close of it for the reviewing eye to fix upon; something for God, for your fellow-creatures, for yourself. Live for Christ, and thus best live while you live, and be best prepared when you are called upon to die, for as you live, thus will you die, and thus will you be judged. There remains, however, one more class to which our text refers with great propriety, and that is the aged. If the young and middle-aged may fall, the old must; there is no remedy or human skill, or physician's antidote against the wrinkled brow, the failing memory, and the stiffening of the joints. "The days of our years," says the Psalmist, "are threescore years and ten, and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away." How soon this may take place, who can declare? What attitude, then, becomes those who have upon them declining years? I know no better answer than to gaze upon that patriarchal couple in to-day's Gospel, Simeon and Anna; what a beautiful picture of declining life as it is calmed and brightened by the comforts of religion and the hope of nearing heaven. How impressive to see them meet in the temple of God, and taking upon their arms the blessed object of their faith and prayer for all those long rolling years, speaking of Him, as it says, unto all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem, finally singing their "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." "The hoary head is a crown of glory," says Solomon, "if it be found in the way of righteousness." Let the aged saints, then, among us use their advancing years to speak, as years' and hearts' experience alone can speak, of Him who is their Salvation and Consolation; let them, by the respect due them, cause us to more greatly respect Him whom they have learned to know, and by their lives be an example to the younger generations how to live. Having, then, regarded our text: "We all do fade as a leaf," let us have learned, as these years pass away, how to receive the crown, incorruptible, and undefiled, and which passeth not away. Amen. NEW YEAR'S DAY. Our Father which art in heaven.--_Matt. 6, 9._ Dr. Luther, after his inimitable fashion, once remarked: "The Lord's Prayer is the greatest martyr upon earth. It is a pity above all pity that such a prayer by such a Master should be so terribly abused in all the earth. Many pray the Lord's Prayer a thousand times a year, and though they prayed it a thousand years, yet have they not properly prayed one letter thereof."