which the true believers have been at least watching, and contending, and praying? My brethren, it may seem, no doubt, an alarming reflection, but it is still a faithful saying, and confirmed by all our experience, that if _ten years more_ have not carried us forward in our heavenly course, if they do not find us growing in grace, in the knowledge of ourselves and in the knowledge of Christ Jesus, they will too probably find us confirmed in evil; more estranged from God; more ripe for judgment; the chains of sin bound faster around us, and all our habits more difficult of change; nay, even impossible to be changed, until that Spirit from on high be given us, who can at any time turn a man from darkness to light, but who, the longer He is wilfully slighted, is the less willing to be sought. These are some of the topics, and, as I well know, they are but a few of them, which a retrospect of this interval might urge upon us as individuals; and these arise only from a review of our own position as the survivors of this new period of probation which the Lord in mercy has permitted us to pass. But I might well ask you to cast your eyes once more back, (it will be wise and profitable for us to do so,) in order that we may call to mind how many persons, some of them dear to us as our own souls, _began_ this same period with us, who have not lived like us to witness its _close_. If the thought suggests to any of my hearers some recollections of pain, and sorrow, and separation, may they have the grace given them to consider that it is the brightest light which casts the deepest shadows; and that there are trains of thought which can edify while they sadden us; like the shade of Peter’s body, which, as it passed across the multitudes, gave life and health to whatever it obscured. {11a}