pen will be cold and stiff, no account can be cast up there; now you leave the school room and its duties for a time; then you will return to the house, appointed for all living. But remember this, O take notice of it, my dear young friends, at the morning of the day of judgment, you will have a sum to do which all the rules in arithmetic can furnish no example, and give no answer. Who can enumerate eternity! Who can add to eternity! Who can subtract or take from eternity! Who can multiply eternity! There you may multiply twelve times twelve in vain; eternity cannot be divid ed, no rule of three, no fractions, or decimals in eternity; this sum can only be done by practice; yet, my young friends, miserable indeed are those scholars who will have to practice or experience the torments of hell forever and ever. Happy are those who have learned that holy art, that divine arithmetic, of numbering their days and applying their hearts to wisdom.

"Lord of the starry world on high,
To thee I raise my infant cry;
O hear my lisping prayer and grant
The mercies which thou know'st I want.

"Since I to thee my being owe,
Teach me betimes thyself to know;
And give me grace to walk the road;
That leads to glory and to God.

To this great end, my parents bless,
And crown their labours with success ;
That they may have the joy to see,
Their offspring training up for thee.

"Give me a ready active mind,
To useful knowledge still inclined;
And grant my mem'ry may retain,
What from my teacher's care I gain.

"But most of all, assist me Lord,
To study and to love thy word;
Let me its sacred truths imbibe,
And in my life those truths transcribe.

"Impress it on my mind, that I,
A child of earth, am born to die;
Yet that my spirit shall survive,
And through eternal ages live."

LECT. XI.-A'Voice from Richmond.

ROMANS vi. 21.-For the end of those things is death.

My dear young friends,

YOU are come, this afternoon, to improve the late awful calamity at Richmond in Virginia, with the particulars of which you are but too well acquainted. Would to God they were less mournful, and the young and lovely sufferers less numerous. In the long list

of the dead and missing, we find no less than
thirty-six young persons, in the prime of life,
lovely as morning rose buds, and fair as the
flowers of spring; and to this list I believe may
be added, six dear little children, who perished
in the flames. The exact number of persons,
young and old, will perhaps never be ascertain-
ed, but it is supposed to be nearly two hundred!
Let us pause-
Is it true? or did I only
dream, that thirty-six young persons perished
in the flames! did I read that five or six chil-
dren lost their lives in the burning ruins of the
theatre at Richmond! What must their pa-
rents feel! I think I see their burnt and man-
gled bodies, wrapped carefully up, and carried.
to their houses of mourning from the house of
mirth. I see them but in part; their half burnt
bodies and their smoking bones! I pity them,
but they are now beyond my pity! I could
weep with weeping parents, and sympathise
with sorrowful brothers and sisters, but they
cannot see my tears.

"O may our sympathising breasts,
That gen'rous pleasure know,
Kindle to share in others' joy,
And weep for others' woe."

Their remains are now deposited in the house appointed for all living: their ashes rest peace, within the silent tomb: there they will be undisturbed, till that trump shall sound, which shall call the dead to arise and come to

in

judgment. Hark! from the eternal world, I hear a voice! to you my dear young friends that voice is directed. Methinks that the departed spirit of one of those dear children is now before me :-Attend to the solemn admonition" I have a message from God unto you; shun the theatre: Avoid the haunts of Satan, the destroyer of your souls: seek for real pleasure; do not pursue the phantom of imaginary happiness, which will at last deceive you. It may seem to be delightful: It appeared the same to me, but I now find that I have been fatally mistaken: My sun went down while it was yet day: How awful the change! from the meridian splendor of noon day sun, to be suddenly enveloped in midnight darkness! yea, with the blackness of darkness forever! five weeks ago, I was lively and blooming, healthy and gay; I thought, like many others, that there was no harm in attending on the amusements of the theatre, and from persuasion and example I was confirmed in my opinion. That very afternoon, I laughed at a young lady for saying that "the theatre was a very improper place, that many had been ruined body and soul by attending at such places of amusement." "Ah, my young friends, I wish I had felt the force of her observation. I went ; I expected pleasure, and for a short time joined the laugh of those around me, and mingled my smiles with their shouts of applause; the whole

scene was before us; all around was mirth and pleasure; but in two minutes after, I was surrounded with cries of anguish and despair: suffocated with smoke, I fainted and fell, blaz ing, into the pit, and was crushed and covered with the burning ruins. I was unprepared for death, and hurried unexpectedly into eternity: my state is now unalterably fixed forever. Attend to the warning; behold the displeasure of a holy God; profit by the warning thus awfully given, and remember that "the end of those things is death."

"See the short course of vain delight,
Closing in everlasting night;

In flames that no abatement know,
Though briny tears forever flow."

Let us enquire, or rather speak of those things, the end of which is sometimes death. It is not necessary what things those were, in particular, that the apostle meant: it is sufficient to say, that he meant all kinds of sinful pleasures in general: all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life: these things are not from God, but from man, from the world.

1. There are sports in which the young en gage, which sometimes prove in the end, to be both temporal and eternal death; I mean those which employ the leisure hours of the thoughtless and wicked child. At this season of the year, when you are in the habit of skating on