waiting the event with apathy; or eager to have his affairs of life wound up; or gladly conscious of no gross immoralities; or touched with just so much conviction of his by-past folly, that he will make a virtue of necessity, and bequeath money to found a church or hospital (and the solemn mockery of this state of mind shall be a charitable fame and a marble cherub to weep upon his monument.) Or still an undying love of Mammon may be with his heart till the last, a retching of the soul toward the ebbing world, not unfitly represented by the fearful symbol of the natural hand clutching for life.

THE WEAKNESS AND EVILS OF INDECISION.

In whatever process the power of attention is not strengthened, or is positively weakened, our religion is left without, or is deprived of a natural strength. When, in the lessons of truth, conviction is left unaddressed, whilst the understanding only is informed, conscience becomes more distinct from intellect; and, wanting this active and associated impulse, its perceptions are not so often excited, and its sway over the mind is less wide and powerful. In our early comparisons, unless the estimated worth be carefully stripped of its adventitious claims, that address themselves to our prejudices, and the mind trained to this work of an exclusionist, our moral judgment will go wrong and reason absolutely, when allowance should be made for circumstances. These results make up one part of the weakness which we term indecision;—a speculative admission of the truth, but the imperative obliga

tion not felt of following its dictates ;-convic tion without a due proportion of strength;—a prepossession in favour of present inclination, that in reasoning will not follow an argument whithersoever it may lead ;-that, in the necessity of labour in the business of life, will rather indulge in present ease, than be diligent in providing for the future;—that in a king will bind him to a complaisant favourite, rather than admit the wisdom of an austere but prudent counsellor ; -that in the interests of eternity cannot resolve instantly to pursue them, and do justice to a moral obligation, in the face of the present. In all this, it will be observed, there is a great want of self-respect, that a man will not allow his spirit to rule his conduct. The same self-disregard is mightily increased, as the power of practical conviction is weakened still more, and the character of indecision completed, in a farther stage of the same bad education. If conviction be addressed in behalf of duty, but the beginnings of the duty not enforced, the above result is obvious, that the one must be judged impertinent, and the other instantly despised. If permitted to be careless in the first acts, besides losing strength for farther and better performance, the spirit hath already judged it a matter of indifference; and a habit of unsteadiness is begun, where perseve. rance is of the utmost moment.

Thus becomes strongly marked this characteristic of a weak mind, or rather the very weakness itself;-unhappy in all things ;-never victorious; and wanting consolation for defeat in the reversion of self-respect and the proud consciousness of having done our part manfully ;-in all things unworthy of our higher nature,-of

man, "a creature of large discourse, looking before and after;" and very fatal to all our interests, particularly those of our futurity. Shame to the man who can help himself by reflection! Woe to the man whose disabilities are inveterate! Infatuation in the one, and more immediate ruin in the other! That they know the commandment but do it not ;-that their reason grants the importance of religious duty above all things, but that they cannot begin or persevere to fulfil it.

THE RESURRECTION ACCOMPLISHED BY THE POWER OF CHRIST.

THE resurrection of the body will be accomplished by the power of Christ. "I will raise him up at the last day." He that has given the promise of a resurrection to eternal life to all that believe on his name, pledges himself for its accomplishment. "He will change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working, whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself;"—that mighty working, whereby, in the beginning, he collected, arranged, and combined into one fair, harmonious, and stupendous system, the myriads of atoms of which the material universe is composed. How he will do it, is a question that never troubles me. The assurance that he will, is a sufficient ground on which to rest my confidence. If, indeed, I had never seen the loveliness and fertility of spring burst from the coldness and torpidity of winter;-if I had never seen the ripened harvest waving in the wind, from the grains of corn that were commit

ted to the ground, and perished in the soil;-if I had never witnessed the power of the magnet, that collects the particles of steel from the midst of other matter with which they may have been mingled ;-if I had never "considered the heavens, the work of his fingers," those suns, the centres of other systems, in magnitude and beauty far surpassing ours, rolling in the immensity of space around me, all brought into existence by the fiat of his omnipotence;—if I had never contemplated the curious structure of my own frame, so fearfully and wonderfully made in the deep retirements of nature, and inspired by His breath with a living soul and an intelligent mind;-if, in short, I had any doubt as to the divinity of Christ, or the being of a God-I might anticipate with fearful apprehension the day of death, and look with trembling anxiety for the promised resurrection morn; but, as it is, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth," to raise and remodel the dust of all that sleep in him. Nor can he who built the body at first, be at any loss for power and skill to bring it again from the darkness of the sepulchre, and rebuild it, in loveliness and beauty, from the ruins of the grave.

CHRIST THE GUARDIAN OF HIS PEOPLE'S

DUST.

Ar the resurrection, the soul will be reunited to the body. Then the ravages of mortality will cease the triumphs of death will terminate, and the grave will be compelled to lay down the

proudest of its trophies at the feet of Jesus. Through how many ages has the spirit of the martyred Abel "waited for the salvation, to wit, the redemption of his body"-waited, not with trembling anxiety, much less with hopeless despair, yet conscious that the felicity of heaven cannot be complete, till both body and soul have their perfect consummation and bliss in the kingdom of God. But the ashes of the saints are the Redeemer's charge. His eye is on their sleeping dust; and, whether borne by the winds of heaven to the remoteness of the untrodden desert, or the summit of the inaccessible rock; whether deeply buried in the abysses of the ocean, or reposing amid the teeming population of the crowded city :-not a solitary particle, essential to the identity of the meanest of his followers, shall be lost. Every body shall be built again, and receive its own appropriate tenant to an eternal residence, never more to be made weary of its habitation by reason of disease, or ejected by the stroke of death.

THE HEAVENLY BANQUET.

ALL things are progressive here, but they are not perpetual, they could not be otherwise advancing to perfection. Our Sabbaths return in their season, and remain only for a season. Our ministers, like the messengers from heaven in former days, the angels who were sent to the patriarchs, deliver their message, and disappear. Many gather round the grave of one, and take up the lamentation, "Alas, my brother!" or exclaim, "My father! my father! the chariot of