adopt those irreligious maxims which they could not really believe themselves. I wished to establish myself in the belief of that system which holds forth to the sinner neither an avenging God, nor punishments destined for those who violate thy holy law, nor an immortal soul to survive the body, and suffer eternal misery for its sins.

These poisonous maxims infected my soul, but, through thine inestimable mercy, they did not corrupt it to the total extinguishment of faith. I was pleased with those maxims, and was sorry that thy truth still combatted them in my heart. But, O my God, how happy do I now find myself to be turned. from that course of impiety and blasphemy in which I sought a resource against my irregularities! I now perceive that to be happy upon earth, at least to be less unhappy, I must love, I must observe thy holy law. Every thing which removes us from thee makes us at variance with ourselves; and the more we seek happiness by offending thee, the more we increase our inquietude and our trouble, and consequently our unhappiness. For what joy, what satisfaction can a soul taste when it is deprived of that inward peacewhich is the fruit of piety and virtue?

VERSE 3. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

THE ungodly wither and perish in the midst of their pleasures; but the tears of the righteous man, those tears which the bitter remembrance of his past sins makes him shed, resemble those streams which increase the freshness, the verdure, the beauty of the tree which they water. Peace and joy are its first fruits. The burning and contagious air of the world, in the midst of which it lives, does not tarnish the beauty of even one of its leaves. On the contrary,

the bad examples of the wicked, their pleasures, their senseless joys, which had formerly seduced the pious man, confirm him, O God, in the fidelity which he has promised to thee. Affected by their blindness, he has a more lively sense of the greatness of thy good. ness in spiritually enlightening him.

Every thing which before tended to his ruin, is now turned to his instruction and consolation. Nothing succeeded with him while he lived in sin; events never corresponded to his plans and desires; every thing seemed to thwart his passions. But since thy grace, has calmed them, his desires are more rogular; he forms no improper ones; his prosperity consists in resignation to thy dispensations; and as he is always submissive, no event disturbs his tranquillity.

VERSE 4. The ungodly are not so; but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.

BUT the ungodly are far from enjoying a similar happiness. The passions, from which spring all their sinful pleasures, produce also continual agitations and troubles. With them nothing is fixed. The multiplicity of their desires, like a frightful whirlwind, agitates them incessantly. The chaff, , which the wind driveth away, is but a faint image of their souls, always transported by the caprice and vi "olence of their passions. They will not seek quietness in thee alone, O God; and where but in thee can they find it? Alas, all created objects to which they look for happiness, drive them back to thee, by their vanity and their insufficiency.

VERSE 5. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the right

eous.

THEREFORE, great God, it will not be necessary for thee to pass sentence upon the ungodly, in that

day when even the righteous shall be brought into judgment. The trouble, the grievous agitations of their consciences will judge them in this world. Thou wilt but deliver them up to the devouring worm, which their hearts, after having been inces santly tormented upon earth, will still carry with them into thy presence ;-to that tormenting re-morse which is so inseparable from sin that no pleasure could ever entirely free them from its anguish..

VERSE 6. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous; but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

SUCH is the termination of those projects of ambition, of pleasure, and of fortune, which fill up all the days of the ungodly. All are come to nought; nothing more remains of them. They wished all the world to be attentive to them; and their vanity will be punished by a universal oblivion. But thou, O most holy God, thou wilt not forget them; and, through eternity, a remembrance of their sins will arm thy justice against impenitent sinners who, though sent into this world but to love thee, to serve thee, and to fit themselves for the enjoyment of those ineffable blessings which thou reservest for the faithful, employ that life which they received from thee, only in offending thee and ruining themselves.

How different from this the portion of the righteous? Thou, O gracious God, keepest an exact and faithful account of all their ways, to the end that thou mayest recompence them. Not one of their actions is unheeded by thee. Thine eyes are incessantly upon them; and thou leadest them to perceive the effects of thy continual protection, sometimes by removing from them snares and temptations; sometimes by strengthening them in their combats with the enemies of their salvation; and sometimes by restoring them, when through the corruption of their natures they

have fallen into sin. In fine, thou wilt give them a crown of righteousness which will put them into possession of an eternal kingdom.

Happy, then, a thousand times happy are those to whom thou art all in all, since they have within them the source of a happiness which will neyer end!

PSALM III.

Meditations of a devout soul deeply affected with a sense of the enormity of past sin; and at the same time full of confidence in the mercy of God.

VERSE 1. LORD, how are they increased that trouble me? Many are they that rise up against me.

WH

HEN I review, as in thy presence, O Lord, the multiplied and heinous sins of my past life, trouble, discouragement, and despair seem by turns to take possession of my soul. I cannot call to mind one day, nor even one instant of my sinful life, in which I do not discover new transgressions rising up against me. Their number increases in proportion as I more narrowly search the depths of my conscience. And how know I, thou all-seeing God, but these are equalled or even surpassed by those which time has effaced from my memory, in a course of iniquity so long and so little interrupted?

VERSE 2. Many there be which say of my soul, there is no. help for him in God.

I FORMERLY drank in iniquity like water. I added sin to sin without any remorse. The irregularity in

which I had before lived calmed my mind with regard to that in which I then lived. By always promising to myself a change in future, I continued tranquil, while sinning against thee, O my God; and not feeling myself as yet disposed to break off my sins, I augmented their number every day with a deplorable security. But now, since thy light has scattered my darkness,-now, since all my sins, issuing from the thick cloud which enveloped them, and concealed them from my eyes, appear openly and crush me in thy presence, by their enormity and their multitude, all hope of salvation seems to fly from me.

Canst thou, O divine Saviour, look with an eye of pity and clemency upon a life, the frightful sight of which I cannot myself sustain? Holy God, wilt thou ever communicate thyself unto a soul which desired to be able to fly from itself; and which can bring nothing before thee but its corruption and its shame? When I fix my attention on myself, every thing within me announces the severity of thy judgments.What a life, great God, shall I find within the book of thy remembrance? The sun never rose upon my head but to give light to new transgressions of thy holy law; and the night succeeded only to prolong my works of darkness. I lived not, I breathed not, I thought not, but for sin. And now, every thing - seems for ever to interdict all access to the throne of thy mercy, in consequence of the criminal abuse I have made of those serious thoughts which, from time to time, thou didst awaken in my heart.

VERSE 3. But thou, O LORD, art a shield for me; my glory and the lifter up of my head.

THESE, O Lord, are the black and frightful images which the enemy of my salvation incessantly presents to my soul, to drive me to discouragement and despondency. Formerly he encouraged me in sin by representing to me thy mercy as always ready to