and youth, and now I am become an old man tottering on the brink of the grave.'

Yes, such is life! a few days, a narrow span, a shadow that passeth away, "vanity of vanities, all is vanity." But there is one thing for which life is always long enough if rightly improved ;-it is always long enough to secure the great end for which, as relates to ourselves, we live; to secure eternal happiness. It is not long enough to gain and enjoy wealth; it is not long enough to pursue pleasure, or to possess the admiration and applause of our fellow-creatures; these things are not necessary for us; they will do nothing towards securing our happiness as immortal beings; but life is always long enough for him who is seeking eternal glory, through faith in the Lord Jesus. No man ever perished because the days of the years of his pilgrimage were so few, that he had not time to repent, and to flee to the Saviour; that he had not time to give his heart to God, and renounce iniquity; but thousands lose their souls, because they throw away these few precious days; they lavish away their lives in vanity and folly, and in the love of the world, and sink down into the grave, vainly complaining that they had not time. to seek salvation, or to attend to religion. Oh! be upon your guard, my brethren, redeem the time from trifles, and apply it to the grand object for which you ought to live.

3. But when Jacob tells us that the days of the

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years of his life had been few, he adds that they were also evil, "few and evil.”

Though the patriarch had been born in a situation in life possessed of many and great advantages, yet had he experienced many and heavy afflictions; these cast a gloom over the review of his past years. Read his history for yourselves, and you will see that he had a large portion of sorrow, some of it real, and some, the result of his own misconception; as when he said, "Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away also, all these things are against me." His distress was founded on ignorance and mistake, but it was heart-rending. Many such things rushed into Jacob's mind when Pharaoh said, "How old art thou?"

And is there one among us, in whose breast the same question does not produce a similar feeling? It makes us call to mind our sicknesses, our times of difficulty and want, the friends, the relations, the children we have lost, the distress which the unkindness of some, and the ill-treatment of others have occasioned us. So many things of this kind rush into our thoughts, that life seems to us like Ezekiel's roll," written within and without, lamentation, and mourning, and woe."

But when Jacob said, "few and evil," I apprehend there was one thing more, which rested heavily on his mind; this was the evil he had done in the few years of his pilgrimage. He could

trace back many of his troubles to his sins; he would never have been in the uncomfortable state in which he was for twenty years in Laban's family; he never would have feared the wrath of Esau as he did; he would not have left his much loved mother never to see her more; he would not have married under such strange and uncomfortable circumstances; he would not have had so many severe trials in his family; had he not sinned against the Lord, in lying unto Isaac to secure the blessing. this served to make a large proportion of his few days very bitter to him ;-how many tears of repentance must he have shed; what a darkness must this reflection have cast over his mind; and how must he have justified God in the chastisement he inflicted upon him!

But is there one among us, who is not forced to acknowledge, that here is the true source of much of the sorrow which we have felt during the few and evil days of the years of our pilgrimage? Sin has been the bitter root whence all this sorrow has sprung. How different a character would life have borne with most, but for the sin that has defiled their days; and how will they feel this when the end shall come, and life shall be reviewed from the bed of death!-Blessed be the God of all grace, though such may well be our feeling when reflecting on the past; and though our days must be few; still the termination of them need not be evil. It was not so with Jacob. The clouds passed

away, and in the eventide it was light, because he could say, I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.-God, grant us all, my brethren, the same happy experience,—the same gracious deliverance out of the miseries of this sinful world!

SERMON IX.

PHILIPPIANS ii. 12, 13.

WHEREFORE, MY BELOVED, AS YE HAVE ALWAYS Obeyed, NOT AS IN MY PRESENCE ONLY, BUT NOW MUCH MORE IN MY ABSENCE, WORK OUT YOUR OWN SALVATION WITH FEAR AND TREMBLING. FOR IT IS GOD WHICH WORKETH IN YOU BOTH TO WILL AND TO DO OF HIS GOOD PLEASURE.

WHEN St. Paul, writing to the Romans, alludes to the state of his own countrymen, he says My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they may be saved." And when And when speaking to the Corinthians on the manner in which he had discharged his ministry, he says, "I am made all things to all men, that by all means I might save some. This then was the subject that was uppermost in his mind-to save some-to rescue immortal beings from eternal ruin, to save them from the condemnation they had brought upon themselves by sin. It was the rejoicing of his heart that he did not labour in vain; but that every where the Lord manifested his approbation of his labours, by turning sinners" from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God."