not a blessing; and the mercies by which you have failed to profit have enhanced unspeakably your condemnation. "He that knoweth his master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes;" and "he that, being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." Ah! how many of us have no heart for the service of God--no pleasure in that which enraptures the seraphim! Conscience impels them one way, but inclination draws them more powerfully the other; and duty is constantly sacrificed to carnal gratifications, worldly interests, and vain ambitions. They fear God, but love him not; and though they cannot sin without a tremor, the tremor is not strong enough to repress the sin. Generally at church, they do all they can to support the public worship and encourage the heart of the clergy; but here ends their all of duty, their all of practical religion, their all of gratitude for the unspeakable love of Christ--mere foliage without any satisfying fruit. And what can the end be but a blasting malediction from the Master? Long, indeed, may he continue his merciful efforts to make such Christians fruitful; but when his grace is habitually rejected or perverted--when his Holy Spirit is forced to strive in vain with an obdurate heart and a will obstinately set on evil--he will withhold his favors, or grant them less frequently and in inferior measure. Meanwhile sins multiply, bad habits grow stronger, the roots of vice strike deeper, and its branches grow broader and higher; till at length comes the hot wind from the desert, beneath which every green thing becomes crisp and sear. Christ rejected, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, and he who has lived in impenitence dies in despair. Oh! when conscience presents the long catalogue of uncancelled crimes, and only a few moments of wasted life remain, what can the dying sinner do? When his broken vows, abused mercies, and neglected opportunities, through all the corridors of memory come trooping up like the vengeful ghosts of the murdered, whither will he fly for refuge? Or the advent of the last enemy may be a sudden surprise, unexpected as the crash of a ship under full sail upon some sunken rock; launching the poor soul, all unprovided, with a shudder and a shriek into an unsounded sea. Or if a little space be given the delinquent, yet through the violence of his disorder the mind may be quite incapable of a rational repentance, drifting like the wrecked mariner upon a spar at the mercy of wind and wave. But in whatever form and with whatever circumstances Death may come, he comes ever to the impenitent as an avenger--avenger of God's neglected mercy--avenger of Christ's insulted love; and a fearful thing it is--fearful beyond all power of language to express--to die without hope in Christ and unreconciled to God. Oh! to be forced out at midnight, amidst howling tempests and roaring billows--no compass to