not regard it as likely to happen.

It is true that

to some now within these walls the warning words which follow the text are applicable; it is little less than certain that some of our number will not live out all their days, and have not, although they are young, a prospect of many years before them. But certain as this is with respect to some of us, we cannot tell who these are; and each one expects that it will not be himself. And therefore the warning words which follow the text, are for God to enforce rather than man; He will no doubt say them to some of us; but to the greater part of us they will in all likelihood not be applicable. We will therefore take the text by itself, and consider the confidence of spirit with which a man says to himself, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." Again, as we have set aside the words which follow the text, so also may we set aside those which precede it. In the parable the boast is uttered by a rich man, whose ground has brought forth plenteously, and who knew not what to do with his riches. "I will pull down my barns," he says, "and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits, and my goods." This is a picture of later life than yours, and in most cases of more abundant riches. Even to those whose case this may be hereafter, the time for it is not come yet. The pride and pleasure felt in

the possession of ample property; the sense that it is our own to spend it as we will; that it is already acquired, and not merely a matter of expectation; -these belong certainly to more advanced years than those of boyhood and youth, and we need not dwell upon their dangers here.

Yet the spirit of the boast contained in the text is nowhere more common than in the hearts of the young. They say to themselves as much as persons at any age, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years." If we consider a little, we shall see what these goods are. First, there is the great good of time, a young person thinks that he has this in plenty. The words, "it is too late,” which sound so sadly in the ears of older men, reminding them that much enjoyment is to them utterly irrecoverable, rarely suggest themselves to the mind of the young. Whatever it be that youth desires, or would compass, it believes that it has ample time for. "Have past years been wasted, and are present years wasting? What does it signify when there is time enough before us to make all good? Yes, my soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years to come, for many years yet we shall be going up the hill of life; for many more we shall remain on its summit. With so large a store of that precious good, time in our hands, and laid up safely for the future, we may well afford to spend some of it carelessly. Take

thine ease, my soul, be merry, and play as thou wilt now; thou wilt have time to work hereafter."

This is one of the goods which youth thinks that it has laid up for itself in abundance. Another good which it feels no less sure of is health and strength. There is an age when even the soundest health will fail, and the firmest strength become decrepit. Long before this age arrives, there is a time when we feel our health to be a thing uncertain, and our strength not to be unweariable. We are glad to husband both; thankful if with all our care they will hold out for the work which we wish to do. But to the young they seem inexhaustible; it is idle to bestow any care upon them; they are abundantly sufficient for enjoyment now and for work hereafter. The thought of any plan which we wish to execute being prevented by sickness hardly ever enters the mind; let there be the means of enjoyment without us, and we never doubt that there will be the ability to enjoy within. And this gives a confidence to our views of future life, in which we indeed say, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry."

Belonging to these two feelings, to the sense of having ample time before us, and abundant health and strength, and yet in some way to be distinguished from them, is the sense of having ample liberty; by which I mean, that our time of heavy

responsibility is not yet come; that there is and ought to be large allowance made for what we do; that folly sits on us almost becomingly; that careless words and careless deeds, proceeding out of and being the visible signs of a careless heart, will in us be neither by God nor man severely questioned; that we may, in short, give the reins to ourselves, our fancies, and our inclinations, because we are not yet old enough to be serious. And in this fancied liberty we seem to have the greatest good of all; and to speak quite confidently, and to say, "Soul, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry, the laws which press so heavily on after life concern not thee; that strict inquisitor conscience, who watches so narrowly the course of every enjoyment, does not as yet call thee to thine account; go on lightly and thoughtlessly, drinking thy fill of pleasure, and not being as yet alarmed by being obliged to fear that it may be sin." So in this feeling, even more I believe than any other, youth feels itself emboldened to enjoy-with ample time, with abundant health, with little sense of responsibility; does it not say in the very words of the text, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry."

Now the person so speaking is described in very striking words: "so is he who layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God." He is

not rich towards God but very poor; of those goods he has absolutely nothing. He layeth up treasure for himself of one sort, and he layeth it up largely; he says, "I am young enough, and strong enough, and free enough to enjoy plentifully; I will live for my pleasure, and pleasure I shall be sure to have." But all this treasure of which he has so much, is in no respect the true riches; when he comes to deal with God, it will purchase him nothing. And this in the parable is represented as being put to the proof immediately. "God said, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee, then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?" But if his soul had not been required of him for fifty years, yet his character would have been still the same; he would have still been one "who heaped up treasure for himself, and was not rich towards God." And so this is the character of all such young persons as I have been describing: they are poor towards God, although it may be many years perhaps before their poverty is brought home to them, and they feel indeed that they are poor.

And now to how many of us here assembled does this character apply? How many are there, whose looking forward for the portion of their lives nearest before them; for all that portion, in short, be it less or more, to which they look forward at all, is completely of this kind; a looking forward