exhibit unquestionable proof, indirect as it seems, that a sense of the shortness and uncertainty of life has a sufficient influence to make us rely on trivial circumstances as real evidence that we are secure from danger.

A tale is usually a momentary and a trifling amusement. When, therefore, our life is compared to this object, we are taught, on the one hand, that it is a transient period; and, on the other, that it is spent by us in a manner merely amusive, and without any serious or important benefit. How different is this manner of employing life from that to which it was destined by our Creator! By him it was intended to be to each one of us a day of probation and of grace; a season, in which we were to renounce our sins, accept of the mercy proffered to us through the Redeemer, and secure a title to a happy immortality. Infinite importance is, in this manner, stamped on this little season. No mind was perhaps ever more feelingly alive to this fact than that of Moses, and no circumstances could more strongly impress it on any mind than those by which he was surrounded. We cannot, therefore, wonder at the strong images by which he has unfolded his views of it to mankind.

The end of a year is undoubtedly a time which presents these truths to the mind, and brings them home to the heart with peculiar force. There is something melancholy in the end of almost every thing. The evening is the most solemn period in the day. Saturday is the least cheerful day of the week. The termination of the year is the most melancholy season which it contains. Students, at an early period of their collegiate residence, usually look forward to the close of it with pleasurable anticipation; but, when it arrives, rarely fail to experience a depression of spirits, a mournful reluctance to part with the place where they have so long lived. The word, farewell, seems to carry sorrow in its very sound. How often do we find friends, when about to separate, scarcely able to pronounce it, and contriving beforehand to avoid a solemn, formal adieu. The termination of a ministry, or the resignation of a civil office long holden, is rarely met by any man, however desirable his judgment may pronounce it, without

feelings of irresistible regret. The close of life is undoubtedly the most melancholy event through which we pass in the present world, and requires the brightest hopes of a glorious immortality to reconcile to it, however free it may be from pain and suffering, either the mind of the dying person, or the minds of those who surround his bed.

The feelings excited by this consideration fit us in a peculiar manner to contemplate with high advantage many subjects of great importance and utility. They are all serious feelings, and therefore suited to serious contemplation. They are solemn, they are affecting, and therefore suited to subjects which are solemn and deeply interesting to the mind. In such a state, every subject is regarded with more concern than in any other, and leaves impressions more permanent and more influential.

ever.

We are now about to bid farewell to another year. Its last suns are rolling through their circuit, and about to set for Its day is spent; its evening is beginning to fade into never-ending darkness. Many important events, joyful or melancholy, useful or useless to us, has it brought into being during its course. Its nature, continuance, advantages, or disadvantages; the manner in which it has been employed; together with various other things, well deserve to be recalled and reviewed by us. With the feelings which I have mentioned, we may profitably survey all these and many more objects of instruction, naturally presented by this period; and may make them means of real and lasting good.

Among these objects I shall select the following, as being of serious importance to all who hear me :—

I. The shortness of human life.

The year which we have almost finished is a seventieth part of the life of man. How little does that part now seem! When it commenced, its end appeared to be distant; yet how soon has it arrived! how momentary the space between its commencement and its conclusion! How few, indistinct, and feeble are the traces of it in our recollection! how faint an image of its varied events are we able to call up before the

mind! How much does the flight of its days, weeks, and months, resemble a tale that is told!

Go to the man of grey hairs, and he will tell you that seventy such years seem to him but a little longer than one; and that his own life, styled long in the customary language of men, is in his view more like a dream than a reality; that it has fleeted away before he was aware, and has scarcely left an abiding impression on his memory; that, since he arrived at the age of twenty, every year has become shorter than the preceding; and that a month, in his youth or childhood, seemed to him as long as twelve in the decline of life. What, according to this unexceptionable testimony, is then the amount of the whole term allotted to man! How strongly does it resemble a tale that is told!

II. The manner in which life has been spent by us is, at such a time, a most solemn object of consideration.

How strongly does this also resemble the allusion in the text! We tell and hear tales without any serious concern or thought, and intend only to be amused by them during the period of the rehearsal. How much is this the manner in which life is passed by multitudes! Tales are frequently told to excite merriment; frequently to awaken wonder; frequently to move temporary feelings of sympathy; frequently to while away an idle hour; and frequently to enjoy the pleasure of telling them. When the recital is finished, the purpose for which it exists is also finished. It is followed by no conse

quence either useful or entertaining. The emotions, whether serious or sportive, terminate with the story, and both are speedily lost and forgotten. Life then goes on exactly as it did before; and all things remain just as they would have been if the rehearsal had never been made. On futurity it was never designed to have any influence; not even on a day or an hour.

In a manner similar to this is life spent by no small part of the human race. The hearers of tales are not more perfectly the mere votaries of amusement, during the periods of listening to them, than multitudes are during the whole progress of life:

not more given up to the indulgence of wonder, and other empty and useless emotions; nor to the killing of time; nor to the vanity of being listened to by a gaping circle. This amusement also terminates in itself, and is not designed to have any effect upon that which is to come. Its whole end is to produce enjoyment while it lasts; enjoyment intended to be found in toying and trifling, without a wish exercised or an attempt made to become wise, virtuous, or useful. The pleasures of to-day are not intended even to prepare pleasures tomorrow; but those of to-morrow are left to the direction of that chance which is considered as having given birth to those of to-day. Mere butterflies, they flutter from field to field, and from flower to flower, heedless that the summer in which they sport will be soon succeeded by a season of frost and death.

In the same manner, also, every period of life is by persons of this character chiefly forgotten, and employed to no useful purpose. Instead of reviewing at night the conduct of the day, or at the close of a week, or a year, the events which have existed in its progress, instead of learning from past errors, and past sins, future wisdom and reformation, instead of being admonished by the reproofs, alarmed by the judgments, solemnized and softened by the afflictions, and charmed to gratitude and repentance by the mercies furnished by a holy and gracious providence, they hurry from enjoyment to enjoyment, and bustle from sport to sport, embosomed, and lost, in the present gratification, forgetful that much good may be hereafter secured, and much evil avoided, by prudent forecast, even in the present world, and that endless happiness must be gained, or endless misery suffered, in the world to come.

This subject we are now solemnly required to apply to ourselves, and to call up to our view the manner in which life has been spent by us. As this is an object far too multiform and complicated to admit of a particular examination at the present time, it will be more useful to confine our researches to the past year. The subject, here, will be less perplexed, and more fresh in every one's remembrance. Let me then call upon every person present to look back upon his own life,

at this period, and see whether it has not strongly resembled a tale that is told.

You have all throughout this period been furnished by the bountiful hand of God with many privileges. A seventieth part of human life has been added to your preceding years. To what purpose has it been employed? To any which you dare mention, even to yourselves, or on which you can turn back the eye of remembrance with comfort? God has put into your hand his holy word, and given you knowledge to read and understand the truths which it declares, and the duties which it enjoins. Has the gift been regarded by you with gratitude, or used by you with profit? Would it not have been better disposed of, had he given it to some humble illiterate man, who would have spelled out its contents, and in some measure yielded his heart to their direction. Your closets have stood open round the year, that you might enter in and "bow your knees to the Father of all mercies." Has his eye beheld your knees bow, or his ear heard your prayers ascend, in that secret place; or has the year rolled round its circuit and witnessed no solitary petition from your lips, and left you, as it found you, without prayer, and without God in the world? Fifty-two Sabbaths have in the same period invited you to the house, and to the ordinances of God. In what manner have you regarded the invitation? Have you loved and laboured to worship him "acceptably, with reverence and godly fear?" Has his house been a house of prayer to you? Have your hearts united with those around you in "praising the Lord for his goodness" to you," and "for his wonderful works" to your fellow-men? Have the solemn discourses which, by his own appointment, were there addressed to you, found, or awakened in you a disposition to hear, to learn, or to obey? Have they awakened in you a sense of guilt and danger, and prompted you to fly to Christ for safety? Have you had, have you now, believing, penitent, and obedient, hearts? Are your lives purified from the stains of sin, and adorned with the beauty and excellency of righteousness? Have you begun to hope that you are children of God? Have the conversation and example of those

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