living tomb. You will become the slave of angry passions, you will persecute and hate, you will be degraded to the very earth by sensual passions: there is not a folly nor an unchristian sin to which you do not expose yourself, the moment that you put your trust in your outward fortune, and think on that account that you can be exempted from the constant severity of inward discipline.

The truly evangelical and wise feeling with which riches should be enjoyed is not a feeling of trust, but a feeling of deep and constant suspicion that they may be the means of temptation; that sin, and death, and wretchedness, may be in the midst of them; that they may lead their possessor from the service of God.

Others may say, "What happiness, what splendour, what enviable possessions, what a delightful existence!" but the teacher of the people and the minister of Christ would say, "Can you bear all this? Does it corrupt your soul? soul? Do you find that you are insensibly putting your trust in all these things? Do they estrange you from the altar of God? Do you remember less frequently than you used to remember it, that you are a short-lived, an accountable, and a redeemed being?" These are the questions which the rich man should hear in the midst of his enjoyments.

It is, as I have before hinted, no mean consolation to the poor, to know how little mere wealth and grandeur, without inward discipline and exertion, will contribute to any man's happiness in this world; and it is pleasing to think that what few only can obtain, is not only not indispensable to happiness, but that it is not eminently and by itself conducive towards it; that though every man cannot be rich, every man can govern his passions, every man can improve in righteousness, every man can be meek, every man can be just, every man can prepare in his own heart that heavenly disposition of the Gospel

which all the riches of the earth cannot equal, and cannot confer.

The praise and approbation of the best of mankind is not a motive for action to a Christian, but it is a very agreeable concomitant in the painful journey of life; and when it comes accidentally, and without being sought for, it may very fairly be enjoyed. Now there is nobody so little loved while he lives, and so soon forgotten when he dies, as he who has trusted to his great possessions alone, and considered his riches as a fair substitute for good qualities. We cannot avoid drawing a comparison between the outward fortune and the inward man; the worthlessness which is fed with so much luxury, and the insignificance which is followed by so much pomp. These things are sharply seen, and tenaciously remembered, and deep and inveterate is the indignation and contempt with which they are pursued.

But what am I to do? What use of wealth does the Gospel enjoin to me? Be the first in schemes of charity and compassion; encourage learning, seek out for merit; come forward in times of difficulty and danger, and show to the people the spectacle of disinterested virtue. Ask of God, and seek in the Gospel, that spirit which can alone teach you to use them aright; keep your heart open for other men's miseries; train your understanding to watch over the public good, and be ready with all your endeavours to promote it. As As you value your salvation, do not sit down in the idle and selfish possession of an instrument which you have not wisdom to understand, vigour to lift, or steadiness to direct, tơ those purposes for which it was entrusted to you.

In the worst situations of human life, what use can riches be to you? Can they put back for a single moment that day when God will call you? Can they comfort you on that day? Do you mean, in your plan and arrangement of life, to forget those last serious years in which a man must always have the images of

death and decay before his eyes? Is there any charm against that death and that decay, but the memory of Christian actions? Believe me, you will then look on the grandeur of the world as you would look onthe toys of an infant; and you will smite on your breast, and see that you have built your palace on the sand; that the winds and waves will bear it away, and hurl it to everlasting ruin.

What then is to be done, and what plan of life is to be followed? With respect to the acquisition of wealth, you are poor I will suppose, without being in abject want; do not relax in those means of improving your condition, which, if it does nothing else, at least gives occupation; but instead of envying the rich and great, cast about you and see whether the means of great happiness are not placed within the reach of every body; and whether by a little exertion you cannot become a much happier person than he who, in the estimation of the vulgar, is a much happier because a much richer and more powerful man than you. Begin with your sins and infirmities; do not spare yourself; take a fair and candid view of them, and sit resolutely down to extirpate them from your heart; resolve that you will restrain the excesses of temper; that you will study and cultivate your fellow-creatures; that you will keep yourself within the bounds of temperance; that no man shall reproach you as the cause of his unhappiness; that your conscience is void of offence towards God and towards man. Will any man of reflection say that there can be a wiser object of human exertion than this beautiful and Christian service to God? Will any man really say, when once he is raised above the chance of wanting bread, that Christian subjugation of passion will not confer more real happiness, than all the wealth and glory of the world? Does there exist in the world a man who would be the rich slave of a thousand bad lusts and passions, rather than live poor in all the freedom of righteousness?

It is not a mere parade of words, but it is a solid real happiness, to feel conscious of no crime, to subdue passion, to intend good, and to do good. If wealth and power come, God be thanked for the loan of them! but look far beyond them to the grave, and to the world to come. Prepare to meet God, with souls clear of all earthly passion; day by day, while you live, strive to extinguish some portion of evil, and become the true and perfect servants of Christ; cherish that brave Christian spirit, which teaches you to set a value upon something which you can command yourself, not upon those accidents which you cannot control. Are you to be blamed because you are in mean garments? Are you an object of contempt because your house is lowly, and yonr food plain, and because the chances of life have given you no honest opportunity of emerging from an humble condition? Lift up your heart above the mean and abject habit of measuring and venerating human beings by their wealth, or of measuring and venerating yourself by your wealth, or of despising yourself because you are poor. Can any man charge me with having done that which is bad and base? Can any human being say that I have been the cause of his unhappiness? Have I not given of my little, to him that has less? With the Gospel in my hand, and the image of Jesus before me, have I not searched for evil in the inward chambers of my heart? This is glory, but it is immortal glory! this is splendour, but it is the splendour of the soul! these are possessions, but they are possessions given by God! That this may be the wealth which you covet, that these may be the treasures which you seek to accumulate, I charge you that are rich in this world, that they be not high minded, nor trust in uncertain riches; but in the living God who giveth you all things richly to enjoy.

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SERMON XIV.

ON THE DUTIES OF THE QUEEN.

DANIEL, iv. 31.

"O King, thy kingdom is departed from thee."

I Do not think I am getting out of the fair line of duty of a Minister of the Gospel, if, at the beginning of a new reign, I take a short review of the moral and religious state of the country, and point out what those topics are which deserve the most serious consideration of a wise, and a Christian people.

The death of a King is always an awful lesson to mankind; and it produces a more solemn pause, and creates more profound reflection, than the best lessons of the best teachers.

From the throne to the tomb-wealth, splendour, flattery, all gone! The look of favour- -the voice of power, no more; - the deserted palace -the wretched monarch on his funeral bier - the mourners ready. the dismal march of death prepared. Who are we, and what are we? and for what has God made us? and why are we doomed to this frail and unquiet existence ? Who does not feel all this? in whose heart does it not provoke appeal to, and dependence on God? before whose eyes does it not bring the folly and the nothingness of all things human?

But a good King must not go to his grave without that reverence from the people which his virtues deserved. And I will state to you what those virtues were, state it to you honestly and fairly; for I should

I