of your deep guilt and infatuation in cleaving to it. Yet even the scene of that final day will pass away, and with it will pass away with a great noise all created things. While from the throne of judgment will be seen, advancing to their seperate destinies, two long processions— the one, of those who knew, while THE PAGEANT OF THIS WORLD WAS VANISHING AWAY, how to work out their own salvation, to the realms of everlasting lifethe other, of those who made earth's passing scenes their portion, to the abodes of darkness and everduring despair! Beloved hearer, in which of these processions will you have a place?

SERMON XXIX.

Expostulation with Young Men.

ZECHARIAH II. 4.

RUN, SPEAK TO THIS YOUNG MAN.

THE reason of the prophet's being here called a young man, does not appear obvious. It may have been owing to his condition as a learner, or to his docility of mind, or to his comparative inferiority to the angel with whom he conversed, or to the fact of his being but a youth in age. The latter appears the more probable reason. He was contemporary with Ezra, and actively co-operated with him in building the second temple. By a symbolical representation it was intimated to him that Jerusalem should be rebuilt. To make this intimation intelligible to him, and to relieve his mind from the perplexity into which it had been thrown, by the appearance of a man proceeding to measure Jerusalem with a measuring line, the angel that conversed with him, was requested by another angel to state more plainly the fact of Jerusalem's approaching prosperity. And behold the angel that talked with me went forth, and another angel went out to meet him, and said unto him-RUN, SPEAK TO THIS YOUNG MAN, saying, Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls for the multitude of men and cattle therein: For I, saith the

Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her. The youth and inexperience of the prophet, doubtless, rendered this fuller statement of an important fact peculiarly seasonable and appropriate to his case. He needed to have

his difficulties cleared up, his mistaken views rectified, and his whole mind guided by the suggestions of one who had a deeper insight into things, and larger discoveries than himself. The hint thus given at this particular time by the ministering spirit, it may be presumed, was of great and abiding service to the youthful seer. It met with singular adaptedness the precise posture of his mind. It cheered him with hopes, when he was agitated by fears. It taught him to look for good, when he was agitated by fears. It taught him to look for good, when he anticipated only evil. There was also at that time a special urgency even in the case of the prophet. The angel was bidden hasten to communicate to him the needful information-the timely hintthe friendly suggestion. It is characteristic of the young, especially of young men, to be precipitate, hasty in their decisions, and rash in their measures. What is done for their benefit, their relief and direction, requires to be done at the proper time. If that time be not seized upon, it is rarely ever done, and never done to so good. a purpose. Young men are acquiring and fixing their habits, forming their opinions, establishing their character, and taking their ultimate direction for the present and the coming world. This is eminently true of young men resident in a community favored with more than ordinary measures of spiritual influences from above. At such times, every christian may well regard himself as required, not by an angel, but by him who is the Lord of angels, to suffer no favorable opportunity to pass unimproved, of addressing such young men as are within the circle of their acquaintance and daily observation, on the concerns of their souls. The use, therefore, which at present I wish to make of the text, is to

view it by way of accommodation, as pointing out the existing duty of my christian brethren towards young men; or in other words, as the language which God addresses to his professed people. RUN, SPEAK TO THIS YOUNG MAN. In thus accommodating the text with a view to illustrate and enforce a particular duty to a single class of the young, it will not be understood that christians owe them no other duties, or that the same duty is not required of them to every other class of their fellow men whom they may reasonably hope thus to benefit. Nor shall I be understood to imply in this way that the salvation of this class, is in itself more important than that of any other. And yet there is enough of peculiarity in the circumstances of this one class of my hearers, to demand a separate consideration of the christian's special duty to them. For while their salvation is in itself no more important than that of others, there are more and greater obstacles in the way of it, than in the case of almost any other class of my hearers. They are reached by a mightier array of temptations they are inwardly more strongly prompted to yield to the force of such sinful incentives, and consequently have a less ready ear to heed the words of truth and soberness. They are less accessible to the influence of pastoral labors. Either their avocations or their inclinations, or both united, prevent their attendance on the more special means of grace. The Sabbath, in the house of God, is the only time and place in which divine truth is brought distinctly before their minds. And then it is met and resisted by an obduracy and blindness which the avocations and pursuits of every successive week, go to perpetuate and increase. When six-sevenths of their time is spent far from God, and not a little of it amidst scenes and in engagements which God must abhor, what can the bare ministrations of the sanctuary be expected to accomplish towards bringing them home to God? Ah, they who unchecked by the admonitions and entreaties of friends, can sport on the

brink of ruin through the whole week, can unalarmed and unawakened by the voice of the preacher, trifle and drowse in the very gate of heaven on the Sabbath. Or if here and there one is drawn by the preached word to heed with solemn interest the concerns of the soul, what can keep alive that interest, what can chain the mind to this great subject through the busy week, if no christian's voice is heard amidst the ten thousand calls of business and pleasure, that never cease their inviting tones? Circumstanced, then, as young men very generally are in our community, if they are ever brought to an experience of the truth, it must be through the seasonable, the judicious, the tender, the faithful hints and admonitions of those christians who daily mingle with them in the intimacies of friendship and the business of life. Specific directions as to the manner of conducting this intercourse, cannot of course be here given. I cannot tell my christian brethren what to say to the young men of their acquaintance. But that christian who daily walks with God, will be taught and directed what to say and when to speak. It would be alike useless and invidious for me to attempt to assign to individuals the particular persons with whom it is their duty to converse relative to the concerns of their souls. I cannot forbear, however, to specify several classes of young men to whom the people of God may with great propriety be exhorted to speak.

1. SPEAK TO THAT YOUNG MAN, whom you see often resort to scenes of gross or fashionable dissipation. He has been gradually and insensibly led astray by the seductive and authoritative influence of example. He has heedlessly followed in the path of some apparently respectable profligate, until he has lost the perception of the odiousness of his places of resort, and at the same time almost the power of escaping from their polluting and debasing atmosphere. You have witnessed how secretly he has been drawn within the power of the destructive vortex, and how feeble and unavailing are the