He

archs. Your choice and habits, not only shape your own destiny, they have a bearing as decided as in the days of Noah on those with whom you stand united. Let your lecturer then beseech you, not only as you value your own immortal hope, but as you value the best interests of those dearest to your hearts, never aid them in the formation of principles or habits unfriendly to the hope of life. Let not your negligence estrange them from the house of God; let not your follies tempt them to deny the Saviour. The apostle Paul has told us of women whose record is now displayed in heaven, that have ministered by an amiable and pious conduct to the salvation of their husbands. has made the appeal to others, and he has reversed the order: "how knowest thou woman, but thou mayest save thy husband? how knowest thou man, but thou mayest save thy wife?" Yes there is more, much more than you imagine depends on the tastes and tempers that you cultivate. We catch the spirit as we catch the manners of those whom we love and with whom we associate most. And woe to that person who chills or blights the nascent spirit of piety, by so abusing the sympathies of nature as to lead the partner of his choice away from God, away from his sanctuary, away from piety, away from hope. But happy for time, and happy for eternity, the union of those hands, which are linked in climbing Zion's heights, and in offer ing the same sacrifice before Jehovah.

SERMON X.

BIOGRAPHY OF NOAH. (CONTINUED.)

"And the Lord said unto Noah, come thou, and all thy house, into the ark: for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation." Gen. vii. 1.

THE common sense and feeling of mankind have dictated that new and important epochs; in the history of the world, should be regarded with a solemnity commensurate with the changes those epochs introduce. Even in the concerns of individual destiny, insensibility to the changes which affect our prospects, is rightly deemed a proof of depravity of heart as well as littleness of mind; while it is stated as the duty and conceded to be the glory of christi anized man, to "weep with those that weep, and rejoice with those that do rejoice." Hence that proneness to make every thing around us speak the strong feelings which new epochs introduce. On days of general joy, all that we can wield is put under requisition, dumb nature aids us in a thousand ways to tell the strong emotions that thrill every bosom; and we heighten and augment the so. lemnities of grief by signalizing our movements with all the pomp of woe. Who does not do homage to public sensibility when he sees the malefactor die in awful state? and who does not feel that these appendages of justice deepen and extend the impression of the scene?

A wise and mighty Providence can never be the last to notice or improve the principles implanted in the bosom of its creatures. Already has it sanctioned in a thousand instances, and in as many forms, this proneness to solemnize the grand æras of our history, by giving to every movement the most imposing aspect. By an appeal to our senses, he often commands a fixed attention to the vis itations of his mercy; by an appeal to the senses, he implants a strong remembrance of all that was most harrowing in his desolating judgments. Had Enoch and Elijah been wrapt suddenly from view, faint and unfrequent would have been our recollection of the change, compared with what we gather from the pomp of all his messengers, and his chariots of fire; and small would have been our warning from Abiram and his company, had not the opening earth impressed the senses with a lesson which we should have gathered more imperfectly from an ordinary judgment. And even all that we read, and all that we anticipate of the awful solemnities of the judgment day will be arranged upon this principle. The voice of that trumpet sounding long and loud; the grandeur of the array that shall burst upon the view when Messiah plants his great white throne aloft, and ranges on either side the interminable ranks of heaven's high principalities, the fierce and bickering flame that plays underneath and shoots far before the throne, the volumes opened and the judgment set-all, all that is most terrible to human sense and thought, is ordained that this creation may be impressed the more deeply by the solemnities of that dread hour, and that sense may consecrate to everlasting remembrance an event at once so important and so grand.

It was in perfect harmony with these great principles of

action, and in tender consideration of creation's wants, that his preparations for the judgment that was to consign a world to ruin were made on such a scale and continued through such a period. One hundred and twenty years were allotted to our race that they might be at length induced to consider and amend their ways, and defile the earth with blood and violence no more. During that long period (one hundred and twenty years,) the patriarch Noah raised the notes of warning, and bade the nations prepare to meet their God. On Shinar's plain he laid the first huge beams of that stupendous vessel that was destined to preserve a sample of all creation from the general wreck. And still as the work progressed he reiterated his solemn warnings to the hardened and determined spirits of the age, to spirits, says the apostle Peter, to spirits now in priYet one hundred and twenty years, he cried-yet sixty years yet thirty years, and then ye men of violence shall defile the earth no more.

son.

But the age was past amendment; the world past hope. A few there were, when he first began to prophecy, a few who like Noah walked with God and believed that what he threatened he would be faithful to fulfill. Noah had both a father and a grandfather alive upon the earth. Las mech, that father, and Methusaleh his progenitor, are among the very few whose praise is in the scriptures and whose record is on high. But these aged men, both of whom had been contemporaries of Adam the father of our race, Lamech for a period of 57 years, and Methusaleh during as many as 243; these men who thus formed a kind of links that united the first and the last of the ante-diluvian race, contemporaries alike with the first that were created and with the last that lived, they were not destined

to witness a calamity so distressing to all who felt an interest in the welfare of our race. Five years before the general deluge the eyes of Lamech closed in peace; and Methusaleh only lived till his venerable locks, now white with the winters of almost a thousand years, were no longer needed to reprove and shame the vices of the age. But a very few months before the deluge happened, the feeble old man was dismissed from all his pains, and the last of all the ante-diluvian fathers laid him down in peace.

And now the stage was clear, why should judgment sleep? why should perdition linger? Perdition did not linger-judgment did not sleep. The ark was completed, she was provisioned for her voyage; and the nations warned for one hundred and twenty years, but not amended— thousands warned by the sight of that prodigious vessel but neither terrified nor convinced, nothing now remained but to execute the judgment. A voice from heaven was addressed to Noah: "Come thou and all thy house into the ark." Directions were also given relative to all the fowls of heaven, and beasts and reptiles of the earth, that a few might be preserved, a pair of the unclean, and seven of every beast and fowl called clean, partly to serve the purposes of sacrifice, partly to re-stock the earth. All this was done. The beasts and fowls and reptiles, heavendirected, sought the place of refuge. Seven days was the patriarch occupied in arranging this strange cargo. Last of all he and his family entered in. This last, this little week was the closing period of the world's long respite. One would have thought that surely among the multitude who witnessed this last transaction; who had often heard the prophet's warnings, and for a long time witnessed his upright life, there would have been a portion found who