December.

ONE HOUR REMAINS, THERE IS BUT ONE!

BUT MANY A GRIEF AND MANY A TEAR,

THROUGH ENDLESS AGES MUST ATONE

FOR MOMENTS LOST AND WASTED HERE.

DECEMBER.

DECEMBER 1.

JUSTIFICATION BY THE MERITS OF CHRIST.

We are going to a more important theatre of being than is this narrow world. We shall soon pass beyond its outward bounds, and move through other regions. We are to go up and meet our Maker; to enter on a mode of existence that shall have no end; to be associated with orders of beings new to us-unknown. And there are great interests at stake, compared with which all the concerns of earth are trifles. We go to a royal court-the court of heavenwhere we have no claim, or right to appear. We go up to obtain, if admitted there, the favour of a Being whose laws we have violated, and whose displeasure we have incurred. We go where we can take no wealth with us, and

where, if we could, it would avail nothing; | where we shall be disrobed of all in a graceful exterior, or in fascinating manners, that may commend us to others here, and where, if it should accompany us, it would be valueless; where the name of a father, or the powerful influence of a friend, that might recommend us to the favour of men, would be of no avail; where no earthly thing on which we here rely as a passport to others, would be a commendation. But there is One in human flesh that dwells there. He once lived among men. He was most holy, and lovely, and pure; but He died. He rose from the tomb, and the everlasting gates were opened, and He entered His native skies. His powerful aid He proffers to us in our sin, and ignorance, and helplessness; and assures us of His willingness that we should plead His name, and make mention of His merits, as if they were our own, as a reason why we should be welcome there...... Shall we refuse His offer? Shall we spurn His name? Shall we turn away from that Friend, and Advocate, and Patron, and go there friendless and alone? Shall we seek to commend ourselves to a holy God by our own doings, and to stand there in our own attempts to vindicate

our ways? Shall we spurn the robes of salvation which He proffers, so white, so pure, so full and flowing, and gird ourselves with the rags of our own righteousness? How you, my reader, may feel on this point, I know not; but for me, who expect to stand soon before that holy Throne of Deity, I desire to have some better righteousness than any which I have been able to work out for myself. I wish to have something which I may plead in the place of that which I have failed to render. I would have some better passport to the skies than can be furnished by my poor prayers and services in the cause of God. I must have some Friend there, whose name is all-prevalent, whose petition is never denied, and about acceptance through whose merits there cannot be the shadow of a doubt.

(Barnes.)

December 2.

SENSATION OF SICKNESS.

It is a strange and awful sensation, when, after having enjoyed, to the full, the powers and energies of manhood, we find ourselves suddenly reduced, by the unnerving hand of

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