cometh ;-you see not the sun actually move in the sky, but how soon it reaches the horizon! Life passes thus imperceptibly; you see not, that it approaches to its limit; and yet it is approaching. The night cometh. You perceive not its advance, and you probably will not. You will be occupied with business; you will be agitated with plans for the future; you will be pursuing or enjoying; you will be on a journey, or taken up with the comforts or the cares of your home; and in an hour when you think not, the shadows of evening will descend, and chase away the vision of life forever!— Such to most men's experience, is this present existence, -short, transient, fleeting; flying with a rapidity like that of the luminaries of heaven, and yet passing as silently in its course, as imperceptibly as they; and let it be remembered, as surely passing. The sun is not more certainly hasting through his daily revolutions, than he is, with every revolution, cutting short the term of our mortal being.

I grieve not, that it passes. Let it pass. Let it speed its flight. Life is but the traveller's way, or the pilgrim's toil. It demands only our passing thoughts and affections, not our ultimate, fixed, firm reliance and attachment. It becomes us not to regret its passage, nor to mourn the loss of it, as if it were the extinction of all our hopes. Our only concern with the shortness of life, is, so to number our days as to apply our hearts unto wisdom. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it quickly for there is no work, nor wisdom nor device in the grave whither thou goest". That is to say, beyond this life, the proper work of life cannot be done; its wisdom is there to be recompensed, not exercised;

and there is no device that can save us from the inevitable consequences of our negligence, unfaithfulness, or folly.

Let it pass, then; but let it pass in the ways of duty, in the exercise of wisdom, and the foresight of a watchful conscience. Let us mark its hasty progress. Let the descending shadows of every evening, not gloomily, but gently remind us, of its speedy and certain decline. Let it pass; but let not the steps of time, be swifter than the steps of our obedience; let not moments succeed more quickly, than generous and kind affections shall spring up in our hearts; let us be diligent in proportion as the time is short; let our life, brief as it is in duration, frail as it is in its tenure, be strong in its hold on virtue,-be long in the series of good deeds,and long endure in the remembrance of the good and the just!

DISCOURSE XIII.

ON RELIGION, AS THE GREAT SENTIMENT OF LIFE.

I COR. XV. 19. IF IN THIS LIFE ONLY WE HAVE HOPE, WE

ARE OF ALL MEN MOST MISERABLE.

THERE is a nation in modern times, of which it is con stantly said that it has no religion, that in this life only has it hope. One is continually assured, not by foreigners alone, but in that very country-I need not say that I speak of France-that the people there have no religion, that the religious sentiment has become nearly extinct among them.

Although there is, doubtless, some exaggeration in the statement, as would be very natural in a case so very extraordinary, and the rather as the representation of it, comes from a people who are fond of appearing an extraordinary and wonderful people, and of striking the world with astonishment; yet there is still so much truth in the representation, and it is a thing so unheard of in the history of all nations, whether Heathen, Mahometan, or Christian, that one is naturally led to reflect upon the problem which the case presents for our consideration. Can

a nation go on without religion? Can a people live devoid of every religious hope, without being of all people the most miserable? Can human nature bear such a state? This is the problem.

It is the more important to discuss this problem, because, the very spectacle of such a nation, has some tendency to unhinge the faith of the world. The thoughtless at least, the young perhaps, who are generally supposed to feel less than others, the necessity of this great principle, may be lead to say with themselves, "is not religion after all, an error, a delusion, a superstition, with which mankind will yet be able to dispense?" A part of my reply to this question I propose to draw especially from the experience of the young. For I think indeed, that, instead of this being an age, when men, and the young especially, can afford to dispense with the aid and guidance of reli. gion, it is an age which is witnessing an extraordinary developement of sensibility, and is urging the need of piety beyond, perhaps beyond all former ages. The circumstances, as I conceive, which have led to this developement, are the diffusion of knowledge, and the new social relationships introduced by free principles. But my subject at present, does not permit me to enlarge upon these points.

Can the world, then, go on without religion? I will not enquire now whether human governments can go on. But can the human heart go on without religion? Can all its restless energies, its swelling passions, its overburthening affections, be borne without piety? Can it suffer changes, disappointments, bereavements, desolations-ay, or can it satisfactorily bear overwhelming joy, without religion? Can youth and manhood and age, can life and

death, be passed through, without that great principle which reigns over all the periods of life, which triumphs over death, and is enthroned in the immortality of faith, of virtue, of truth, and of God?

I answer, with a confidence that the lapse of a hundred nations into Atheism, could not shake, that it is not possible: in the eye of reason and truth, that is to say, it is not possible for the world, for the human heart, for life, to go on without religion. Religion, naturally, fairly, rightly regarded, is the great sentiment of life: and this is the point which I shall now endeavor to illustrate.

What I mean by saying that religion is the great sentiment of life is this-that all the great and leading states of mind which this life originates or occasions in every reflecting person, demand the sentiment of religion for their support and safety. Religion, I am aware, is con. sidered by many, as something standing by itself, and which a man may take as the companion of his journey, or not take, as he pleases; and many persons, I know, calmly, some, it is possible, contemptuously, leave it to stand aside and by itself, as not worthy of their invitation, or not worthy, at any rate, of being earnestly sought by them. But when they thus leave it, I undertake to say, that they do not understand the great mental pilgrimage on which they are going. If all the teachings of nature were withdrawn, if Revelation were blotted out, if events did not teach; yet the very experience of life, the natural developement of human feeling, the history of every mind which, as a mind, has any history, would urge it to embrace religion as an indispensable resort. There is thus, therefore, not only a kind of metaphysical necessity in the very nature of the mind, and a moral call in all its