an

very times when the hopes of the self-de-
eiver perish. A day of trouble is one of
them; the hour of death is another-on
this side of the grave, the most appalling of
all. At a distance, it is nothing; we think
of it with composure; but no tongue can
tell how death appears when it is close at
hand. None but the dying know what it is
to die. A sinking body, a receding world,
a dark, lonely grave, loathsome corruption,
the frightful worm-these are not trifles;
they make us shiver as we think of them
in connection with a lost friend or child.
But a guilty spirit, an offended God, an un-
known, strange eternity-these surprise the
soul by the reality which they assume,
they overwhelm it by their importance. In an instant, another is at the door; but the
such an hour, no slight hopes will support
us. If conscience does its work, nothing
but the liveliest faith, the firmest hold of
the divine promises, can give us one mo-
ment's quiet. O what an hour for all our
hopes to leave us! O what a time to dis-
cover our goodness to be sin, our religion
a delusion! Flesh and heart failing, the
world useless, and the heaven we had so
often deemed our own, out of our sight!
And what is near? We know not. Noth-
ing at which we dare to look.

said they to their wise companions, “for
our lamps are gone out."
"Not so,'
swered the others, "lest there be not enough
for us and you; but go ye rather to them
that sell, and buy for yourselves." They
went. The shops were probably near;
"but while they went to buy, the bride-
groom came; and they that were ready,
went in with him to the marriage; and the
door was shut."

We all know that in worldly things time is occasionally of wonderful value. A minute, a moment, may be worth all we possess. Property, or health, or life, may depend on the twinkling of an eye. A house is in flames. One man escapes; in

roof falls, and he is buried in the ruins. My child is struggling in the water. I rush to save it, and my hand is within a span of its body; but it sinks and is lost.

Now go to spiritual things. The change which time makes there, is unspeakably great. We are now within reach of all that sinners can receive, or that God can give. Grace, mercy, salvation, heaven, all may be obtained by every one of us in the easiest way, on the freest terms-simply in this way, through faith in Christ-on these terms, by only asking for them, by really stretching forth our worthless hand to receive them. But let a few years pass away-not all the prayers and cries that misery wrings from us, can procure one drop of water to cool our tongues.

But let this hour be past; let conscience sleep; let it be an hour of calmness;-we must feel our need of the grace of Christ when it is gone. We shall be in a world of spirits: not hearing of eternity, but in it; not thinking of a judgment-seat, but trembling before it; not saying, "Is there Place us on our death-beds. If we dea God?" but seeing him; not musing spise the grace of heaven now, can we find it about heaven and hell, but standing on then? We may desire it; we may make their borders, within a step of their pains the ears of our friends tingle by our pieror joys, with only a moment between us cing cries for it; but a death-bed prayer! and an everlasting home. No self-right- it is like the shriek of a man who is overeous hope can stand in such an hour as taken by flames. The Bible gives us the this. It may have rooted itself very deeply history of four thousand years. How many in the mind; we may have carried it about sinners do we read of there converted and with us all our life long; it may have saved in the last few hours of life? One. stood firm against many a sermon and And when did he find mercy? In the many a providence; it may have triumph- most wonderful hour of all that history. ed over the plainest declarations of the It was an hour of prodigies. The sun was Bible, and borne unmoved the shock of darkened, the rocks were rending, the death; but take it into eternity, bring it graves of the dead were opened, and then among the realities of that unseen world; the Lord of glory gave up the ghost, and a -where is it? It is gone. One moment dying thief was saved. has turned it into immoveable despair.

3. The lamps of these virgins went out at an hour when they could not be rekindled; at least not rekindled in time for their ntended purpose. "Give us of your oil,"

Place us in eternity. Never since created being breathed in it, has mercy been found for the first time there. Angels could never find it, nor can ruined man. " Now," brethren, "is the accepted time,'

the only accepted time; "now is the day," | tion of a worm. But collect us again the only day, "of salvation." There is when a hundred years are gone; put the hope nowhere but on earth. Here the same question once more to us;-we too sinner's road to heaven begins. There is have learned the language of eternity; we not another in all the universe of God. ask for salvation. We no longer say in V. And what if these things should be- our hearts, "The world now, and God fall us? What if our hopes should fail, hereafter." This is our cry, "O save us! and we be found at the last without the Give us grace! Give us mercy! Better grace of God? This parable foretells the to be a converted, pardoned sinner, than an consequences. unpardoned angel." And how will this great change be wrought? By death; by our being forced to look on things in the light of eternity; by blessed or woful experience in another world.

1. The expiring of their lamps taught these virgins the value of that which they before thought needless; it led them most anxiously to seek it. They ask oil of their companions; they hasten, in the depth of night, to buy it.

2. Observe one thing more-these vir gins were excluded from the marriage feast. The discovery they made concerns our-"While they went to buy" the oil they selves. We are now of many minds concerning spiritual things. A few of us deem them of the utmost possible importance. We consider grace, and mercy, a new and holy heart, as the greatest of all conceivable blessings. Others wonder at our choice. They look on vital religion, the religion which lifts up the soul above the world, as a useless thing. In their eyes, it is enthusiasm, it is a being righteous overmuch, it is at best an ideal plaything, the dream of fools.

needed, the bridegroom passed along; he reached his house amidst the lights and songs of his happy friends; and when he had welcomed them to his feast of joy, "the door was shut." "Afterwards came also the other virgins," but the door moves not. No entreaties can unloose its bars. "Lord, Lord," they say, open to us." But no; he disowns them. "He answered and said, Verily, I say unto you, I know you not." And why are they thus reject. ed? There was room enough and to spare Others take a different view of the matter. within those walls. The provisions were This religion, they think, is desirable; it most abundant. These virgins appear as may be almost necessary. "But then," ," well attired and as worthy as the other they say, "it is so cheerless, so melan- guests. No crime was laid to their charge. choly; we cannot love it. It robs us of the All their offence was this-they had no oil few pleasures we can find in this care-worn when the bridegroom came; and for this world, and, while we live, it gives us they must be banished from his house nothing in return for them." forever.

Sooner or later, however, there will be but one opinion among us all. And what is that? We find it here. We shall deem the grace of Christ the one thing needful. We shall look on the world, with all its pleasures and cares, its joys and sorrows, its love and hatred, as of no more importance than a shadow that is departed, than a vision of the night.

Even in worldly affairs, a trifling error may be followed by very serious consequences. A step too many may plunge us down a precipice. A medicine taken by one, which was intended for another, may endanger the healthiest life. But what so fatal as the mistake that concerns our souls? It is the design of Christ, in several of his parables, to show us the danger of an error Go up to heaven. Ask the redeemed here. Look at the house that the winds who are singing there, what they most and floods beat down. Why did it fall, prize. The answer is, "Salvation." Go while another, raised at the same time, down to hell, and ask the weeping there stood? Only because it was not founded on what they most need. No other sound a rock. Why was the guest driven from comes through the darkness, than "Salva- the wedding supper of the king? Solely tion." Come back again to earth. Ask us within these walls what we most desire. O what a multitude of answers is in a moment heard! Money; pleasure; sin; the applause of a few dying rebels; the affec

because he had not on a wedding garment. And here is a company of invited friends excluded from another bridal feast, because, at a midnight hour, their lamps are gone out, and excluded by the bridegroom himself,

and at the very time when his heart is full | yourselves. Search your hearts. Rest not of kindness, and a multitude around him is till you can discover there the working of a made happy by his love.

ger-mistaking a discovery of your danger | quently spoken of in the Old Testament as for your remedy, a desire after grace for their Rock, and all his trembling people grace itself. Beware of these things. Lose are encouraged to fly to him, in all their no time in vain lamentations. Regard your perils, for safety and repose. But these past religion as a cheat. Begin anew. are not the only, nor yet the chief mercies Your grand defect has been a want of in- connected, in the text, with this term. It ward, enlightening, converting grace. It is relates to Israel in the desert; and those still your most pressing want, almost your poor wanderers needed something more in only one. And O how easily may it be that dreary waste, than a hiding place supplied! "Go ye to them that sell, and and a shade. We find them at Rephidim buy for yourselves." Apply for the Spirit fainting with thirst; and how are they reto him who has "the residue of the Spirit;" | lieved? Not by rain from above, nor by to him who purchased it for sinners with springs from beneath. The Lord their his tears and blood; to him who has been God "brought them forth water out of a for six thousand years dispensing it to every rock of flint." one that has asked it of him; to him who gave it to Noah, and Abraham, and Paul, and who will rejoice to give it you; and to give it you freely, "without money and without price." Christ is our light. To Christ then let the prayer go up from every heart, "Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death."

Are your lamps still burning? Have you reason to hope that the religion which you profess, is a religion of the heart? a religion which has the Holy Spirit for its author? Then be assured that it will have heaven for its end. Whence came the grace that first separated you from a thoughtless world? Whence comes the grace that renews your spiritual life day by day? that reminds you of Christ when you forget him, and keeps you waiting and longing for his appearing? It comes from the heavenly Bridegroom himself. And why does he give it you? That he may have you for his companions and friends, for his joy and his praise, in the day of his glory.

SERMON XIX.

THE ROCK AT HOREB.

1 CORINTHIANS X. 4.

They drank of that spiritual rock that followed

them, and that rock was Christ.

Now why was this? Saint Paul informs us. He calls this mysterious fountain a spiritual rock, and the water which flowed from it, spiritual water; and he calls them so, because they were designed to have a spiritual meaning, and to repre sent spiritual things-the one standing as an emblem of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the other shadowing forth those precious blessings of which he is the Author.

You know, brethren, what these blessings are. Though numerous as our wants. these two words, mercy and grace, wil comprehend them all. To us, they are of unspeakable importance. They are the very things which we need the most while we are in this world, and the only things which we can take with us when we go into another. Let us then be serious and prayerful, while we endeavor to trace the resemblance which they bear to the waters of Horeb.

And this may be discovered in the source whence these waters sprung, the uses for which they were designed, and the manner in which they flowed. We must however confine our attention, for the present, to their source.

I. The most striking feature in this is its durability. It was a rock, a frequent emblem in the scripture of solidity and unchangeableness.

And what can shake or change “the high and lofty One," from whom cometh salvation? No rock so durable as he, no mountain so stable. The rock at Horeb has probably remained the same for three thouRocks are common in Judea. Often sand years; the hills around us have stood lofty and sometimes rent into caverns, they firm against time and storm for perhaps a serve as places of refuge from storms, shel- longer period, and their unchangeableness er from heat, and protection from enemies. may well be used to set forth the everlasting Hence the great Saviour of Israel is fre-existence of the great Redeemer; but be

fore they were brought forth, he was in the | and sent him into it; that there is a suffibosom of his Father; and after they have ciency for all our wants in him, because perished, he will abide unmoved the Rock" it hath pleased the Father, that in him of ages; he will live and reign the Lord of should all fulness dwell." eternity; "the same" in his faithfulness, love, and power, "yesterday, to-day, and forever."