And that may be seen by the light of burning Sodom. It is the inevitable doom of sin. You may fill your cup for a long while before the drop comes that will make it overflow. But it will come at last. So it was with Sodom. So it is and will be with every sinner. It will come, perhaps, in a moment unlooked for. Judgment will break forth like the lightnings, and while you think yourself safe you will be crushed.

And what a doom will yours be? If Sodom and Gomorrah rise up in judgment against Chorazin and Bethsaida, will not Chorazin and Bethsaida, from their lowest deep, rise up to condemn you who deserve a lower? And if the earthly vengeance that overtook Sodom and Gomorrah is too terrible to be described, what will your lot be, if you sin against the light of the clear shining Gospel, and the truth of your convictions?

Where, then, are you now? In the broad way, in the paths of impenitence, with your "tent pitched toward Sodom?" Retrace your steps. Its smiling fields and glowing landscape allure to ruin. They are the crust of a fire-bed. Hasten away. Leave your gains and your

gold, and save your soul!

XXXVIII.

BLESSINGS AND DUTIES.

"Other men labored and ye are entered into their labors."-JOHN iv. 38

RATITUDE is instinctive. A mind properly con

Gluted cannot
Ꮐ stituted cannot receive a favor without feeling

impelled to acknowledge the obligation. All the bless-
ings we are conscious of enjoying are so many calls made
upon us, in the providence of God, to seek out and ac-
knowledge their source.
What is that source?

There can be but one, underived and original. There are ten thousand channels through which the blessings reach us, but we may trace them all back to one great fountain. We should not, as we drink the refreshing draught, spurn the cup or the hand that offers it; but ought we not to recognize the heart that impels the hand?

There are few of our privileges or comforts that are of our own individual procurement. They have been transmitted to us from past generations, or they are the fruits of social organization. Their true history carries us back to distant ages, or brings to view the sweat, and toil, and blood of others, whom, perhaps, we have never seen. There is scarcely a familiar utensil of our dwellings with which thousands of busy fingers have not been more or less associated. It is connected with slowly evolved processes of art, with the rudiments and progress

of science, with repeated experiments, with associated effort reaching back through centuries.

How many of the things which contribute to your convenience, if not necessity, have come from distant lands! Yet before the vessel that brought them could spread her sails and go forth upon the broad, trackless ocean, the science of navigation had to be built up, and the art of ship-building had to be perfected, and the methods of commerce, including the excavation of ore and the coining of money had to be devised. The time was when the rude canoe was the highest achievement of shipbuilding art; when the sailor, clinging to the coast-line, dared not venture out of sight of land; when the furnace was as yet unknown, and only the rudest forms of barter were the embryo of a now world-wide commerce. It has taken ages to secure the progress that has been obtained. The history of navigation carries us back to the invention of the mariner's compass, to the study of astronomy by Newton, Copernicus, Gallileo, Ptolemy, nay, by the Chaldean shepherds watching their flocks by night, and taking the earliest critical observation of the stars by which the sailor determines his place on the broad ocean waste. It carries us back to the old crude methods of ship-building, when steam was unknown, and the ancient triremes were impelled by oars, and the sail was only a doubtful experiment.

We must call to mind, also, the slow progress of geographical science, exploring bay and river, and creeping venturously along the shores of the Mediterranean, and peering out, by the "Pillars of Hercules," into the unknown ocean; then venturing with Columbus across the broad, watery waste, and revealing a New World; then by countless voyages of bold explorers searching out a

path to the Indies, and perfecting, with new faint lines, the charts that map island, ocean, shallow and shore.

Take your seat by your own quiet hearthstone, and think for a moment of the various relationships by which, in the enjoyment of your blessings, you are linked, not only to the present and the living, but to the distant and the dead. Let imaginary lines be drawn from each object that furnishes your dwelling, from each volume that lies upon your shelf or table, from each comfort or convenience of your home, from each influence that has instructed your mind or fashioned your character, back to the ten thousand objects in which they each originated, or in which they had their birth, and you will find yourself, like the sun, the centre of a vast system revolving about you, for your convenience; nay, the centre of innumerable rays of blessing and beneficence, only they are all received instead of dispensed. You will find that just as the sunbeams are so many telegraphic messengers, uniting, by their lines of light, every sand-grain, and dew-drop, every grass-blade, and leaf, and flower to one. point; so in your own home, in your own heart, meet the countless lines of influence and blessing that come streaming down to you through the centuries, and connect each of your comforts, conveniences, or privileges with the names, and toil, and invention, and heroism of innumerable benefactors, who, in one way or another, have bequeathed to you the results of their invention, their self-denial, their enterprise or their effort.

The humblest utensil of household economy has really a history almost primeval, carrying you back to the long, rude and abortive experiments of semi-barbarous art. Invention and toil pioneered a tardy progress; and just as the emigrant is forced to thread the mazes of the forest,

open roads, and bridge streams, and toil on long and tediously beneath the deep shadows and amid the almost unbroken solitude, before villages and civilized art, schools, and churches, and social culture can spring up around him, so ages of toilsome endeavor must pioneer us before we can enter in peace upon the inheritance of their achievement. If you should undertake to write out in full the history of one of the most common implements of art-write it as the history of the steam-engine has been written you would find yourself threading your way through the labyrinths of past centuries, gazing, perhaps, on the rude anvils that ring out amid German forests, or studying the primitive armor of Grecian heroes; or, floating down the stream of time, you would meet, perhaps, with some contribution from the speculations of an Albertus Magnus or Roger Bacon, some accidental discovery of a noted alchemist, some lingering tradition of oriental usage, some accidental discovery which genius stood ready to employ, till a printing press, a lightning rod, a safety lamp, or a lucifer match met your eye as the memorial of ages of striving and inventive experiment. As we read of the crude efforts of early art, we are not prepared to see at first their real and important connection with the triumphs of modern skill. And yet the stream that floats down to our doors the harvests of past ages of effort, is continuous, like a vast river, draining the valley of time of its ingenuity, fed, in its original, by countless springs bursting from distant hill-sides or from mountain snows, with tributaries winding unseen through the obscurity of dark ravines and interminable forests, without so much as a charted line for their memorial. A wandering traveler might sit down by the mossy brink of some mountain spring, or