No. 1.

THROUGH the good Providence of our God we have been brought to the beginning of another year. This is a season, which naturally awakens solemn reflection. To consider, that we have closed another important period of existence; and that whether improved or neglected, it will never return, must surely arrest, at least for a moment, the attention of the most thoughtless. Nor will those, who are most faithfully devoted to duty, whose lives are filled up with improvement and usefulness, find such seasons passing over them without some painful remembrances. For he must be sadly ignorant of himself, or else most arrogantJy presumptuous, who can deelare, that in the course of a whole year, he can remember no hour misspent, no useful opportunity neglected, no duty undone, not any thing, which, were he permitted to retrace this period, he would wish to alter.

Almost every man, whatever may be his character, feels at some time or other the pangs of compunction, and forms resolutions of amendment. For in every mind, we may not except Vol. IV.

VOL. IV.

the best disciplined,—there are passions, which sometimes gain the ascendancy over reason, and give cause to the susceptible heart for very bitter repentance, It is these, which we determine to overcome; to watch them jealously as our most dangerous enemies; and such resolutions are generally formed at the returns of these great divisions of life, when reflection is awakened, and the soul, turned upon itself, is forced to meditate upon its solemn destiny.

But it surely must be an alarming thought, if at the end of the year, which we commenced with such deliberate purposes of amendment, perhaps at the same time appealing for our sincerity to the Searcher of hearts, and imploring his spiritual strength to assist our weakness; we find our solemn promises forgotten, and the year which we had vowed to consecrate to God, spent, like those, which preceded it, in the service of the world, and in the indulgence of disordered passions. The man who finds himself in a state like this, has surely reason to tremble. Life is passing by him without any of

its great ends secured. Advancing age, that ought to witness his increasing purity, is but confirming the dominion of his bad habits; and though every step, he takes, brings him nearer to death, he is more and more unfit to meet it.

We should therefore consider it as among the infinitely diversified means, which our heavenly Father employs for our salvation, that our life is marked out into such divisions, as may warn us by their returns of the rapid flight of time, and of the solemnity of eternity.

It may be regarded as one grand system of admonition; connected with that sublime and harmonious disposition of the heavenly bodies, which so gloriously displays God's handy work.

But besides this common in struction, which every returning season gives us of the progress of time, the beginning of each new year has generally some admonitions, peculiar to itself. The last year we were warned by the judgments of God. We were suffering the accumulated evils of war; and our prospects, as individuals, and as a nation, were, at best, depressing. But now the scene is delightfully changed. Through the adorable providence of him, "who forms the light and creates the darkness, who makes peace and creates evil," our public burdens are removed, our fears are turned to joy; we are restored to the incalculable blessings of peace. These have frequently been exhibited as subjects of gratitude and praise. They may also be improved to quicken our holy

resolutions, and to animate our Christian obedience at the commencement of this year. What innumerable tokens of the divine mercy do we not see in them! our enlivened spirits; our cheerful fire-sides; the enlarged and various comforts of our domestic abodes; the active industry and successful enterprise of our citizens; the new impulse given to commeree; the satisfactions and gains of a regular, honorable trade, instead of the chances of a hazardous, and, to say the least, a selfish enterprise; but most of all, the deliverance from the horrors and demoralizing influence, inseparable from a state of war, with the long train of comforts attending peace;-are all so many testimonies of that "goodness of our God, which calls us to repentance," and invites us, with the commencement of a new year, to dedicate ourselves anew to his service.

But there is danger, lest amidst such overflowings of the divine bounty, we grow presumptuous and careless. We must therefore connect with our sense of the blessings, the solemn admonitions, which this season brings us; of their uncertain nature and of our uncertain lives. Remembering the instruction of the apostle, that the time is short, and that the fashion of the world is passing away, we shall learn to "rejoice, as though we rejoiced not," we shall realize; that it is not for man to be confident, whose life is like the taper, that the feeblest breath may extin guish. We shall not rely with any fond security upon the enjoyment of our friends, because, like