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especially important, and that, in your judgment, it is safer to neglect Church on Sunday than your business on Monday. Let no one doubt that such examples are deeply impressive. They shine with a most bewildering glare upon the world. They hold forth no dubious intimations of the real state of piety that prevails, and are of power to counteract the efficaof many sermons. The professor of religion who conforms to all Christian moralities, and yet neglects the means and institutions of grace recognized in his church covenant, plants an effectual barrier between the most faithful preaching and the sinner's conscience. The man who, by professing religion, takes it upon him to represent and hold forth the Gospel, becomes a part of its recognized agency, and he must keep himself in harmony with the entire machinery, or its action will be obstructed. A careless, irreverent, staring, slumbering Christian worshiper always fills me with dismay. He is a non-conductor in the electric circle along which religious sympathies, and with them divine influences, are wont to flow. I cease to expect much good from any effort of the preacher. The man, for the chilling, paralyzing influence of his somnolency or his vacuity, might as well stand up in the aisle, and announce to sinners that the business on hand is not so very important, after all—not very urgent at present, and easily managed when they are ready to enter upon it.

4. This view of the subject is followed by a distinct and most impressive argument for zeal and fidelity in the last member of my text-"That I may rejoice, in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain." On this I may not dwell at any length. Paul trembled for the entire result of his ministry, if the Church should fail in this essential co-operation. Preaching could effect nothing, if Christians did not let their light shine, and hold forth the word of life. Their own salvation is put in jeopardy, if they fail in fulfilling their appropriate duties; for it is a law impressed upon every part of God's universe, that whatever will

not work, and satisfy its proper function, decays and dies. But outside the boundaries of the Church, all must be desolation and darkness beyond the sphere of its light and the efficacies of its example. The apostle's hope of heaven grew dim in the contemplation of such a possible recreancy. His knowledge, his eloquence, his miracles, his mission to the third heavens, with its revelations, were to be defeated and dishonored, if the Church should betray its trust. Without its prayers and spiritual efficiency, the Word of God would no longer be quick and powerful-the Gospel would no longer be the power of God unto salvation - Christ would have died in vain. All this is clearly implied in the words I have quoted.

I make two inferences.

1. It is a serious, as well as a glorious thing, to be a Christian. The weight of the Church's responsibility is incalculable.

2. Each individual is answerable for the efficacy of the Gospel. He can not shake off the burden by neglect, or forgetfulness, or even by backsliding.

XIII.

THE BREVITY OF MAN'S PROBATION.

Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you; for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have the light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light.-John, xii., 35, 36.

THIS exhortation was delivered by our Lord in view of his own departure from the world, and only a few days before that event. His triumphant entry into Jerusalem amid a mul titude of admiring, applauding followers, while it increased the alarm and exasperated the enmity of the Jewish rulers,

had excited a more intense and wide-spread curiosity to witness his miracles and listen to his teachings. The eager inquiries of some Grecian proselytes, who had come up to the feast of the Passover, led to the announcement of the text. To them, or perhaps to the apostles through whom they had made application to Jesus for an audience, he abruptly declared the near approach of his death, which was necessary to the fulfillment of his mission. This was wholly at variance with their preconceived notions of the Messiah, whose reign, according to the Jewish Scriptures, was to be perpetual. Without stopping to explain so grave a difficulty, our Lord admonished them of the importance of improving the brief period in which they might still profit by his instructions. "Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you; for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth."

The irreligious usually think of only two of the conditions on which their conversion is suspended-the greatness of the divine mercy, and their own free agency-and these conditions they are ever wont to consider as in their own power. As God is unchangeable and of an infinite compassion, they imagine that they may certainly rely upon his readiness to save whenever they shall conclude to accept of the divine assistance. The movement of their own will, which is the other condition to be satisfied, is confessedly within their own control, so that the concurrence on which so much depends appears a matter of very easy attainment, about which there is no pressing demand for either great haste or great solicitude. As God is deemed to be always in readiness to receive the returning penitent, and it is the sinner's own business to repent, he has the matter very much in his own hands, and may properly choose the most convenient time for the beginning of his new career. Now our text fully recognizes both of these fundamental conditions. It is an explicit tender of God's help, and an avowed appeal to man's free agency, and

yet it refers to other facts of great efficacy and moment in the working out of a sinner's salvation. It teaches us that

time is both an essential and a vanishing element in this process. It refers to very material contingencies, on which a sober-minded man will ponder much before deciding that it may be safe, by a summary and indefinite postponement, to dispose of a question so important as that which our ministry is ever pressing upon him.

He

It has always struck me as not a little remarkable, that our Savior's ministry should have been confined to a period so brief as two and a half, or, at most, three years. did not commence it till he was thirty years of age, though endowed with all human and divine resources for the fulfillment of his high mission. When but a child, his wisdom and eloquence excited the profound astonishment of the Jewish doctors. Why the commencement of his active labors was postponed for so many years after his arrival at manhood, surrounded as he was by such pressing spiritual wants, is a question that can only be referred to the sovereign will of God. So it seemed good in His sight, "who worketh all things according to the counsels of his own will." And then, how brief a period was that of his actual ministry for the accomplishment of the vast designs of the Christian dispensation-for laying the foundations of a universal kingdom destined to triumph over all earthly powers and all diabolical opposition! How few, comparatively, had been permitted to listen to the Savior's message! How very narrow was the sphere of his activities, who yet came to be the Savior of the world! He had made, at the time under consideration, but a handful of disciples, and yet his race was nearly run, and his ministry almost accomplished. In proportion as the time was short, it was precious to those who had not yet accepted of him. The greater their former negligence, the more urgent their present necessities. "Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light,

lest darkness come upon you." Not God's plenitude of mercy-not the ability of sinners to repent, but the brevity and rapid flight of time, was the Savior's argument with the unconverted Jews. God is indeed ready to save. Men may indeed become religious, but not without reference to something farther-not at all times alike. These great facilities are constantly losing their value to him who neglects to use them. The sinner is perpetually tending to a point when both will be worthless to him. His heaven and earth are constantly passing away. His destiny hastens to its accomplishment. With his free will, and his power to become a Christian, he is moving away from God and his mercy, and so the chances for the needful co-operation are steadily diminishing.

"Yet a little while is the light with you." That was the Savior's argument with the impenitent Jews, and shall be ours. It is startling to think upon the proverbial brevity of human life, when we recollect that a lifetime is the very longest period that can be given to the working out of our salvation. Think of the greatness of the work to be done, and of the magnitude of the interests involved in doing it well. The conformity of our low, sinful nature to the divine image-preparation for ETERNITY-these are the ends set before us in the Gospel. To say nothing of the great work of moral transformation that must be accomplished, let us contemplate the interests, future and eternal, for which we are called to labor. Men cheerfully devote years of preparation, of practice, and study, to the acquisition of the trade or profession by which they are to obtain their livelihood in the world. If we apply this analogy to the pursuits and enjoyments of eternity, for which our lifetime constitutes the entire career of preparation and probation, how short, how inadequate do threescore years and ten appear in contrast with the endless, blessed duration of which they may constitute the dawn and the introduction!