward, then, immortal man, and endeavor to realize what will be your feelings and views in the dying hour, and if you would be wise, begin without delay to cherish those sentiments and pursue that course of life which you will then wish you had; which will save you from remorse and self-reproach and bitter despair in the great day of the Lord.

"Nothing," surely, "is worth a thought beneath, but how we may escape that death that never, never dies; how make our own election sure, and when we fail on earth, secure a mansion in the skies."

4. The confessions of dying men are of no avail, only as they indicate the folly of sin and the value of religion. They do not change the character-they do not fit the soul for death or for heaven. Of the many instances mentioned in this discourse of wicked men being awakened at the close of life to some just view of their character and state, there is not one in which there is any evidence that they repented and embraced the salvation of the Gospel. Their groans, like those of the damned, come up to proclaim the miseries of sin, and to warn the living to avoid their wretched end. It is not the remorse and fear of a dying hour; it is not the shudderings of guilt, and the confusions and tears which are wrung from sinners when they find

they can enjoy the world no longer, but must go and give an account of themselves unto God, that can avail to change the heart and prepare the soul for the inheritance of the saints in light. The strong bands of sin are not so dissolved, nor is it so that the love of God and Christ is inspired in the bosom, and meetness acquired for a place among the redeemed in heaven. No, dear hearer; if you put off religion till you come to a deathbed, you will probably be left to put it off forever. You will not find it so easy as you suppose to cast off the habits of sin, to believe in Christ, and make your peace with God. You may be awakened to see your sin and misery; you may bewail the stupidity and folly of your past life; your misspent time, your abuse of privileges, your neglects of calls and warnings; the terrors of death and the pains of hell may get hold upon you, and you may cry in agony of spirit for help; but God may leave you, as he has other despisers of mercy, awful monuments to warn those who survive you of the danger of trifling with the claims of religion and the high concerns of eternity. Be wise, then, in this your day, to attend to the things which belong to your peace, lest they be hid forever from your eyes. Go learn the value of religion in the peaceful and triumphant death of those that die in the Lord; go learn its value in the remorse and despair of those that die in neglect of Christ and his salvation. Then look to the end of life, and remember that with one or the other of these two classes of persons you are to terminate your mortal career; that with the friends of God, the followers of Jesus, you are to bear your testimony to the value of religion in the joy and hope that will then fill your bosom, or with the enemies of God and the neglecters of the Saviour, you are to bear your testimony to the guilt and misery of an irreligious, prayerless life, in the remorse and fear that will then agitate and corrode the soul. Which, then, will you do?which does conscience admonish you to do?-which will you wish you had done in the day when you shall bid adieu to the scenes of earth, and go to dwell among the dead? Decide now, and let your life be regulated accordingly. Decide now, and let no day nor hour of the year on which you have just entered find you unprepared to meet the summons, should it come, that is to call you out of time into eternity. Hear the voices of those who, during the year past, departed from this congregation into the world of spirits-eleven in all, ten of whom were members of the church, and died, I trust, in good hope of eternal life. Would you die like them, and have your last end like theirs? Then, as you stand upon the threshold of this new year, with its unknown events before you, retreat awhile from the snares and delusions of the world; shut your eyes upon the scenes of time, upon which they must soon

be closed forever, and converse with the world to come-with death, judgment, and eternity. Go stand upon the shores of that dark, vast ocean you must sail so soon, and listen to the sound of its waves till you are deaf to every sound besides, and then with those solemn scenes around and before you, endeavor, with all earnestness and diligence, to gather about you those resources of faith and piety which you will assuredly need in the day when you shall be called to meet that enemy whom you must conquer, or die forever.

SERMON DXXXIX.

THE POWER OF CHRISTIANITY.

BY REV. W. B. SPRAGUE, D. D.,

PASTOR OF SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ALBANY, N. Y.

"I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me."-PHIL. 4: 13.

THIS is one of those comprehensive declarations which we occasionally meet with in Scripture, and especially in the writings of Paul, in which the whole system of Christianity seems to be compressed into a single sentence. For what is Christianity but a revelation of the all-sufficiency of Christ to meet the impotence of man? Paul, with all his native and acquired intellectual energy, was, as a sinner, the heir of moral death; and even as a saint, he was the heir of an undisputed moral weakness; for we have his own testimony to the fact, that when he "would do good, evil" was "present with" him. Nevertheless, through Christ, he was mighty. In proportion as he was baptised with the Spirit of Christ, there was vigor in his thoughts, there was heroism in his heart, there was nerve in his arm, for the accomplishment of anything, for the endurance of anything to which the honor of his Master called him. And as it was with Paul, so it is with all Christ's followers. In themselves they are compassed about with many infirmities; they are often oppressed with a sense of their own weakness, and yet in Christ they have a tower of strength; they are mighty, through him, even to the pulling down of strongholds.

The inward exercises of the Christian, not less than the doctrines which he believes, bear, in no inconsiderable degree, even to himself, a mysterious character. The proposition contained in our text every Christian knows to be true as a matter of experience, and up to a certain point he comprehends it, and is JANUARY, 1851.

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able to explain it; but beyond that point it is enveloped in deep mystery. The life of the Christian is a hidden life; and we cannot say but that the mysteries which are bound up in it may engage his admiring scrutiny through eternity. Still there is much connected with it that is capable of being explained; and, if I mistake not, an attentive consideration of the passage which I have just read to you, will bring before us the substance of all that has been revealed on this wonderful subject. "I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me.'

The Christian's strength-the source from which, and the medium through which, it is communicated-this will form the subject of our discourse.

1. The Christian's strength.-Paul expresses it in the phrase, "I can do all things." The expression is limited by the subject to which it relates; for to understand it literally, would be nothing less than to impute to the Apostle the impiety of claiming one of the Divine attributes. He is speaking of the peculiar difficulties and trials to which he was subjected in the cause of Christ, and his meaning is that he is able to meet them successfully, victoriously; he is adequate to anything to which his duty, as a follower and an ambassador of Christ, might call him. And in its application to Christians in general, it is to be understood as implying their ability to obey Christ's commands in all things; their resolution not to yield to any obstacle which they may find in their path, provided they are sure it is the path which the Master has marked out for them.

1. More particularly, I remark that the Christian is mighty to labor. It is at once the sin and the shame of a large part of the world, that they fritter away their lives in indolent inaction; and of a still larger part of it, that, though they exercise their faculties vigorously, it is for mere worldly objects. They labor hard enough for the meat that perisheth, but not at all for that which endureth to everlasting life. But the true Christian differs widely from both these classes;-from the former, as he is awake to earnest and diligent effort; from the latter, as his efforts are directed to beneficent and spiritual ends. Let him occupy whatever part of the great field he may, he will find enough to do, and if he have the Christian spirit, he will be in earnest to do it. See how inventive he is in devising plaus for sustaining the great interests of truth and piety; for sending abroad the glorious Gospel; for bringing all within his reach under the benign influence of a pure Christianity! See how ready he is to keep on laboring in spite of difficulties; how he takes advantage of everything that can, in any way, be rendered tributary to his work; how he even sometimes presses into his cause the most adverse circumstances, causing that to

become the minister of good which was designed to be the minister of evil. I think I hear some one ask, "Where are we to look for such Christians as these?"-and I know it is a cutting question; I know what multitudes there are who bear the Christian name, who have no better character than that of drones in the church; and I know, too, how wretchedly most of us fall short of our Christian vows and obligations; but I also know that there are Christians, and not a few, to whom we may point triumphantly for an illustration of our position; men and women, whose desire to live in the world is identified with their desire to labor for Christ. A nobler example there never was, than the man from whom came the declaration in our text. Every faculty of his great mind was kept in intense exercise; his ruling passion was to honor Christ as a follower, in proportion as he had dishonored him as a persecutor. In the act of his conversion, he breathed forth the prayer, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" and the whole record of his subsequent life shows the sincerity of that prayer; for it shows him always engaged about his Master's business. Do you say that the world has never seen but one Paul; that his conversion was an extraordinary conversion, and his character an extraordinary character, and that therefore he is not to be taken as a sample of what Christianity, acting by its more ordinary influences, can accomplish? Look, then, at Brainard, with his heart beating so high for the salvation of the poor Indians, that neither the persuasion of his friends, nor his own manifest approach to the grave, could keep him out of the wilderness; labor he would, labor he did, till his physical energies were so nearly gone, that he felt that nothing remained for him but to go away and die. Look at Henry Martyn, nothing wearied by the keen and sagacious opposition of his enemies; nothing discouraged by finding barrenness where he had hoped for a harvest; nothing intimidated by the progress of a disease which was gradually wearing out his constitution, he kept on laboring to the extent of his ability, till death took him away to occupy a more glori ous field. Do you say that even these are extraordinary cases, and that I am still lingering among the greatest names that adorn the Christian record? Then let me ask you to look at the lives of most of our modern missionaries; notice the selfdenial and heroic spirit that breathes in their communications; see how evident it is that they do not count even their lives dear to them; see them adventuring upon great and hazardous enterprises, evincing an intrepidity that no obstacle is powerful enough to overcome; and finally see them holding on in their course of diligent and earnest effort, till they go to render up their account with joy. Nay, you need not look across the ocean to find these glorious examples-you may find persons, I doubt