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ings of true religion. The form is that of direct address to those who have disregarded the appeals of religion, and that will be the best form for us to follow in illustrating the subject. Let us take up the points suggested in the text, in their order, supposing that the voice of wisdom in the text is now addressing those who are in this house.

I. The manner in which it has called upon you-in which the appeals of wisdom and of religion have been made; "I have called," "I have stretched out my hand."

The appeal here may be regarded as made to all; for, though its form be varied, there are none whom religion has not addressed; none whom she has not invited to her embrace. There are none whose attention has not been called to it; none who has not been entreated to become children of God. The invitations and the calls of heavenly wisdom were among the first that fell on the ear in childhood; they are those which have been most frequently and urgently repeated; they are those which have come with the best claims to attention. In the manner, the variety, the intensity, the tenderness, the unwearied nature, and the sleepless watchfulness of appeal, nothing has occurred that can be compared with the calls which have been made to you to abandon a sinful course, and to give your heart to God. They were made to you in childhood; they were repeated in youth; they were Continued in riper years; they have been pressed upon you with all the more earnestness as old age approached. The subject has been urged upen your attention when you have been sick; when you have been alone, and when you have been with others; in the silence of the night-watches, and in the great congregation. Conscience has plead with you, and urged you to give up your sins, to pray, to turn to God, to secure the salvation of your souls; and through your conscience, wisdom has always been speaking to you, and urging you to tread in the straight and narrow path. Reason has appealed to you, and wisdom has spoken to you through its appeals. It had but one voice, urging the propriety of serving God, of keeping his commands, of securing the salvation of the soul; admonishing you of the danger of neglect and delay, and pressing upon you the supreme importance of religion; and in all the tumult of passion, and all the whirl of pleasure, and all the storms of ambition, it has been telling you that for man the path of wisdom is to lay a good foundation for the world to come. The prᏅ vidences of God have appealed to you, and called you to attend to the soul. Now, when you have been sick, and thought yon felt the cold finger of death laid on your palpitating, strug gling heart; now, when raised up from your bed, brought from the borders of the grave, to live a little longer; now, when just escaped from the perils of shipwreck-snatched from a watery grave; now, when the pestilence breathing around you has made you feel that you were walking among the dying and the dead; now, when you have seen the young,

the talented and the gay, the bridegroom and the bride suddenly cut off; now, when you have seen your own dear son or daughter, father, mother, wife, or husband die, and utter darkness and desolation came into your dwelling, religion appealed to you; showed you how yain was all earthly good; how sure was death to you; how much you needed the consolations of Christian hope; what a poor, miserable, comfortless man you are, with no prospect of heaven, and no God to go to, in your troubles. Self-interest has appealed to you in behalf of religion. Your great interests are in religion-your most momentous concerns beyond the grave. There you are to live for ever. There your condition is to be unchanging. There you are to be happy or miserable to all eternity, and happiness or misery there, once begun is only to increase--never to diminish, never to terminate. Here all is soon to be at an end': joy or sorrow, poverty or wealth, honor or shame-all are soon to close. The vapor on the mountain side soon vanishes away; so will your life. The colors so gorgeously painted on the cloud that lies along the western sky soon disappear; so will all that is gay and gorgeous in life. Eternity alone is unchanging, and eternity is all. Your great interests are there; and wisdom stands amidst these vanishing vapors, and these evanescent beauties, and tells you that your great interests lie all beyond the tomb, in the " spirit world," and urges you to make that safe and secure. Your friends have appealed to you, and religion has appealed to you through them. Your friends, your best friends, have most earnestly conjured you to give up the world and sin, and to yield the heart to God. Here a father, here a mother; there a wife, there a sister, there a child, there a bosom companion, has plead with you and urged you with strong crying and tears, to become a Christian. You cannot recollect the scenes of Childhood-not even the nurserywithout remembering the appeals that broke on the infant ear in favor of religion. You cannot go back in memory to the days of your youth, without thinking of the path that led to the house of God, the Sabbath and the sanctuary, and the appeals which religion made to you then. You cannot think of heaven and the dwellers there, without thinking of some there, parent, or pastor, or bosom friend, who often plead with you to give the heart to God. You cannot go into the still and crowded cemetry, without fancying that the mother or the sister who sleeps there still speaks, and urges the son, the brother, to give up the world, and prepare to die. The ministers of religion have appealed to you, and wisdom has spoken to you in their appeals. The pastor whom you have seen reason only to venerate, whose sincerity you have never doubted, and the force of whose appeals you have often felt, has plead with you. Strangers who were eloquent, have come to confirm their ap peals, and to urge the claims of religion by new arguments and Define illustrations. You do not doubt their sincerity; you cannot gainsay the the reasonableness of their appeals; you have often

ings of true religion. The form is that of direct address to those who have disregarded the appeals of religion, and that will be the best form for us to follow in illustrating the subject. Let us take up the points suggested in the text, in their order, supposing that the voice of wisdom in the text is now addressing those who are in this house.

I. The manner in which it has called upon you-in which the appeals of wisdom and of religion have been made; "I have called," "I have stretched out my hand."

The appeal here may be regarded as made to all; for, though its form be varied, there are none whom religion has not addressed; none whom she has not invited to her embrace. There are none whose attention has not been called to it; none who has not been entreated to become children of God. The invitations and the calls of heavenly wisdom were among the first that fell on the ear in childhood; they are among those which have been most frequently and urgently repeated; they are those which have come with the best claims to attention. In the manner, the variety, the intensity, the tenderness, the unwearied nature, and the sleepless watchfulness of appeal, nothing has occurred that can be compared with the calls which have been made to you to abandon a sinful course, and to give your heart to God. They were made to you in childhood; they were repeated in youth; they were continued in riper years; they have been pressed upon you with all the more earnestness as old age approached. The subject has been urged upen your attention when you have been sick; when you have been alone, and when you have been with others; in the silence of the night-watches, and in the great congregation. Conscience has plead with you, and urged you to give up your sins, to pray, to turn to God, to secure the salvation of your souls; and through your conscience, wisdom has always been speaking to you, and urging you to tread in the straight and narrow path. Reason has appealed to you, and wisdom has spoken to you through its appeals. It had but one voice, urging the propriety of serving God, of keeping his commands, of securing the salvation of the soul; admonishing you of the danger of neglect and delay, and pressing upon you the supreme importance of religion; and in all the tumult of passion, and all the whirl of pleasure, and all the storms of ambition, it has been telling you that for man the path of wisdom is to lay a good foundation for the world to come. The providences of God have appealed to you, and called you to attend to the soul. Now, when you have been sick, and thought you felt the cold finger of death laid on your palpitating, struggling heart; now, when raised up from your bed, brought from the borders of the grave, to live a little longer; now, when just escaped from the perils of shipwreck-snatched from a watery grave; now, when the pestilence breathing around you has made you feel that you were walking among the dying and the dead; now, when you have seen the young,

the talented and the gay, the bridegroom and the bride suddenly cut off; now, when you have seen your own dear son or daughter, father, mother, wife, or husband die, and utter darkness and desolation came into your dwelling, religion appealed to you; showed you how vain was all earthly good; how sure was death to you; how much you needed the consolations of Christian hope; what a poor, miserable, comfortless man you are, with no prospect of heaven, and no God to go to, in your troubles. Self-interest has appealed to you in behalf of religion. Your great interests are in religion-your most momentous concerns beyond the grave. There you are to live for ever. There your condition is to be unchanging. There you are to be happy or miserable to all eternity, and happiness or misery there, once begun is only to increase--never to diminish, never to terminate. Here all is soon to be at an end': joy or sorrow, poverty or wealth, honor or shame all are soon to close. The vapor on the mountain side soon vanishes away; so will your life. The colors so gorgeously painted on the cloud that lies along the western sky soon disappear; so will all that is gay and gorgeous in life. Eternity alone is unchang ing, and eternity is all. Your great interests are there; and wisdom stands amidst these vanishing vapors, and these evanescent beauties, and tells you that your great interests lie all beyond the tomb, in the " spirit world," and urges you to make that safe and secure. Your friends have appealed to you, and religion has appealed to you through them. Your friends, your best friends, have most earnestly conjured you to give up the world and sin, and to yield the heart to God. Here a father, here a mother; there a wife, there a sister, there a child, there a bosom companion, has plead with you and urged you with strong crying and tears, to become a Christian. You cannot recollect the scenes of Childhood-not even the nurserywithout remembering the appeals that broke on the infant ear in favor of religion. You cannot go back in memory to the days of your youth, without thinking of the path that led to the house of God, the Sabbath and the sanctuary, and the appeals which religion made to you then. You cannot think of heaven and the dwellers there, without thinking of some there, parent, or pastor, or bosom friend, who often plead with you to give the heart to God. You cannot go into the still and crowded cemetry, without fancying that the mother or the sister who sleeps there still speaks, and urges the son, the brother, to give up the world, and prepare to die. The ministers of religion. have appealed to you, and wisdom has spoken to you in their appeals. The pastor whom you have seen reason only to venerate, whose sincerity you have never doubted, and the force of whose appeals you have often felt, has plead with you. Strangers who were eloquent, have come to confirm their ap peals, and to urge the claims of religion by new arguments and illustrations. You do not doubt their sincerity; you cannot gainsay the reasonableness of their appeals; you have, often

under those appeals been "almost persuaded to be a Christian." And, finally, the Spirit of God, accompanying all these appeals, has often pressed the subject of religion upon you as a personal matter, and brought it home to the conscience and the heart. You have been serious. You have wept. You have prayed. You have been found among anxious inquirers after salvation. You have opened the Word of God, desirous of knowing what is truth, and have longed for some one to come and tell you how a sinner may be saved. A hundred, perhaps a thousand times you have been serious, thoughtful, pensive. The world has seemed to you then to have little that was worth living for, and somehow, you could scarcely tell how, it had lost all its charms; its gayest scenes had become cheerless; and the mind was drawn along to the grave, to the judg ment seat, to a vast eternity.

In

In the silent evening, when returning from your daily toil, you have been pensive and sad--perhaps its gathering shadows inevitably reminding you of the shades of that solemn evening which closes life," when no man can work," On your bed, in the night-watches, you have found your eyes held waking;" for, somehow, whether by the stillness, the darkness, or the resemblance to death, you could not tell you thought how silent and dark is the grave, how solemn is eternity. times of disappointment, when your plans have been frustrated, and blasted, the Spirit of God has made you thoughtful, and and led you to enquire whether there is not a world where disappointment will never come. In times of chagrin and mortification, when your claims to notice and distinction were not allowed as you supposed they should have been, you have been sad and you could not help thinking of another world. In the storm, the tempest, when the lightenings have played and when the thunders have crashed--at midnight-in the graveyard-you have been made seroius, pensive, solemn. You have felt that you were to die you have felt that you were a sinner; you have felt that it is a solemn thing to go into the world that is eternal, and to the abodes that are now unseen. Then the Spirit of the living God addressed you; then religion spake to you; then " wisdom" warned you, called you, admonished you, entreated you to give up your sins, to give up the world, to give up your heart to God; then the heavenly voice called you to prepare to meet God.

II. The manner of the reception of this call. "Ye refused;" no man regarded." You have neglected these calls and warnings; you paid no attention to them, as if they did not pertain to you, or as if they had no claim to your regard. You have desired a state of mind that would be indifferent to them, and where you need not be made sad by them, or wearied and worried with them. You went, notwithstanding these calls, and engaged in other things, as if you had not been summoned to God and to heaven. One went to his farm, and another to his merchandise, and another to his amusements, and another to

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