to disregard a single additional proof of the reality of our holy faith. Infidelity, of late, has changed its tone; it is no longer contemptuous, insulting, and audacious. It now assumes the pretence of reluctant doubt, laborious learning, and conscientious investigation. The bold blasphemer startles us no more; he wears the cloak of the student, and solicits us into temptation. Yet, more desperate corruptions of the truth of God, more profligate attempts to unsettle the soul, or a more inveterate passion to throw man into the grasp of moral death, were never exhibited in the most ostentatious periods of hostility to The volumes to which I allude are chiefly

the Gospel. continental.

They have not yet made serious progress in this country, but they are advancing; and wherever they shall triumph, the belief in a GOD, the reliance on an ATONEMENT, and the hope of a glorious IMMORTALITY, will be no more.

There is a tremendous weight of ignorant, insidious, and fierce opinion at this hour in action against Christianity. The contest exists throughout Europe. In one great section of the nominal Christian Church, the spirit of religion is totally extinguished in superstitious forms, and personal vice. In another, a subtle scepticism, affecting to treat inspiration as an accident, and the Word of God as the tradition of man, degrades the Scriptures to the level of a legend,

But, how is this two-fold assault to be resisted? The only weapons must be vigorous originality, vigorous logic, and vigorous learning. The minister of the Church must no more escape under a cloud of common-places. He must meet the conflict, in the strength of human and spiritual knowledge.

He lives in an age of presumptuous, yet, unquestionably, of growing intelligence. He must not suffer himself to

fall behind its requisitions. He lives in an age of solemn scoffing, and haughty prejudice. He must prepare himself for its encounter. He lives in an age of startling changes in the European mind; of the direct advance of the most fatal of all superstitions to authority; and of a general heresy of heart, as well as of religion. He must be furnished with the Christian panoply for this gigantic, and, perhaps, final struggle.

The pulpit is the natural refuge of truth; and the time may be approaching, when it will be the only refuge. What, then, should the minister of the Gospel be? A creature of intellectual accomplishment, and of hallowed energy; a bold, fervent, and indefatigable champion of the truth, with all the treasures of Scriptural and human knowledge open before him, and all employed in the testimony and the triumph of Revelation.

He must be no trifler with the triflers of doctrine; no softener of the deep things of God to the capricious ears of the world; no speaker of a flattering phraseology to hardened consciences. He must be full of ardor for the glory of God; full of earnestness for the salvation of men; and full of prayer for that Divine Spirit, which illumines, invigorates, and directs to the amplest purposes, the accomplished faculties of the Christian mind.

It is only by this large and sound possession of knowledge, that he can form himself upon the model of his Lord.

"Every Scribe, which is instructed into the Kingdom of God, is like unto a man that is an Householder, who bringeth out of his treasure things new and old.”

SERMON XXII.

A NEW YEAR'S ADMONITION.

BY REV. DAVID S. DOGGETT, D.D.

Editor of the Quarterly Review of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

"This year thou shalt die."-Jer. xxviii. 16.

I ASCEND this sacred place to-day with the words of an oracle upon my lips; words which startle and confound by the appalling intelligence which they bring at a time when we usually indulge the most pleasing anticipations. The ancient oracles uttered responses upon important occasions, and imparted, at least, an air of solemnity to great transactions. But their responses were always given with a studied ambiguity, so as, in no event, to risk their credit. The oracle of God also speaks, but with a distinctness which involves no obscurity, and with a tone of confidence which indicates no fear of the result. The prediction awaits the event with certainty. It speaks, and it is done. It commands, and it stands fast for ever.

I do not announce this passage in the spirit of prophecy, or even of gloomy foreboding. I do not desire to impair the joyous emotions with which you greet the opening year; to cast a shade over the bright sunshine of your hopes; to throw a melancholy complexion over the cheering prospects before you; to check the elasticity

of your spirits; or to fill you with a superstitious apprehension of your approaching end. It were cruel thus to tamper with the feelings of the human heart. I wish, rather, to bring your joys to the test of reality; to attemper your vivacity with the sobriety of truth; to impress upon you one of the momentous facts of your history; to remind you of a crisis which you must inevitably meet. I wish thus to induce you to build your happiness upon a foundation which no vicissitude can shake, and to fix your admiring gaze upon a sky which no cloud can darken. By avoiding such subjects as our text suggests, we deceive ourselves, and, in vain, strive to be happy by cherishing our ignorance. An ancient prince required a servant to follow him, and daily to exclaim in his ears, Man, thou art mortal." This is the truth which it is my duty to inculcate to-day. In discharging it, I direct your attention,

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I. To the dread authority with which the words are spoken. It is no less than the authority to create and to destroy. One Being alone possesses it; and no one has a right to assume it but by his permission. He can dispose of his creatures as he will. He kindled, and can extinguish, at pleasure, the fires which light up the temple of the universe. Nay, the whole universe itself, would dissolve, like the morning mist, if he should countermand the original order at which it arose into existence. It is thus, as a master, as a sovereign, as a judge, he can say to man, universally, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return;" and, to any particular individual, "This year thou shalt die."

In the exercise of this high prerogative, he has assigned a period to the life of man; he has decreed, that its continuity should be interrupted; that it should become one of the very conditions of human existence to die.

This decree was no part of his original plan, but was superinduced by sin. Had that plan remained uninvaded, the stream of life would, without impediment, have gently rolled its tranquil waters into the peaceful bosom of eternity; and we should have witnessed the pleasing spectacle of human beings passing, without sickness or decay, into a state of immortality. But the scene has been changed, the current has become obstructed, and the present has been violently severed from the future.

Absolute and irreversible as is the decision which has affixed the seal to man's mortality, it nevertheless appears, that there is something conditional in the term of his life; that he has a species of subordinate control over its duration; that, within those unalterable limits, in which, at its utmost extent, it has been reduced to a comparative span, the great Creator has conferred him the power upon of abridging or protracting it, by conforming to certain conditions. Thus, on the one hand, a disregard of the means of self-preservation, or a violation of the laws of health, will bring on a premature death; and, on the other, a careful observance of them, will generally insure a long and happy life; the attainment of which is urged upon every one, not only by an enlightened self-love, but by the weight of a strong moral obligation.

Some persons, it must be conceded, seem, by the providential circumstances in which they have been placed, to be deprived of any voluntary control over the duration of their lives. Death, with respect to them, cannot be postponed by such agencies as are usually successful in other instances. They are those who are subject to hereditary diseases; who are deprived of the means of self-protection from imminent danger; those whose organs are constitutionally defective; those whose vital energies have been exhausted: and others, who,