place in the Christian race, such a man recovers not only the friendship of God, but the merits of his past obedience. There is a process of restoration in grace as well as in nature. Penance has power to heal the wounds and knit over the gaps which sin has made. What does the Holy Scripture say? "_I will restore to you the years which the locust, and the canker-worm, and the mildew, and the palmer-worm hath eaten._" [Footnote 65] [Footnote 65: Joel ii. 25.] {310} Many a man's life, which has not been without sin, has yet a character of continuity and a uniform tending toward God. I believe there are many who have this kind of perfection. They cannot say, "I have not sinned," for they have had bitter experience of their own frailty; but they can say, "I have sinned, but I have not made sin a law to me. I have not allowed myself in sin, or withdrawn myself from Thy obedience. I have not gone backward from Thee. I have fallen, but I have risen again. O Lord, Thou hast been my hope, even from my youth, from my youth until now, until old age and gray hairs." And now, my brethren, if we try our past lives and our present conduct by the thought of the work we have to do on earth and the persevering attention we ought to pay to it, do we not find matter for alarm? and does not our Lord's question convey to us the keenest reproach? "Why stand ye here all the day idle?" Yes, idle; that is the word. There is all the difference in the world between committing a sin in the time of severe temptation, for which we are afterward heartily sorry, and doing nothing for our salvation. And is not this our crime, that we are idlers and triflers in religion? What have our past lives been? What years spent in neglect, or even in sin? What long periods of utter forgetfulness of God? What loss of time? What excessive anxiety about this world? What devotion to pleasure? And are we now really doing any thing for heaven? Are we really redeeming the past by a true penance? Are we diligent in prayer, watchful against temptation, watchful of the company we keep, watchful of the influence we exert, watchful over our tempers, watchful to fulfil our duties, watchful against habits of sin? Are we living the lives God intended us to live? Can we say, "I am fulfilling the requirements of my conscience, in the standard which I propose to myself?" Ah! is not this our misery, that we have left off striving? that we are doing nothing, or at least nothing serious and worthy of our salvation? "Why stand ye all the day idle?" _All the day_. Time is going. {311} Time that might have made us holy, time that has sanctified so many others who set Out with us in life, is gone, never to return. The future is uncertain; how much of the day of life is left to us we know not. And graces have been squandered. No doubt, as long as we live we shall have sufficient grace to turn to God, if we will; but we know not what we do, when we squander