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of God, are not perceptible to the eye of flesh. The prince of darkness, alas! decorates the descent to his lurid dwelling with many a gilded seduction. His way is smooth and slippery ; and when once we have entered upon it, with difficulty we shall retrace our steps. Dull and unattractive to our carnal senses is the path towards life eternal depraved and distorted as they are by familiarity with sin. But oh, the eye of faith, the spiritual telescope, can discern immortal beauties in the road; and as we gaze and gaze through this new medium, we shall be fired with enthusiasm to enter on the peaceful, lovely track. Die we must. But on what journey shall death surprise us? His office is only to carry us at once to its termination, be it towards the abode of bliss or woe. And shall the blessed Bible, and the voice of experience, alike warn us in vain? Shall we trifle longer on the confines of sin? or shall we set our house in order, and begin a steady walk towards the everlasting hills? The parting hour of life is fixed. Think, whether you desire to be found, at this awful crisis, in the broad road, or the narrow way. What

must it be, to feel the palsy of death creeping over the prostrate body, overtaken on the path to hell, and now bereft for ever of the means of escape! Oh, is it not enough to make the infidel shudder, and the unawakened man to bestir himself? Surely ye will not rock yourselves into deeper slumber, like the Jews of old, when heaven's judgments aud heaven's overtures are brought before you. Surely ye will turn, and pray, and confess your sins, like Hezekiah. Surely ye will mourn, and fly to the great Physician, and beseech of him to shew you the healing plant which only thrives upon the road to life eternal.

Brethren, you that are still under the bondage of sin-Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen. Spend a portion of this very day in meditating on that most awful of all subjects, the state of your immortal souls. Let your laughter be turned into seriousness, and your mirth into sorrow; and let the prayer of faith ascend, and pleadings for mercy be uplifted, and Jesus Christ, the great restorer, be importuned to send down the Holy Spirit, that the work of recovery may be commenced in earnest.

Oh, that these expostulations might not be in vain. May God bless the words that have been uttered to the furtherance of his glory, and the salvation of immortal souls.

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SERMON XX.*

THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE ATTESTED BY PROPHECY.

DANIEL xii. 4.

Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.

AMONG the glorious attributes of Almighty God, his omniscience is not the least stupendous. We can form no adequate conception of that prodigious power of comprehension, which takes in, by one continuous grasp, the knowledge of all things, past, present, and to come. Man, indeed, by dint of painful study, may become acquainted with some of the transactions of

by-gone ages. Of present occurrences, likewise,

such as come within his own immediate range

* Preached, in the year 1834, at St. Paul's, Covent Garden, on behalf of the Infant School, established in that Parish.

of observation, he is fully sensible. But they soon cease to be present, and are so rapidly numbered, one after another, with the past, that his little sphere of knowledge may be said to be almost confined to that which has already been. And from so limited a territory what perpetual deductions are made by the wastings of memory, which sometimes fails to trace even the recollection of a name, or the process of an event which seemed at the time to be engraven on the brain in characters deep and indelible.

But when we direct our attention to the future, how is it, to our finite comprehensions, involved in clouds and thick darkness! Here, man appears in all his real imbecility, and God comes forth to our view in the full blaze of transcendent majesty and power. We may soar, indeed, on the wings of desire, and seek to pry into the forbidden land; but we are soon forced to return from our vain errand, and to shrink into that little domain of intelligence, which a wise Providence has assigned us.

The future, then, is the sole property of the Supreme. Still, there is implanted in immortal