If your hearts condemn you now, will they not condemn you then?

Nor can that faculty of the mind, which is denominated memory, ever be destroyed. It is as deathless as that mind of which it is one of the original principles. And if the knowledge of things past is inexplicable on any other ground, than that it is the will of our Maker,* that we should, have this knowledge, it is easy to perceive that in the coming world, He can endue the memory with such power, that it shall distinctly recall every item and minute circumstance of life. The complete record of life, not the scroll which contains the history of a single year only, will be spread out for review, and its most minute occurrences and affairs be distinctly revived. The mind can never resign itself to an oblivion of the past. It might as well attempt to annihilate itself. Conscience, moreover, will not part with any of its power, by the change which takes place, when we die. It will rather be aroused as out of a former sleep. With a voice which must be heard, it will pronounce that soul-harrowing word, "Remember!" that fearful word which will never, never

*“The knowledge," says the great Scotch metaphysician, Dr. Reid, "which I have of things past by my memory, seems to me as unaccountable, as an immediate knowledge would be of things to come; and I can give no reason why I should have the one and not the other, but that such is the will of my Maker."

cease to renew its echoes. "Son, remember that crime which you committed, and thought no eye saw, no pen recorded-that sin which stained your soul so darkly, that many waters could not cleanse. Remember your Sabbaths, and the sermons to which you listened. Remember the warning uttered, with labouring breath, by claycold lips. Remember all those means of grace, those frequent calls of the still, small voice, neglected and despised. REMEMBER, REMEMBER!" Ah! who can tell the full meaning of remorse, remorse of conscience? If when brought only to the verge of despair men lament, as they have sometimes been heard to do in this world, what will be their lamentations, when sinking in its fathomless abyss.

The depraved and irreclaimably wicked, let it be observed, are excluded from heaven, not to spend eternity in isolated and solitary existence; but to dwell together, where those who have been mutual workers of iniquity may become sworn retributors of wrath, and executioners of each other's punishment. No being, there, will love, or be beloved by another. There, will be no joyful greetings between those who were friends on earth. Hatred will fill the place; malice will burn and rage; malignant passions fostered through life, and in full play at the very moment of death, will know no counteracting or restraining influence. In these passions, the soul

will carry into eternity the very elements of its unspeakable torment. Men now have some feeble experience of the misery which may be produced by unbridled passions. What must it be in a state where nothing will restrain, but everything conspire to excite, the tormenting passions of the heart. Suppose that in addition to those of malice and revenge, by which men become mutual tormentors, there be superadded, FEAR, SHAME, and DESPAIR, operating without intermission, and in the same manner, but with a seven-fold degree, as in this life, so that each man, if alone, would be his own place of torment; suppose that such men as Cain, and Pharaoh, and Ahab, as Pilate, and Judas, as murderers and robbers, and all, who like them have lived and died enemies of God, are brought together under the full power of such passions as I have described; and suppose that another class of beings, the determined enemies of men and of God, fallen angels, are joined to the same society-beings who, instead of yielding willing obedience to the King of kings, bend all the energies of their minds to diffuse hatred and rebellion among His creatures, who delight to destroy and to torment, and we shall discover, even were it to be admitted that future punishment consists entirely in mental suffering, and that all that is said in the Scriptures about material fire is figurative, that there are still "terrors of the

Lord" from which we should flee as for our lives. Judge, it will be feebly indeed, but judge of what may be, from what is, or what hath been. Look into your own nature, your own intellectual and moral constitution; see in every emotion and faculty a warning; and in every guilty passion, discern the avenger.

XIX.

THE GUIDE.

"the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation."

HERE is a path to heaven, through this sinful

THERE is a

world; but, with his own unassisted faculties, man cannot find it. The darkness is too intense, the mazes too intricate, the paths which diverge too many, the proclivity to wandering in man too strong, and the only true path too narrow, to be found by accident, or by ingenuity even, or to be known and kept if once found. This has been proved, by the experience of men, for thousands of years. But has HE, who made the world, and put man into it, left him to wander on in despair? No; He has provided a lamp for his feet and a light to his path.

That man has a Maker, to whom he is accountable, that the world is under the frown of its Creator and Governor,-that man is a sinner, that he has many sorrows, that his stay on the earth is very short,—are truths which we need no revelation from