text is not true. A great man said years ago, when he read a passage of Scripture, not more characteristic of the Christian's obligation than our text this morning, "What a lamentable thing it is to think what a difference there is between our religion in the principle and the practice, in the profession and in the exemplification in the Bible, in Christ, and in our tempers and lives!" These things ought not so to be. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Watch against the very beginning of sloth, it is a downy bed, and encroaches imperceptibly. Cultivate a holy activity of mind; look hard at your station and your resources, and see what you have by which you may be enabled to glorify your Saviour and serve your generation according to your circumstances, and so much the more as ye see the day approaching. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do," says Solomon," do it with all thy might, for there is no work nor device in the grave whither thou goest." Your time flies and you ought not to creep; your time flies, and you ought not to sleep; to sleep even in tne garden with Jesus Christ suffering hard by-suffering in his members, and in his cause! What, cannot you watch with him one hour! O, be followers of him who said, "I must work the work of him that sent me whilst it is day; the night cometh wherein no man can work."

We have been urging you to be followers of the good; but this does not satisfy; we wish you to be examples yourselves, that others may follow you. We wish you so to live that others may safely and advantageously follow you when you die, and before you die too. We wish that you who are heads of houses would so live and so behave yourselves, as to feel authorised to say to those who are under your care, to your children and your household, "Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ." I would have each of you in the evening ask, "What have I done to-day that is worthy of imitation? What have my children seen in me, what have my servants, what have my friends. what have my neighbours, seen in me worthy to be followed?" O carry the efficacy of the sermons you hear along with you; diffuse it among those who refuse to hear at present, and win them without words. Endeavour by your holiness, like the moral law, to convince men of sin; and, like the Gospel, to lead them to the consolations of Israel. O "let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Amen.

THE DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS.

REV. J DRESSER,

QUEEN STREET CHAPEL, DARLINGTON, 1836.

"Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."-NUMBERS, xxii. 10.

BALAAM, the history of whose inconsistencies stands connected with the words of our text, was a soothsayer, resident in Mesopotamia, celebrated for his skill in the arts of sorcery and enchantment. He was sent for by Balak, the king of Moab, who had heard of his fame, to come and curse the Israelites who had come out of Egypt, and who had discomfited, routed, and slain, the armies of the surrounding nations. It is clear from the sacred text, that though Balaam was full of subtlety and avarice; though he was defiled with crime and wrought wickedness in the sight of God; yet, he answered Balak with words becoming a true prophet of the Most High, saying, "How shall I curse whom God hath not cursed, and how shall I defy whom God hath not defied? Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel:" and while he revolved upon the irrevocable purposes of Jehovah, and upon the whole extent of Israel's destiny, as made known to him by the God of heaven; and while pondering on the triumphant issue of a life devoted to the service of God, in the fulness of his contemplations he exclaimed, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his." I presume that this language is not peculiar to the man who uttered it; that this desire is not confined to the breast in which it originally dwelt; but, could I penetrate the heart of every individual in this congregation; could I explore the interior of every human soul, and ascertain the sentiments living there; Į could answer for you who are Christians, and for you who are not, as with a simultaneous voice, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."

Vast and complicated are all our trials; precarious and uncertain are all the enjoyments of human life: "Man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble: he cometh forth and is cut down like a flower: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not." No sooner are we ushered forth from the retired recesses of infancy, than we press onwards to seek a grave in the silent earth. And whether we are conscious or unconscious, the moments of life are rapidly passing away, and the solemn period will soon arrive when the world and all that it contains, will recede from our dying sight, and when the language of our text will be the language of every man, whether infidel or Christian; for in the hour of nature's last conflict, all desire to die the death of the righteous, and their last end to be like his.

May He who shall one day make a final invasion upon the elements of mortality, and demonstrate before an assembled universe that he is the resurrection and the life, vouchsafe his presence on this occasion, and inspire in every heart a well-grounded hope of immortality and eternal life.

In treating this serious and important subject, two things shall engage our attention: first, a scriptural representation of death; secondly, some of the reasons why the death of a righteous man becomes an object of desire to a wicked man.

First, A SCRIPTURAL REPRESENTATION OF DEATH. Death, my brethren, is a subject in which we all must sooner or later be concerned, it behoves us, therefore, especially to take heed to the things that we hear, and to consider not merely the conflict which shall take place between our mortal bodies and death, but its bearing upon our future unalterable destinies in the world to come : for we must all die, we must all, of dire necessity, pass the awful boundary line that separates the present world from the world of spirits, and either rise up to the throne of God, or sink down into the deeps of hell. Therefore, take heed how ye hear, and " prepare to meet your God."

Though death, simply considered in itself, is nothing more than a cessation of life; yet, as it hath pleased the Almighty, by the infallible pen of inspiration, to personify it, and represent it by different names and designations, I shall feel myself justified in noticing a few of the figures and designations given in the inspired records.

In the first place, death is emphatically styled in the sacred writings an enemy to man (1 Cor. xv. 26; Job, xviii. 14). This truth has been sufficiently confirmed by the countless millions of our fellow-creatures, whose hearts have failed, and whose souls have departed beneath his withering touch. Let us look at a few of the characteristics of this enemy: the place whence he originally sprung, and the appalling monster (sin) that breathed into him the power, and nerved his arm to prostrate at pleasure the inhabitants of the earth, all strongly indicate that he is an enemy of cruel and unsparing revenge. He was entirely unknown and unconceived, when the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy at the appearance of the material universe. All was peace and harmony, and life and immortality, but man impeached the veracity of his Maker, and by a transgression of horrible enormity, dishonoured every attribute of the everlasting God. Then a sight was seen, and then a voice was heard, such as the garden of Paradise never witnessed before: Death issued from the pandemonium of spirits accursed, bearing upon his front the significant language of the Divine Being, "Thou shalt surely die;" while his voice through every element of nature resounded, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." He broke in upon the constancy and harmony of nature, and by one fell stroke demonstrated every thing beneath the sun perishable and uncertain; his visitation directed the pen of inspiration, when it recorded, "Man dieth and wasteth away; man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?" In every step of his progress through the world he has designated himself by his achievements, the unappeaseable enemy of man. There is a desire in man to evade this enemy, and to screen himself from the ruthlessness of this fell destroyer, but in vain; he pursues him with a restless perseverance, peculiar to himself, through every lane of life, and with a hard-heartedness,

unparalleled in the history of the world, regardless of all human distinctions, and all the sympathy and weeping of friends, he intrudes himself upon the constitution, and spreads his poison there until the body weary, worn out, ana skeletonized, breathes out the soul upon an untried state of existence, either of bliss or of woe. So impartial are the strokes of this adversary, that no gift can bribe him, no power resist him, no eloquence dissuade him from his purpose, for to accomplish all his pleasure he is invested with attributes of invincible power and sleepless vigilance. He is never asleep at his post, never unconcerned about his work; but pursues his prey night and day, intent upon destruction. From the melancholy moment that he sprang into existence, devastation and misery have followed in his train: he has never halted in his march; he has never been put to flight; he has never been routed from tas field; he has never been taken captive in the day of battle; but, like the greas leviathan of the deep, he remains impenetrable to external violence, a indestructible by the ravages of time; "upon the earth there has not been ha like, who esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood." The mightiest monarchs, the greatest heroes, and the most courageous saints, have yieldea up their weapons to the " king of fear," and acknowledged the insufficiency or their puny efforts, in setting boundaries to the measureless extent of his reiga Absalom was caught by this pursuer in a thicket of the forest. Pharaoh me him in the Red Sea; and notwithstanding his military prowess, he "sunk like lead in the mighty waters." David and Jonathan, who were swift as eagles, and strong as lions, and who were emphatically one in spirit, yet how were they severed from each other, how were they entangled in the captivity of death. Samson, who with the jaw-bone of an ass "slew a thousand men," cowered beneath his uplifted spear and did obeisance to the "king of terrors ;" and while I am speaking, and while you are hearing, he is slaying his thousands; yes, and he is invisibly present with us on this occasion, waiting for the signal to dislodge our souls, while all nature seems combined to thunder out the important declaration of an inspired prophet, "Prepare to meet thy God."

Again, death is an enemy that frequently comes upon his victim suddenly and unperceived. O! my hearers, think of this: he is an enemy whom you cannot recognize by your natural vision; he steals into the chambers of rest, and while deep sleep hath fallen upon man, he unceremoniously and unfalteringly declares," Thou shalt die, and not live." O! my brethren, should this enemy startle us in our midnight slumbers, should he come upon us as a thief in the night, without announcing the signal of his approach: "May we die the death of the righteous, and let our last end be like his."

I observe, in the second place, that death is represented in the sacred writings under the figure of a departure: Luke, ii. 29; Phil. i. 23; 2 Tim. iv. 6. And I know of no figure throughout the whole of the inspired volume, more important and significant than that of a departure; it teaches us the near relation in which we stand to another world, and the certainty that there is a living consciousness in man that shall survive the dissolution of the body, and remain uninjured and unimpaired when the present scene of things is reduced to its numble original. The soul, whose nature is spiritual and immaterial, can never die it is destined for immortality, and must unchangeably and for ever enjoy the inconceivable happiness of heaven, or endure the unsufferable torments of

hell. Death is not, as some would have us to believe, an extinction of consciousness, but a departure from a state of trial and probation, to a state fixed and unalterable-from a world of alternate pleasure and pain, to a world of perpetually consummate happiness, or perpetually consummate misery from a world of encumbered spirits, to a world where pure ethereal beings dwell. This is an idea which men of all ages and of all nations have entertained of death. Go into yonder church-yard, and read the inscriptions upon the tombstones of those who have gone the way of all flesh, and what is the general and impressive tale written there? "Departed this life :" an acknowledgment worthy the dignity of candidates for immortality, and worthy of the serious consideration of the sceptic and the infidel; for they labour in vain, and spend their strength for nought and in vain, when they essay to erase from the mind of man the impression of an hereafter.

"There is a heaven above to gain,

A hell beneath to shun;

Our lot will be one of the train,

When life's short journey's done."

We must of necessity die, and explore regions which, while we remain in the flesh, baffle and confound our utmost conceptions. We must depart, we must change our place as well as our condition in life; and, the moment the weary wheels of life stand still, we are no longer residents of this world, but of some other place. O, how inconceivably important is the moment of departure; the passing of the soul into an untried region of disembodied spirits! I greatly fear that we often speak of departing into a world unknown thoughtlessly, and with too little concern on our souls. It is the most critical and momentous epoch in the history of man; it is the breaking through the circle in which we move; it is the leaving off of the companionship of men for the companionship of higher and more exalted beings; or for the companionship of the most degraded rebels in the universe of God. It is passing into a world "from whose bourn no traveller returns" to tell what is doing there. They who have gone thither cannot draw aside the veil, and disclose unto us the untold wonders of eternity; they cannot reveal the mysteries enclosed within the circles of an unending life. But though the intelligences above, and the intelligences beneath, are silent in point of information on this awful subject, the infallible record of inspiration meets our emergency, and from it we learn, that the wicked depart into the presence of a multitude whose chorus murmurs through the darkness of everlasting duration, saying, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." The same record informs us, that the righteous depart amid the acclamations of angels, and the thundering hosannas of the heavenly host, into a world where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest. These (the wicked) shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal. Suffer me to ask you, my hearers, what kind of a departure you are anticipating; are you prepared for heaven, or are you prepared for hell? Does not the vivid recollection of future destinies awaken in your hearts an acknowledgment that it is high time to awaken out of sleep? What will be your views, and your feel ings, and your language, when you stand upon the frontiers of another world when your heart and your flesh are failing; when all the functions of life are ceasing to play; and when all around you is sterile and dark? It will be the