case, if you do not find such by duly looking into yourselves. If you have not conceived any happiness beyond what this world affords, and if your wishes are bounded by earthly things, we need not ask whether you love God. These perishable objects answer for you, that they are your idols, and that your gods cannot save you.

O ye worldly men, what is there in the objects which swallow up your thoughts and powers? What is there worthy of this inordinate attachment? Are they really the possessions of the soul? Are they stable and permanent? Do they always answer the fond expectations indulged in the pursuit? Are they so supremely and ultimately good that you may venture to forget him who gives them all their value and on whom their duration depends? Are they so good that God may be lost in the multitude of his benefits? Shall he be unregarded who gives you all you possess? Is it safe, to love everything but the Author of your abundance?

These objects are not eternal. They have never rewarded you for the pursuit of them. They cannot be the final portion of a being capable of intellectual conceptions, and the glory and happiness of a resemblance to thatvery Divinity from whence they flow. The human mind is susceptible of pleasures which these things cannot affect, and without which all the world could not make it happy. There are sources of felicity within the reach of an immortal creature, independent of all those things which perish with the using.

Have you, O man, ever felt the felicity of good affections, an approving conscience, and the hopes of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and can you believe that you were born only to grovel about worldly possessions? Can you look up, as

you sometimes must, from the region of carnality and narrow pleasures, in which you have been toiling, and see the gates of heaven thrown open, and the just ascending with angels to the presence of the eternal Mind, aspiring to the friendship aud everlasting enjoyment of God, who is all intellect and goodness, can you contemplate all this, and not make one effort to break from your enthralment, and to shake off the sordid dust that encumbers you, and try to soar to that intellectual region?

Perhaps you will say you have been misrepresented, that you are really happy in your present slavery to the world, at least, as happy as you wish to be. Be it so. How long will this endure? or of what can it supply the place? Can this world's goods redeem a single man from death? Can it mitigate the agonies of a burdened conscience, or insure an honorable and happy state in that unchangeable world which lies before you?

When your conscience is oppressed with guilt, and alarmed with the prospect of a judgment to come, collect around you all your treasures, and what is their sum? Of what avail are they now? How they shrink into nothing! On the other hand, when conscience bears testimony to integrity and piety, and you see God waiting to receive you, without all this pomp and glitter, what then are they worth? Sometimes, perhaps, your heart has been rent with grief, or your limbs racked with pain, or your frame has been languishing with sickness; what then was the consolation which this world's goods administered? If it has been your lot, to have known nothing by experience of such sorrows and sufferings, yet the time will come, when you will be on a dying bed, the tide of life will be ebbing away, every breath will seem to

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be the last; then, when the invisible world shall open on your soul, what will all these earthly objects be to you "Keep yourselves," then, "in the love of God," "and wait for his Son from heaven."

THE CHARACTER AND TESTIMONY OF JUDAS.

JUDAS, no doubt, joined our Lord, at first, with the same indefinite expectations as did the other disciples, ignorant of his spiritual character, and anticipating some distinguished worldly advantages. He appears, however, always to have been a man of dark and sordid purposes, and to have interested himself so much in the pecuniary concerns of the company of the disciples that he was chosen to keep the purse which contained the little stock of the fond family of our Lord. The stock, which was partly expended in the occasional purchase of provisions, but chiefly in the relief of the many poor who crowded about our Lord, was entrusted, it seems, to a man who abused the confidence reposed in him, by purloining from the sacred treasury for his own selfish purposes. Jesus, discovering the increasing hold that the love of money was gaining on the mind of Judas, and, perhaps, aware of the crime to which it would, at length, impel him, attempted, more than once, in the most mild and secret manner, to awaken in him a sense of his own character, and, if possible, change his base intentions. It was immediately after the restoration of Lazarus to life, that our Savior and his disciples met at the house of Martha, his sister. The occasion was the most joyful that could be imagined. A brother had just been restored from the tomb to the arms of his affectionate sisters. They were sitting down to supper, when Mary attempts to express her

love and respect for Jesus by anointing him, in the oriental manner, with a pure and costly perfume. One would have thought, that, at such a festival of joy, and in sight of such an act of the most amiable and grateful generosity, even the heart of this avaricious man might have opened, and his mean selfishness have yielded to some transient sympathies with the delighted family. But no! The first thought which struck him, was, "I have lost by this contribution. The expense of this ointment is wasted. It might have been converted into money, and placed in my hands." He cannot conceal his disappointment. "Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred denarii, and given to the poor?" Jesus, who knew the secret depravity of his motives, vindicates the generosity of Mary; and Judas, who secretly felt every word of his remarks as a reproach, leaves the room with stifled resentment, and goes to conclude his bargain with the high priests, promising, for thirty pieces of silver, to deliver up the leader, whose disinterested and generous character had become too mortifying a contrast to his own, and whose unaspiring claims had disappointed his own ambitious expectations.

On the evening which preceded the day of crucifixion, the disciples and their Master meet again at the supper. Judas joins them also, no doubt for an opportunity to execute his purposes.

Though our Savior's insinuation, that he knew the character of this man, had failed of recovering him, yet, on this occasion, he attempts again to touch his heart with remorse. by unequivocally declaring that he was aware that one of those at table should betray him. The disciples seem struck with sorrow and wonder, and begin every one to ask, "Lord, is it I? Is it I?" Our Savior replies in so ten