will be upon them through eternity. In those cases where persons are redeemed late in life, what anguish is sometimes felt on seeing their children wandering in the broad road that leadeth to destruction; and on remembering that they were the means of leading them astray. "Oh, my children! my children!" they exclaim, "would God I had known religion earlier for your sakes. Why did I not seek the Lord in youth! Then I should have trained you up in the fear of God, and have been spared the agony of seeing you walking in the path of destruction; or, at least, have been spared the torturing reflection, that it was through my neglect you despised religion."

Early piety, will be a guard to you against the temptations to which we are all exposed in this life.

Temptation to sin, like the wind, comes from every quarter in this world. In company, in solitude; at home, abroad; in God's house and in our own; we are always open to attack. Business, pleasure, companions, all may become a snare. We never know when, or from what, or in what way to expect the assault. At one time we may be tempted to infidelity, at another to immorality; now to licentiousness, then to intemperance. Piety is the only effectual guard of our character. Luther tells us of a young believer who used to repel all temptations with this exclamation, "Begone, I am a Christian." My children, adopt the same character, and maintain it with the same constancy and success. When Pyrrhus tempted Fabricius, the first day with an elephant, and the next with promises of honour, the Roman nobly replied, "I fear not

thy force; I am too wise for thy fraud." Religion will enable you to say the same to every one who threatens or allures. Neglect piety

in youth, and who shall say how low in the scale of vice and infamy you may be found in after life? Omit to take with you this shield, and your moral character may be destroyed, or receive a wound, the scar of which you may carry to the

grave.

Early piety will thus leave you fewer sins to bewail in after life.

Amongst other things which the illustrious Beza gave thanks for to God in his last will and testament, was this, that he became a real christian at the age of sixteen, by which he was prevented from the commission of many sins, which would otherwise have overtaken him, and rendered his life less happy. Every year's impenitence, must cause many years' repentance. If you neglect religion in youth, God may give you up to the delusions of infidelity, or the practices of immorality; and during this unhappy season, of what remediless mischief may you be the occasion. How many companions may you lead astray by your crimes; who, admitting that you are afterwards reclaimed by grace, are not so easily led back by your virtues. Instances have occurred in which young men, during the days of their irreligion, have perpetrated the horrid crime of corrupting female virtue, and then abandoned the hapless victim of their passion. Cast off as a guilty, worthless thing, the injured partner of his sins has added iniquity to iniquity, and she, who but for her betrayer might have lived a long and virtuous life, has sunk amidst disease, and want,

and infamy, to an early and dishonoured grave. God, in the mysteries of his grace, has in after years given repentance to the greater criminal of the two. But can he forget his crime?—Oh, no. God has forgiven him, but never, never can he forgive himself. Not even the blood which has washed away the guilt from his conscience, can efface the history of it from the page of memory; nor floods of tears deaden the impression which it has left upon the heart. He cannot restore the virtue he destroyed, nor refund the peace which with felon hand he stole from the bosom tranquil till it knew him ;-he cannot build up the character he demolished, much less can he rekindle the life which he extinguished; or call back from the regions of the damned, the miserable ghost which he hurried to perdition. Ah! that ghost now haunts his imagination, and, as she exhibits the mingled agony, fury, revenge, and despair of a lost soul, seems to say, "Look at me, my destroyer!" For awhile he can see nothing but her flames, and hear nothing but her groans.

Early religion would have saved him from all this. Late piety brings him salvation for another world, but it comes not soon enough to save him from remorse in this.

Early piety will procure for you, if you live so long, the honour of an aged disciple.

A person converted late in life, is a young disciple, though a gray-headed man. An aged hero, who has spent his days contending for the liberties of his country, or a philosopher, who has long employed himself in improving its science, or a philanthropist, who has become gray in relieving its wants, are venerable sights,

but far inferior, if they are destitute of religion, to the aged Christian who has employed half a century in glorifying God, as well as doing good to man. An old disciple is honoured in the church, and respected even in the world. His hoary head is lifted like a crown of glory among other and younger disciples, over whom his decaying form throws its venerated shade. How rich is he in experience of all the ways of godliness. Like a decrepid warrior, he can talk of conflicts and of victories. Younger Christians gather round him to learn wisdom from his lips, and courage from his feats, and to show him tokens of respect. By his brethren in Christ he is regarded with veneration; his presence is always marked with every demonstration of respect, and his opinion is listened to with the profoundest deference. He is consulted in emergencies, and the fruits of his experience are gathered with eagerness. His virtues have been tried by time, the surest test of excellence, and they have passed with honour the ordeal. That suspicion and skepticism, which innumerable moral failures have produced in some minds, as to the reality of religion in general, and the sincerity of any of its professors, retire from the presence of such a man, convinced of the injustice of its surmises; and even the infidel and profane, bear a testimony to his worth, which his long tried consistency has extorted. “There,

at least," say they, "is one good man, whose sincerity has been tried by the fluctuating circumstances and varying situations of half a century. His is no mushroom piety which springs up in a night, and perishes in a day. The suns of many summers, and the storms of

many winters, have passed over it; and both adversity and prosperity have assailed, and demonstrated its stability. We begin, after all, from that very character, to believe that there is more in religion than we have been apt to imagine."

Early piety, if persisted in, prepares for a comfortable old age. The condition of an old man without piety, is wretched indeed. He presents to the eye of Christian contemplation a melancholy spectacle. As to all the grand purposes of existence, he has passed through the world in vain. Life to him has been a lost adventure. Seventy years he has sojourned in the region of mercy, and is going out of it without salvation. Seventy years he has dwelt within reach of redemption, and yet is going to the lost souls in prison. If he is insensible to his case, he is going to ruin asleep; but if a little awakened, how bitter are his reflections. If he looks back upon the past, he sees nothing but a wide and dreary waste, where the eye is relieved by no monuments of piety, but scared by memorials of a life of sin; if he looks at his present circumstances, he sees nothing but a mere wreck of himself, driving upon the rock of his destiny and destruction: but the future! oh, how can he look on that which presents to him death, for which he is not prepared; judgement, from which he can expect nothing but condemnation; heaven, which he has bartered for pleasures, the remembrance of which is now painful, or insipid; hell, which he has merited, with its eternity of torments, by his iniquities. The hosts of spent years, and departed joys, flit him, and point to those regions of wo,