in the cares and hopes of adding house to house, and field to field, will ridicule all that I, or even a prophet, or an apostle may say on this head. Yet the truth still remains unshaken, and all its important consequences continue undiminished.

Vanity of vanities" is not only written, but deeply engraved on all objects and pursuits of men which do not lead the soul to the contemplation of its Maker, and prepare it for his presence and eternal enjoyment. Only let a few more years be added to those we have already seen, and this, at present, scorned and rejected truth, will be fully embraced, and must be acknowledged by those who fill the most exalted, and by those who occupy the most humble, stations on earth.

Think, reader, for a few moments on the rapidity with which our time flies, and on the instability, the ever-changing nature of all earthly possessions.-Alas! for this world; it can present man with nothing that is unfading, or certain, or substantially good. Its choicest gifts are but as shining bubbles, and its largest donations cannot ease us of one hour's pain, or stay the uplifted hand of death for a single moment. Life itself is so frail and uncertain, that, in the beautiful and emphatic language of Scripture, it is said to be "as the flower of the field;" even as that flower, whose parent grass (much longer

lived than the blossom it produces) is in existence to-day, but “ ere to-morrow is cut down, dried up, and withered." Hence the vanity, the madness, of sighing and labouring after earthly possessions, and not endeavouring to be rich towards God. And almost as great is that folly and madness which consists in daily putting off the concerns of the soul to a future period!— And yet how common is this! When the seaman is in port, his conscience sometimes smites him, and the still small voice of his Maker whis. pers, "Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near." But, instead of complying, he says, "When I am out at sea I will think of these things." By and by he finds himself at sea, and the same monitor is again knocking at the door of his heart, and urging him to seek, first, "the kingdom of God and his righteousness." Still he drowns the voice in the bustling scenes of nautical duty, or quiets its misgivings by promising, "when he returns again to port he will obey." This is the fatal rock on which many an admiral and many a foremast man has split, and lost his soul. No language can sufficiently set forth the folly of such conduct. Well was it said by a Christian poet:

"What folly can be ranker? like our shadows "Our wishes lengthen, as our sun declines. "No wish should loiter, then, this side the grave.

"Our hearts should leave the world before the knell

"Calls for our carcases to mend the soil.

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Enough to live in tempests, die in port;

Age should fly concourse, cover in retreat "Defects of judgment, and the will subdue; "Walk thoughtful on the silent, solemn shore "Of that vast ocean it must sail so soon,

"And put Good Works on board; and wait the wind "That shortly blows us into worlds unknown; "If unconsidered too, a dreadful scene."

YOUNG'S NIGHT THOUGHTS, 5. 661.

The only way to form a proper estimate of all our present hopes, possessions, and pursuits, is to consider them in reference to eternity. And the best school to acquire this lesson in, is the solemn silent chamber of the dying mortal, who once was envied as a prosperous or great man. This subject was formerly taken up by a celebrated writer; who, in describing a person that had thus lived and laboured, only for the things of time and sense, follows him to the closing scene, and describes that scene with peculiar sublimity and elegance." Whoever," says he, "would know how mucn piety and virtue surpass all external goods, might have seen them weighed against each other, where all that gives motion to the active, and elevation to the eminent; all that sparkles in the eye of hope, and pants in the bosom of suspicion, at once became dust in the balance, without weight

and without regard. Riches, authority, and praise, lose all their influence, when considered as riches which to-morrow shall be bestowed upon another, authority which shall this night expire for ever, and praise which, however merited, or however sincere, shall, after a few moments, be heard no more."

So, when the rustic cottager, or the hardy laborious seaman, lays himself down for the last time on his earthly couch, and looks back on all the labours of his hands, and all the anxieties and hopes and fears, which, from time to time, have occupied his mind, he sees and feels, that all has been vanity and vexation of spirit, while the soul's eternal salvation and a heavenly kingdom were overlooked or neglected. Naked he came into this world, and naked must he return out of it. We may seek him, either in the rounds of earthly greatness, or in his humble laborious occupations; but he shall not be. The place that knew him yesterday will know him no more for ever.

When I think on those many of my former companions, and of the comrades of the poor shipwrecked mariner at my door, who have been torn from this world, and from this life, at so unexpected, and, many of them, at so unprepared an hour, my heart really aches, especially for the fate of two ships who were return

ing home from foreign stations, and foundered, and all on board perished, to the number of between six and seven hundred souls! The young man's tale of the loss of his comrades, brought, as I before observed, to my recollec tion the loss of these, and many other of my former acquaintance, and the whole that presented itself to my mind would have furnished real matter for the tragic muse. For a time I allowed my thoughts to dwell on the subject, and once more to place the melancholy scenes, as it were, before me, and to expatiate on them after this manner :-" Those hundreds of our fellow men, just sunk beneath the waves, had lately each some tie which bound them to the world; 'some friend, or partner dear,' which linked them close to this painful checkered life, and made its bitters, in some degree, palatable. All the way from a foreign station towards their native land, they had indulged many a fond reverie, and shortened the tedious night-watches by anticipations of soon meeting a parent, or lover, or wife, or child. Calculating on their arrival in a British port, these relations themselves had, week after week, like the mother of Sisera, looked out at the window, and cried through the lattice, 'Why are they so long in coming? surely they have sped! without doubt they have conquered the dangers of the sea, and have