To give some general order to the remarks which I propose to make, I shall endeavour, in the first place, to describe the state of mind to which I refer; shall then state some of the causes which produce it; and then notice some of the perplexities and embarrassments which the mind in that condition experiences.

That is an epoch in a man's life when, from a former condition of carelessness and unconcern, he is first led to ask the question what he must do to be saved? A new inquiry has come before him, evidently in every way worthy of his attention as a man, and yet in some respects as difficult as it is momentous. It is evidently a great subject, and may involve great changes in his character and plans of life, and it lies far without the range of the ordinary inquiries which come before the minds of men. The word "saved" suggests thoughts which do not enter into his ordinary investigations; the word "how" starts questions which have not entered into other matters which have occupied his attention. How a man may accumulate property; how he may gain honour; how he may become learned, accomplished, influential; how he may ward off the attacks of disease, and how he may defend himself if in danger, are points which he may have often considered, and on which he may have definitelyformed opinions. How he is to be saved is another inquiry altogether. For this is a different question from that about becoming rich, graceful, or honoured; and the knowledge which he has gained on one of these points does not afford him any clue in his inquiries on the former topic. For how shall the knowledge of the best way of acquiring property aid a man in answering the question how he shall be saved?

The state of mind which I am describing is that which exists when this inquiry first comes up for consideration. It may be characterized by the single word seriousness; or by the phrase a disposition to thought and reflection. There may be as yet a very slight sense of personal sinfulness, and almost or quite none of danger; but there is the feeling now that religion is of importance, and that it is at least worthy of inquiry-inquiry as to its truth, and as to the method of salvation which it proposes. There is a conviction hitherto unfelt of the worth of the soul, and a feeling that that should have a degree of thought and attention not before bestowed upon it. Religion somehow occupies more of the attention; it is suggested more frequently; it is not so easily disposed of; it is more likely to return after the mind has by a slight effort been diverted from it to other things; it seems to come before the mind with more importunate claims than it has done before.

The power of reflecting on the past, the present, and the future, is one of the highest endowments of man, and nowhere is that power more appropriately exercised than on the subject of religion. We think on the past, and derive valuable lessons from what we have seen and experienced, and from what has occurred to others, to guide us in that which is to come; we think on the present-on what we are on our characters, duties, and relations, and inquire what we should be in those relations; we think on that which is to come, and inquire what we are yet to be. Thought has no limit. The past, the present, and the future; the distant, the vast, and the incomprehensible; the real and the imaginary; time and eternity; death and life; earth, hell, and heaven; God, angels, devils, and men; the living, and the dead; nature and grace; sin and redemption; man here and man hereafter,-all are within the proper range of thought, and all may suggest thoughts about our personal salvation.

Thought gives birth to new plans, new hopes, new prospects in the lives of men. It leads to permanent revolutions of character; to the exchange of wild and visionary schemes for those of soberness and reality; to corrections of follies, to enlargement of views, and to the formation of generous and noble purposes. No man is likely to be injured by calm and serious reflection; none can be by the questions which true religion suggests.

There are inquiries pertaining to religion which are worthy of thought, and which have been so regarded by the profoundest thinkers of our race. Some of the most careful and laboured investigations to which the human mind has given birth have had reference to religion; suggested by the single inquiry how a man can be saved. Much of the profound reasoning of Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Seneca, Bacon, and Locke, like all that we have of Paul's writings, had reference to religion. More minds have been employed on this inquiry than on any other one subject in which men have been interested, and the inquiry has been pursued with a zeal and ardour such as has been felt on no other. The inquiries which religion suggests are sufficiently various, dignified, and important, to be worthy of the most careful reflection of every man. Is there a God? Is there an hereafter? Is the soul immortal? Is there a way by which sin can be pardoned, and by which a sinner can be saved? Has God devised a plan by which a sinner can be justified, and are there conditions on which the benefits of that plan are proposed to men ? Does the Bible contain the record of the way by which a sinner

may be saved; or if not, where may such a record be found? Is the Christian religion true? If so, what are its claims, hopes, privileges? What is the way of salvation which is revealed, and how may one be assured that he is walking in that way?

And there are personal questions which demand thought. What has been the character of our lives? What are our hopes for the future? How are we regarded in the view of the holy law of God; how by the Author and Administrator of that law? Are we living in accordance with the purpose for which we were made? Are we prepared for our exit from this present life? Have we done all that we ought to do; all that our consciences require us to do; all that we have ourselves deemed it desirable to do, that we may be ready for our departure?

The state of mind which I am endeavouring to describe is that in which these inquiries begin to assume something of their proper magnitude. This will not always, indeed, be manifested by assuming the position of an avowed inquirer on the subject of religion. It will be rather, perhaps, in some such ways as these:-conscious seriousness when the subject of religion is alluded to, accompanied with a feeling of its importance such as has not been usual in the mind; a willingness to examine the arguments in favour of religion, and a growing interest in them as addressed to the understanding; an increasing conviction that this world is not a satisfactory portion for the soul, and a disposition to inquire whether the universe has not something better in reserve; a disposition to reflect on the past life—more now on its faults than on its virtues—more on the neglect of duty than on the performance of duty-more on the internal feelings than on the external conduct- -more on the thoughts and the motives than on the outward deeds-more on the treatment of God than on the treatment of men- -and more on the now conscious want of holiness towards God than on personal amiableness and morality. You seem to be far less perfect than you supposed you were. You see more errors of judgment; more aberrations from what your conscience tells you you should be ; more things in which the motives were doubtful or wrong; more cases in which there was an improper indulgence of passion and criminal desire. Your temper has been less amiable; your treatment of your father less respectful, and of your mother less kind; your compassion for the suffering and the sad less tender; your charities less generous; your principles of life less scrupulously exact than you had supposed. You begin to feel, as you have not heretofore done, that you are a sinner; and the inquiry is springing up in your mind as one that claims attention, What

must I do to be saved? Religion begins to appear to your mind to be the most important of all subjects; and you feel that, whatever may be the inclination of the heart in regard to it, it. ought to be attended to. It is beginning to be seen to be a subject that pertains to you as a personal matter; and the inquiry, "What must I do to be saved?" is one that begins to have a place among those in which your own mind is deeply interested. It may be, as yet, merely an awakened interest in religion; or it may be that there is deep and pungent "conviction" for sin -an overwhelming sense of past guilt-such as the jailer in the text seems to have had, when all the sins of a past life are brought to the remembrance, and the intensest interest is thrown into the question, "What must I do to be saved?"

This state of mind is necessarily connected with the way of salvation as revealed in the gospel, and, to a greater or less degree, always exists before the fitness and the beauty of that plan of salvation are perceived by the mind. Christ came to save sinners; and the whole plan of salvation is adjusted to the supposition that it is for sinners, and there is inwoven into the scheme an arrangement for making men feel that they are sinners as preliminary to, and indispensable to, a revelation of mercy through the Saviour. It is supposed that men would feel this, and ought to feel this sense of guilt, and there is a special agency appointed in the gospel to secure this state of mind in the case of all who become Christians and are saved. No man, according to the plan of salvation in the gospel, can be saved who has not a just view of himself as a sinner, and who does not come, as such, to the cross of Christ.

It is very important, therefore, to inquire what is done, under the Christian plan of salvation, to produce this state of mind. This is the next point which I proposed to illustrate.

I do not design to say to you that the feeling of thoughtfulness or solicitude is in all cases the same in intensity or in duration, or that it is always to be traced to the same causes. From the nature of the case it must vary with the time of life; with the temperament of the individual; with the general character; with the amount of education and the power of selfgovernment; and with the causes which produce the serious reflections. In some cases the seriousness may be the slow growth of many years; in others, the result of some visitation of Providence, or some message of truth coming suddenly to the soul. In some the mind may fasten on a single great sin that shall occupy all the attention, and fill all the field of vision; in others it may be a calmer view of all the past life. Among

youths it may be calm, serious thought, apparently the result of early training, and when the seed sown in childhood seems to spring up and ripen as gently and as noiselessly as the grain in the harvest field does under the gently falling dew and the noiseless sunshine; in the man of strong passions, and infidel opinions, and great wickedness, it may be with the violence and commotion of the winds when they sweep along the hills, and when in their rage they twist off the gnarled oak, or tear it up by the roots. In the educated and disciplined mind it may be apparently mere calm contemplation and profound reflection; in the uneducated and undisciplined a genuine work of grace may be going on, under all the outcries and outbreaks of what seems the wildest fanaticism and disorder. Under the steady preaching of the gospel it may be one thing, in the storm of adversity and affliction it may be another; here the Spirit of truth may seem to approach the conscience through the understanding, and there through the emotions. No one would expect precisely the same feelings in John, the meek and gentle friend; Peter, the bold, the impetuous, and the rash; and Saul of Tarsus, the zealot and the bigot, when they passed through the stages preliminary to conversion; no one would expect precisely the same feelings in the heathen jailer at Philippi, and in the conversion of a youth trained now in the Sabbath school. In certain great features we should expect indeed to find similarity or identity; in the intensity of the feeling, the amount of anxiety, the duration of this state of mind, or the causes which produced it, we might expect to find every imaginable variety. To show this I will now enumerate some of the causes which tend to produce the state of mind referred to.

First, it is produced, in some cases, by a growing sense of the unsatisfactory nature of worldly pursuits and enjoyments. With all the love which there is in the human soul for these things, there is a constant tendency to become dissatisfied with them, and to feel that they are not what the soul needs. They pall upon the senses, and there is need of new excitements and new forms of attractiveness to make them interesting. It requires much effort to keep up an interest in worldly things, and much variety and novelty to prevent a growing distaste for them; for there are wants of the soul which no brilliancy, change, and novelty in those pursuits can meet. Solomon made a designed experiment on this subject, under all the advantages which any human being can hope for, and reached results which all would reach in similar circumstances:-"I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: I made me gardens