of his love. This he laments with sorrow sincere and deep for this he implores the forgiveness of a gracious and covenant-keeping God.

But while there is here and there a page of sorrow in his history, it is contemplated, as a whole, with gladness. It contains the record of long years of allegiance and service, rendered in the spirit of obedience and love to his ever-loved and glorious Master. It contains the record of many an earnest conflict with temptation, and of many a victory won, through grace, over its utmost power. It contains the record of many a purpose which had its origin in a love that embraced both God and man; of many a scheme of usefulness, the adaptation of whose every part to its end tells of a heavenly guidance, and proves the bestowal of a heavenly blessing. It contains the record of his activity in scattering the good seed of the kingdom, and of rich fruits of righteousness already gathered as the result, and to be gathered in growing abundance for ever. It contains the record of many a plant of grace nurtured by his hand, and destined, through his instrumentality, to an everlasting bloom in the paradise above. Happy the man who, from amid the feebleness of declining years, may look back over the pathway of such a history, and recognize it as his own! What a volume of blessedness is expressed, when from the lips of such an one is heard the inspired and inspiring language of an early disciple: "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith!"

How different this from the words of self-reproach which often force themselves from the lips of one who, having grown old in sin, has become distinctly and painfully conscious that his earthly course is well nigh run! He has lived for the pursuit of selfish and worldly ends, and no matter how successful he may have been in their attainment, now that he stands on the brink of the grave, bearing the marks of age in every feature, and trembling in every limb with its weakness, his soul is haunted by the consciousness that, so far as all the higher and better purposes of his being are concerned, his life has been thrown away. Thus a burden of wretchedness is rolled upon his heart, under whose crushing weight he sinks to the tomb. Thus a cloud of woe draws its curtains around his trembling, shrinking spirit, amid whose darkness and gloom the flickering lamp of his life goes. out. In view of the emotions of the aged disciple, as compared with those of the aged rejector of Christ, one may well exclaim: "Let me die the death of the righteous' not only, but let me live his life, that I may enjoy his old age!"

2. He is happy in the contemplation of the blessings which have marked his history.

The kindness of his heavenly Father has not only strewn his

path with rich gifts of grace and providence, but so constituted him, that every present blessing sends forward its light and joy to the end of his being. If a peculiar bliss is mine to-day, it is mine not to-day alone, but so long as the memory of to-day shall endure

The thoughts of the Christian in his old age are often sent back over the pathway of his life, and made to mark the points at which Heaven's gifts were most abundant and rich. Thus he ever and anon rejoices anew in the temporal mercies with which God has crowned his being. Thus he lives over again many a period bright with the joy and glory attendant upon the richest displays of redeeming grace. Thus he experiences afresh the blessedness of many a season passed in the retirement of the closet, when God has communed with him from the mercy seat, and, in answer to prayer, revealed himself to his soul in all the purity of his character, and in all the majesty and glory of his attributes. Thus he rejoices anew in the triumph of many an hour when, through faith, he has gained the victory over every doubt and fear, and joyfully rested in Christ as his Saviour. In view of these and kindred blessings experienced in the past, and joyfully remembered now, he is constrained to declare, that for him "to live is Christ," though he still feels that "to die is gain."

The memory of former joys never gladdens thus the heart of the aged transgressor. He has indeed received blessings at the hand of God with his every breath, but inasmuch as his reception of mercy's gifts has been accompanied by no tribute of grateful affection to their Author, he knows that in the judgement they will add to the weight of his condemnation. The remembrance of those gifts is made bitter by the accompanying thought that in the coming future they will prove to have been transformed by his own fault to curses. How striking, when contrasted with the experience of the aged sinner, appears the blessedness of the Christian, as from amid the infirmities of his old age he looks back upon the blessings included in his experience of the past!

3. He is happy in the contemplation of his life's history, because of the lessons it has served to teach. Life is a school, and experience a teacher. The Christian whose presence in this school has been continued during a long course of years, cannot but be indebted to its teacher for rich stores of truth and wisdom. He has learned a thousand times, and by a thousand proofs that there is a love in heaven which insures that to every Christian "all things shall work together for good." The record of his own inner life attests on many a page the tenderness fof his heavenly Father's regard for the children of his grace, and affirms the blessedness of that history of which Christ is the model, the source and the centre. His observation of the movements of the Spirit and Providence of God gives abundant assurance that he is moving steadily and irresistibly onward toward the blessed

ness and triumph of that predicted day, in which the Saviour's banner of righteousness shall wave over the earth in token of perfect and universal victory! These and kindred truths, impressed upon him alike through the medium of his own history and by the Word of God, he rejoices in as pledges all the realization of his brightest hopes with reference to his Saviour, himself and the world.

The same truths, or at least very many of them, the experience and observation of the aged sinner may have served to impress upon his heart; but such is his position in relation to them and in relation to God, that instead of being to him a source of happiness, they furnish fresh occasion for trembling in veiw of his condition and prospects. The blessedness of the aged disciple in the contemplation of his life's history, as contrasted with the aged sinner's wretchedness in the contemplation of his, may well prompt the prayer, "When I am old and gray-headed, O God, forsake

me not."

4. My next remark is, that the aged disciple is happy in the continued possession of his life's chief good.

Not so is it with the man whom the gray hairs and the tottering steps of age find still in his sins. He has outlived even the meagre enjoyments embraced in the experience of the worldling. Has he devoted his life-long energies to the pursuits of avarice? However great may have been the satisfaction he has experienced in the accumulation and investment of earthly treasure, that satisfaction has now become a thing of the past. The glittering splendours that are wont to adorn the home of wealth may, indeed, be scattered in profusion around him, but beyond the supply of his few daily wants, his riches contribute naught to his enjoyment. Increasing infirmities serve hourly to remind him, that his hold on the good to whose attainment he has given the cares and labors of a lifetime, is constantly slackening, and that soon that good will have passed for ever from his grasp.

Has he been content to give himself up to the pursuit of the degraded and degrading pleasures of the sensualist ? The period. for the enjoyment of these has, with him, gone by for ever. His every sense is dulled and palsied by age. His every sensual experience, it may be, has become an experience of weakness and pain.

Has he found satisfaction amid the stir and excitement of business ? His business days are numbered now. His step has become too uncertain and feeble to admit of a longer familiarity with the farm, the manufactory, or the counting-room. However irksome may be the hours unemployed, save in communion with his own thoughts, there is for him no escape from them, except through the portals of the tomb. Through the portals of the tomb, did I say? There is no escape.

Has his chief joy been experienced in the society of the fashion

able and the gay? The frivolities of fashion have no longer any charm for him. His moments of gaiety, and with them the gay associates and friends of his earlier days, have long since ceased to belong to the present. He has been doomed to see the companions of his youth and early manhood one by one fall by the hand of death, until at last he stands as it were the sole representative of a past generation. As he looks on every side in vian for a single fountain of happiness still open to him, he must feel the appropriateness and force of the language of Solomon, as applied to the forms of good which he has chosen and pursued in life: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."

The aged disciple of the meek and lowly Jesus has not thus survived his life's chief good. That which was years ago chosen as the chief portion of his soul is still the light and joy of his being. Though his hold on earthly pleasures was long ago relinquished, those connected with the smiles of a Saviour's countenance and the experience of a Saviour's love are his in the fullest measure. Of whatever else he may be deprived, these he is assured shall be as enduring as "the eternal years of God." Rejoicing in the experience of such exalted pleasures, even amid the infirmities of age his cup of happiness must be full. There is no burden which a present Redeemer does not enable him cheerfully to bear; no sorrow which faith in him does not render light; and no cloud which the light of his countenance does not dispel. Who, then, would not desire the old age of the Christian?

I remark, finally, the aged disciple is happy in the near prospect of realizing his life's brightest hopes.

In this respect also his experience is very different from that of the aged transgressor. He who has pursued the pathway of sin until he stands with the white locks, wrinkled features, and bowed form of an old man on the brink of the grave, has survived the death of all his hopes. If there be any such thing as a true personification of wretchedness on earth, we have it in him. Every fountain of happiness from which he has been wont to drink in his past life, is dried up; and he goes to a future which holds out to him not one promise of good. There is known on earth no such utter poverty and want, as that whose pinching hand has seized his condemned and sin-seared soul. The aged sinner, with all the hopes of his life buried in the past, goes down to the tomb enveloped in a cloud of darkness whose gloomy folds shall never be lifted.

Turn your thoughts now to the aged follower of the Lamb. The present, instead of being the darkest and saddest period in his history, is the brightest and happiest! The hopes with which at a moment far back in the past, he began his Christian life; the hopes for which, at every step in that life, he has rendered to God the tribute of his grateful praise; the hopes which have

afforded light in so many dark hours, and whence has been derived strength in the midst of so many spiritual conflicts; these ever precious, ever glorious hopes are now about to be realized. The good to which he has been looking forward during his entire Christian race is almost reached-the prize almost won. His work as a Christian soldier has been long prosecuted; and now that he is about to lay down his armor, now that the good fight of faith is well nigh fought, he rejoices in the prospect of speedily wearing the crown of victory. He has long pursued his journey on earth, a stranger and a pilgrim here, seeking a better country; and now that his destination is almost reached, now that the shores of the heavenly Canaan are almost in sight, now that the glory of the New Jerusalem almost gleams on his vision, he rejoices in the prospect of soon entering into the rest of his eternal home. He is weary with his long journeying, but happy in the thought that the next tottering step may introduce him to a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Verily the old age of the Christian, marked by infirmity and weakness though it be, is a bright and happy period in his history. "When I am old and gray-headed, O God, forsake me not!"

Aged disciples of Jesus! you have reason for the profoundest gratitude that yours is the old age of the Christian. As you think of what you are, and what you enjoy, in comparison with what you would have been, and what you would have suffered, but for the grace that directed your steps in former years into the path of life, you may well adopt the words of the Psalmist as the language of your hearts: "Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name." Much of worldly comfort that once was yours has passed beyond your reach; but there are still open to you rich and abundant sources of blessedness. From a past, through which the grace and mercy of God have led you; a past, whose days have been spent in the enjoyment of his love, and in self-consecration to his service; a past, bright with the displays and experiences of his grace, and rich in lessons of wisdom and truth, there come joys such as the heart of the aged transgressor may never feel. The present, notwithstanding the evident failing of life's vital energies, and the consequent loss of capacity for your wonted earthly pleasures, is rendered happy by an inward and spiritual light reflected from a Saviour's smiling countenance. The good which has been the choice and pursuit of your life-time, is with you now in increased and increasing measures. The future, how

glorious! and its glory, how near! Pilgrims, weary and worn, ye are almost home! A few more of those tottering steps, a few more of those exhausted breathings, and your feet shall have passed the threshold of that heavenly mansion which a Saviour's love has prepared.

Aged disciples! soon you will all be gone, your term of ser