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been upon the lips of the most disreputable of men and confessed in the dens of sensualists and traitors. The very devils believe there is a God: are we, then, to turn atheists lest we should be rated in affinity with devils? No more are we to give up the right use of the powerful doctrine of the nearness of Christ to judge the world and reward his saints, because it has been the theme of fanatical dreamers and ill

balanced people. It has more than once aroused nations; and the Church itself shall only become rightly awake when once its members hear, believe, and heed the cry, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him."

The exercises to which these virgins were impelled by this cry also demand a moment's attention. They were not only effectually awakened by it, but at once set themselves to work. They all arose, "and trimmed their lamps."

To trim a lamp is to cleanse it, to remove the dead ashes and sooty incrustations around the flame, to raise and stir up the wick, to fill in oil, and to put every thing in complete condition to be used to the best advantage. The word here employed by the Savior is elsewhere translated garnish, adorn; as where the scribes and Pharisees are said to "garnish the sepulchres of the righteous," (Matt. xxiii. 29,) and where the New Jerusalem is said to be "prepared as a bride adorned for her husband," (Rev. xxi. 2,)—that is, beautified, embellished, put in handsome trim. And so these virgins set themselves to beautify their lamps, to have them burn brightly,

to put them in complete trim for the greatest brilliancy.

To trim our lamps as Christians is to make a thorough examination of our condition; to look into what is wanting, with a view to have every thing in perfect order; to put away from us all dead works, and the sooty crust of formalism and mere routine which is so apt to gather around and check the flame of our devotion; to raise the wick of faith, and to stir up the gift of God that is in us, that we may take firmer hold of the promises and lean the more directly upon Christ as our strength and salvation; and, by fresh acts of appropriation, to fill our souls with the fulness of grace and the unction of the Holy Spirit of promise, that we may be wholly consecrated to God and sealed unto the day of redemption. The great adornment of a Christian is a meek and living faith, the spirit of holiness dwelling in his heart, pervading his whole nature, and shining in every act, word, and feeling of his life. Such a man is one of the true lights of the world, being illumined with the living radiance of the great Sun of righteousness. And to examine one's self with a view to such an adornment, at the same time diligently putting in order all one's stores of faith and charity, is to trim one's lamp into readiness for the Bridegroom's arrival.

You will notice, also, that this doing up of lamps was necessary not on the part of the foolish virgins. only, but on the part of all of them, the wise as well as the foolish. Even those who were the best pre

pared were not prepared. Some have attempted to draw a distinction between the drowsiness and consequent unreadiness of the wise, and that of the foolish; but there is not the least foundation for this in the parable. Precisely the same declarations are made with reference to both classes.* It is as plainly written as can be, that there was not a lamp but needed trimming, and not a virgin that did not need to bestir herself quickly, when the signal of the coming was given, nor one that was not herself most thoroughly persuaded of the necessity of all possible haste in these renewed preparations to be ready, nor one that was not impelled to the most anxious activity to repair the now evident infirmities in her supposed readiness.

There are some Christians who talk about being perfect in their qualifications to meet the Lord; and I shall be glad if their persuasions in their own favor turn out to be founded in truth; but I am certified by this parable that many who think themselves ready will find, when they come to confront the solemn scenes of the great day, that they are far less prepared than they suppose. That midnight cry, “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh," will be the death-cry to many a feeling of security and sense of readiness even in the best of Christians. When that cry is once made evident in the soul, and the solemn reality of the Savior's close proximity is upon

"It seems impossible to gather any thing else, than that the whole professing Church of Christ will be found at last in the state here set forth."-Drummond on the Parables, p. 417.

us, there shall come with it a sudden laying open of the heart to itself, such as it never experienced until then. And with that disclosure shall weaknesses and deficiencies become manifest to each one's conviction of which there never was the remotest suspicion. A flood of light, suddenly pouring into all the darkest corners of the inmost spirit, will then show every man to himself exactly as he is. He shall awake as in a new world, where every thing is tried by new measurements and new and more searching tests. And the result will be more startling even to the very holiest than they ever previously imagined. Then shall the whole life come under quick review: the weaknesses of childhood long since forgotten, the hilarities of youth inwrought with sin, the ambition and worldliness of riper age, and every act from childhood onward, all shall rise before the conscience with every defect evident and unmistakable, and with great troops of moral ills and crimes, of which we have never dreamed, thrown out as by magic from their hidden ambuscade to menace and overwhelm our peace.

Whatever may be our attainments, we are all a great deal worse than we think we are. No living man has ever yet sounded all the depths and subtleties of his own depraved heart. No living man can take up in one grasp a just estimate of his entire history. As remarked by a great preacher, "The variety of events which succeed each other here below, and divide our life, fix our attention only on the present, and do not permit us to recollect it in

the whole, or fully to see what we really are. We never regard ourselves but in that point of view in which our present situation holds us out: the last situation is always the one which determines our judgment of ourselves; a sentiment of salvation, with which God sometimes indulges us, calms us on an insensibility of many years; a day passed in exercises of piety makes us forget a life of crimes; the declaration of our faults at the tribunal of penitence effaces them from our remembrance, and they become to us as though they had not been: in a word, of all the different states of our conscience we never see but the present.' It will not be so when we come to that moment of intense awakening when we are aroused to the reality that the Bridegroom's coming, with all his glorious train, is just upon us. Then shall the whole heart, for the entire life, stand out to view, with all its long-hidden depths revealed, all its unsuspected secrets suddenly laid bare, and every act, desire, word, thought, and deed, from its first feeling to its latest sigh, with the true estimate to be put on each, and the grand sum-total of the entire account, made visible in a moment; and we shall see at a single glance what we never before could rightly search out,—that is, our true selves. Not a crime but shall then be present to us; not a departure from holiness but shall display itself; not an omission, of which the catalogue is almost interminable, nor a vile motive entertained, nor a mean

* Massillon, on the Day of Judgment.

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