knowledge and happiness, it is, at the same time, solemn to remember the duties that fall upon us. In the opening of a new age, we are the actors in this great system. Upon us it depends, whether the progress of mankind is to be accelerated or retarded. And there is no sentiment with which we can more nobly meet the season, than the profound conviction, that, upon our conduct, in our different situations or conditions, depends the cha racter and happiness of the age that is to follow us.

4. There is another reflection, my bre thren, of a still more solemn kind, which must naturally have occurred to us all. Of the period of which we have seen the beginning, none of us can see the end. Long ere the century closes, all of us, young or old, rich or poor, will be numbered with the dead. "The silver cord "will be loosed," and "the golden bowl

"broken;" and "every spirit" will have returned" to the God who gave it."

It is a reflection, in truth, to which no ignorance nor barbarity hath rendered the human mind insensible. Even amid all the licentious worship of antiquity, it was upon these occasions the plaintive call of the herald," Come to those solemnities, "which no living eye hath seen, and which "no eye will see again.

Amid this dark and tremendous prospect, is there no voice which whispers to you, my brethren, how good ""for you "it is to be here: or that prostrates you in these moments before the throne of Nature, in" thankfulness to Him who hath given " you the victory," through Jesus Christ your Lord? "And I was "in the spirit (says the evangelist,) upon "the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a great voice, as that of a trumpet,

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saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the

"First and the Last. And I turned to the "voice that spake with me, and I saw

one like unto the Son of Man, clothed "with a garment down to the foot, and "girt about with a golden girdle. His "head and his hairs were white like

snow, and his eyes were as a flame of "fire, and his voice as the sound of many

waters. And when I saw him, I fell "at his feet as dead; and he laid his " right hand upon me, saying unto me, "Fear not, I am the First and the Last, "I am He that liveth, and was dead"And behold I am alive for evermore, " and have the keys of Hell and of "Death."

These, my brethren, are the sublime anticipations of the true Christian-these the hopes which He, "who liveth for ever ❝ and ever, " hath given to the weakness of mortality. It is to that greater world, (which, ere this century shall close, all of

us must know) that the eye of piety is permanently directed. It is there that the great system of Almighty Wisdom shall finally be displayed; when all doubts shall cease, and all anxieties be dispelled; when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality; and when all the tears which life hath raised, shall be wiped away for

ever.

It is to this great termination that time is advancing; every thing that we see around us, teaches us that life is an imperfect scene, of which the mighty conclusion is yet to come: and every year, as it passes, takes to a better world some of those whom we have loved or honoured. In the last receptacle of mortality, the rich and the poor "make their bed together; and there we alike deposit the youthful head, whose opening virtues are to blossom in a nobler clime; and the "hoary hairs,"

which descend at last to the grave, "full of

This last scene, my brethren, we have lately witnessed. The same hours which

closed the century, closed also the life of one, * who, for half its period, has been the greatest ornament of the church of this land, and who has left to every church a model of piety and virtue which no age can destroy. Over this recent and ever memorable grave, the tears of humanity will fall; but it is not fit they should be the tears of unmanly sorrow: it is fit, on the contrary, while we stand around it, that our hearts should kindle at those ashes which yet are scarcely cold: that while we see the "death of the

* THE REVEREND DR HUGH BLAIR.-This great and amiable man died a few days before this sermon was preached; and, after the lapse of so many years, I confess that I have still a melancholy satisfaction in being able to pay this humble tribute to a memory which I have not ceased to love and to venerate.