lect how much we hope, perhaps expect, to be forgiven of God, whose long-suffering has borne with us for months and years in far greater offences than our fellow-creature or fellow-sinner has ever committed against us. Finally, 'consider thine end,' says the Son of Sirach, 'and let enmity cease, for he that revengeth shall find vengeance of the Lord.' Yes, brethren, let us but send forth our thoughts to the judgment of the great day, when we shall stand together at the tribunal of God, expectants and dependants on a boundless mercy;

and then we shall understand the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, 'when ye pray, forgive if ye have aught against any. For if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses.'

SERMON IX.

BY REV. CAZNEAU PALFREY, WASHINGTON, D. C.

WAYS OF PLEASANTNESS AND PEACE.

PROVERBS 111. 17.-HER WAYS ARE WAYS OF PLEASANTNESS AND ALL HER PATHS ARE FEACE.

These words are spoken of wisdom, by which throughout this passage of the book of Proverbs is meant religion, the highest practical wisdom. They are opposed to a notion, which, it is to be feared, is too often entertained, that religion is a system of arbitrary requirements, a compliance with which is absolutely necessary to the attainment of certain rewards which have been annexed to it, but which have no natural connexion with it;that holiness is not a good thing in itself, but a heavy price which must be paid for a future and distant good. To this idea the words of the text are opposed. They not only imply that the great object to which religion conducts us is an unspeakable good, but they assert that the ways by which she leads to it are ways of pleasantness and paths of peace.

In discoursing from these words, I shall endeavor to show that holiness is not so much the condition of happiness as it is happiness itself;-that God has so ordered our moral nature, that to be most truly and in the highest degree happy we must be good;-that it is an unchangeable law of the universe, extending to every moral being, and, notwithstanding the calamities incident to this life as a state of probation, applicable to the present as well as to every future period of existence, that holiness of heart and life confers a more perfect and satisfactory pleasure than any other course of conduct.

The first and fundamental proof of this proposition is, the simple fact that the law of righteousness is imposed by God. What reason worthy of the divine nature and character can be given why it was imposed, but that obedience to it will promote our true happiness? Can we for a moment imagine that the Father of all can take pleasure in beholding his rational children render him an arbitrary and unnecessary service which has no end but to manifest his power over them and to advance his glory? Could his power be more strikingly illustrated by any obedience thus paid than by the original creation of us and of all things? Could he receive any accession of glory from the compelled homage of beings whose existence he continually sustains and whose powers he continually supplies? We can easily imagine such motives in an earthly sovereign. Finite power is measured by the number of minds and bodies which it holds beneath its sway, and the ease and completeness with which it bends them to its purposes and makes them subservient to its interest and pleasure; and according