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eration, operate afterward to the forwarding of the believer in holiness? Yes. It matters not how early truth is known. Give it then a free entrance at the first opening of the mind, and pray that it may please the Spirit of God to use it for sanctification. The smallest lad in the school may be learning now what will be useful and precious truth to him, when he shall be shining a mighty orb in his profession, or afterward in heaven.

2. Is there not more hope, then, that the children in our Sabbath schools will be converted, than those who are to-day lining the fields, and fishing along the banks of the brook? No doubt. They will have treasured up truth to exert a sanctifying and elevating influence when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.

3. Will not revivals prevail in the next generation, among a younger class of sinners than in times past? Doubtless. As we approach the millennium, and the Sabbath-schools shall have matured minds earlier for reading and reflecting, a younger and still younger generation will be sanctified, till our revivals will all be in the Sabbath-schools; and God will at length ordain praise, according to his promise, from the mouths of babes and sucklings.

4. And shall we not have then in our churches more active young men, and a race of fathers and mothers that shall shine brighter in the church of God? Yes, young men will be indeed "strong," and the patriarchal age will return, and every gray head will indicate the presence of wisdom and holiness; thus, there will be far more select and pure assemblages for the supper of the Lamb.

5. And will not this be then a holier and happier world? So the prophet sung: "The wolf also shall

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dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them."

6. And will there not then ascend to God nobler recruits of the family of believers than in any of the ages that have gone by? Yes; new constellations will appear in heaven. And the various successions of the sanctified that shall then, at different times, come hometo glory, will forever shine more brilliantly in the kingdom of their Father.

7. And can we do nothing to hasten on that day, and swell the halleluiahs of heaven? Yes; let us seize the dear youth or child, who a year or two hence will feel himself too old to be a scholar, and press him into the Sabbath-school and Bible class, and have his mind imbued with holy truth, before he gets that palsying maxim, "too old." Let us all gird ourselves anew; let us cheerfully discharge every obligation; and let it be our holy ambition to share largely in the coming glory. They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars forever and over.

SERMON XXVII.

THE GREAT PHYSICIAN.

Psalms ciii. 3.

Who healeth all thy diseases.

THIS Psalm appears to have been a song of thanksgiving on being recovered from sickness. Hence it is full of those tender recollections that are prone to recur to the pious mind in such a season. "He will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger forever." "He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities." "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him for he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust."

With a mind filled with such reflections, David came with his thank-offering to God, and called upon his soul, and all that was within him, to bless that infinite goodness which preserved him in the time of his calamity. It is, however, quite immaterial on what occasion the Psalmist ascribes to God the praise of healing all his diseases.

In nothing, perhaps, can pious minds, see more distinctly the good hand of God, than in the plagues and pains to which sin has subjected their dying bodies.

I. Disease itself affords us one of our richest luxuries. This remark will seem more paradoxical than it really is. But I presume no one who has been laid upon the

bed of pain, will consider the proposition false. There are moments, when, as the poet sings,

We shift from side to side by turns,

And 'tis a poor relief we gain,

To change the place but keep the pain.

In the attacks of disease, the jaded spirit is restless and · perhaps rebellious. A day has sometimes seemed an age, and a night a little eternity. The sun has seemed to stop in his course, and the moon has delayed her going down. The index that told of the passing hours, seemed riveted to the point where it stood. But the paroxism subsides, and the pleasure then felt in a single moment, out weighs an hour of perfect health. To be able to breathe without a groan, is then more pleasant, than when one may wander the fields in May, and catch the richest softest zephyr that ever fanned creation. In these precious intervals, every minute gathers the comforts of an hour, and every hour the pleasures of a month. It is impossible to describe, to one who has not known the joy of a kind and timely release from the fierceness of disease, the exquisite enjoyments of such an hour. And in this we see the goodness of God. "Sorrow may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." There may remain still great weakness, and much, that in other circumstances, would be called distress, but this is all forgotten amid the luxury of a temporary release, and a hope still better. One that has entirely escaped those severe attacks which immediately strip life of its comforts, darkens every prospect, and unhinges the mind from the pursuit of science, friendship, and piety, has failed to enjoy one of the sweetest repasts ever tasted, except in some hours of divine refreshment. Now, how

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good is God, that, since we deserve and expect to be scourged, he should mingle, with the pains and miseries of the sick-bed, such high enjoyments! Should enable us to extract from the very agonies of a tortured body, high and precious delights! If I should look through the fields of creation, for some one high and paramount. testimony of the divine beneficence, beside the gift of a Saviour, I should despair of finding one that would lead me more promptly to absolute assurance of God's love, than I am led by the seasons of gracious relief that interlard the agonies of the sick-bed. But for these relaxations from suffering, how soon would nature sink even by the slightest disease! How many days would one endure the unceasing rage of a burning fever? the perpetual throbbing of a mangled limb? the gripe of a cholic? or even the aching of a tooth? How soon would life go out in agony, with any disease that attacks. us, did not nature recruit her strength, while the disease intermits its rage. A few hours, when the pains have been unceasing, have often brought to the sepulchre the very champions of our race, men who had seemed to defy death, in any other armour, but the forked lightening, or the eruptions of some treacherous Etna or Vesuvius.

Now, God would have been good, if his judgments had not been so mingled with mercy; if diseases had never quit the contest till life was conquered, or the hand of God stayed the plague. Then the aching tooth had proved mortal, and an infection of the smallest joint had in a few days carried putrefaction to the very fountain of life. Hence, we can make no calculation as to the probable issue of any disease. If the disease makes its attack at somewhat distant periods, nature has time to

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