The temperance reformation is a holy enterprise. It was commenced under the influence of the Bible, and its holy philanthropy, after the world had abandoned the hope of reform. It began in the Church. Devoted men of God gave it the first impulse. They discovered the grandest principle which ever rewarded the toil of philosophersthat total abstinence would rid the world of its direst curse; its deadliest plague, whose ravages were yearly widening. It was begun in prayer, and I have been surprised that Christians could doubt the propriety of praying in the public meetings connected with this subject. Cease to associate prayer with it, let it swing off to the low grounds of expediency and political economy, and the cause inevitably runs down. We owe all our success to the smiles of God. Let the Church still and perpetually seek their continuance. The Church is bound by all her vows and professions, by her covenant obligations, by her duty to man and to the cause of virtue, to sustain every society which seeks to reform community by proper means. There are several ways by which she may act in her appropriate sphere in accomplishing this work.

1. By preaching. It is the duty of her ministers to exhibit this subject in the light of the Bible and eternity. If it involved a mere question of political economy, affecting the national industry and wealth; if it is a merely medical question of the healthfulness or unhealthfulness of a certain substance, then it comes not specifically within the scope of the gospel preacher. But if the traf fic in intoxicating liquors, and their use as a beverage, is a sin, and an enormous sin; if the souls of men are destroyed by this traffic; if its success and extension is the overthrow of religion; if the millennium cannot come while it flourishes; then must the ministers of Christ sound the notes of alarm. They must give a clear and solemn exhibition of the guilt and the everlasting conse.

quences connected with these practices. In fact, I see not how we may expect the discontinuance of a traffic in which so many are interested, unless the public mind is led to contemplate it strongly in its everlasting consequences to drinkers and venders. I know we often hear remarks about going too fast for public sentiment. And I would, that there were as much time as we have now occupied to discuss that point in this connexion. There is a plausible, extensive and mischief-working error concerning it. I would ask this question. Should ministers in preaching, follow public sentiment, keep pace with it, or lead and reform it? If a minister tells the people what they knew before, he may refresh their memories; but he cannot instruct them as a scribe who brings forth " things new and old." If he tells the people, those things are wrong, which they knew to be wrong before he told them; he will not offend them indeed, nor incur the charge of fanaticism. But will he do them any good? If public sentiment is ignorant, who is to enlighten it? If it is wrong, who is to rectify it? Is it not the very business of the prophets of the Lord, the teachers of morality and religion? Must they not show the people, that many things which they received from their fathers, and which are now fashionable and much admired, are nevertheless wicked? Or must they always wait until the people find out from some other source what is right, and what wrong? So did not Enoch, nor Lot, nor Jeremiah, nor John, nor our Redeemer. Public sentiment was altogether wrong on many important points in morals; yes, and it was defended on those very points by reference to the Bible, but our Saviour plainly instructed and solemnly rebuked them. To be sure, it did not much increase his popularity. Nor can it, in the nature of the case. То oppose what is popular, must be unpopular. But his satisfaction was found in purifying the

moral atmosphere, and in saving millions then unborn. from error, sin, and eternal ruin. If these principles be correct, we shall benefit you and the cause of temperance but little, if our discourses, snail-paced and cowardly, creep up only as high as public sentiment has reached. It is our duty to gaze into eternity, and borrow the light of that day, when the pleadings of custom and appetite and interest will not be heard; but truth-clear, simple, eternal truth-will try every man's work and character, and fix his destiny. And if any reproaches must come on any class of men for advocating truth, let the leaders receive the first charge.

The Church must sustain it by

2. Her practice. Theory, however correct, will not move the world, if those who advocate it contradict it by their practice. If the traffic is murder, how can Church members continue to buy and sell it? I only ask the conscience of the Church, and the common sense of the world. If the Church is the light of the world, what kind of light does that member hold out who sells alcohol? The light of an ignis fatuus, it shines to decoy and destroy. The point is settled, that so long as religion is respected, the world will not rise above the Church in morals. One professor of religion, who is consistent in other respects, by continuing to vend this poison, may quiet the conscience and harden the heart of fifty others in a city like this, and be an effectual shield to guard them from the truth. "Be not partaker of other men's sins." The Church is bound

3. To purify herself. Is it a murderous traffic; or is it immoral even on any other ground? then how can any Christian Church admit to its bosom and welcome as a faithful, obedient disciple of Jesus Christ, one who continues in it? As a pastor, I could not welcome to our communion and Christian fellowship such a person.

This has been viewed as very high and untenable ground. I cannot see one inch below it, a footing for consistency; I shall be thankful if it be there, to find it. If there be a vender in the bosom of your Church, labour with him in love, pray for him, weep over him; but O! leave him not until he has abandoned the cruel, guilty traffic. If he does not, see where he will stand in the judgment day. Jesus Christ will arraign a poor trembling culprit, and say to him, "I was sick and in prison and hungry; and your crime is, that you neither visited nor fed me." Lord, when he inquires. "In that poor creature, and that. Depart therefore accursed, into everlasting fire." Then he will turn to this vender, and say, "Come, blessed of my Father; for I was sick and you visited, hungry and you fed me." When? he inquires. Jesus points to the same as before. What will the condemned wretch think of justice, when he recognises in those very beings those whom this Church member had made drunkards; whose drunkenness caused their sickness, imprisonment, and hunger? The crime of one was, he had not attended to them after they were sick and hungry. But the virtue of the other was, that he not only had not regarded their wretchedness after it existed; but he was the grand, voluntary, selfish author of it all, in the midst of light and rebukes. O tell it not in Gath, that such are the hopes of Christians!

Vender of alcohol-go home, and write upon every vessel containing this substance, "Thou shalt not kill." And may the finger of God write on your heart" No murderer hath eternal life abiding in him,"

SERMON X.

VALEDICTORY SERMON.

"I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth."—3 John 4.

JOHN was a venerable Christian Pastor; and when we use his language as expressive of our feelings, we do it with an humbling consciousness of unworthiness. Yet I think I can adopt this language with much sincerity, concerning a church over which I have watched, and wept, and prayed. The end of a pastor's labours and desires is, to lead his flock to walk in the truth. Desiring to condense my ministry, as it were, into one closing discourse, I adopt this sentence, with the hope that it will be brought afresh to your memory, whenever you think of me,“I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth."

TO WALK IN TRUTH.

It is a beautiful idea. Pilate once asked, "What is truth?" Had he waited for an answer, he might have heard it sublimely said, "I AM TRUTH!" O! had he for a moment laid aside the judge and become the child, his dark and wandering soul might have seen the dawning of a new and eternal day. What is truth? Things as they are, things as God apprehends them, facts, eternal realities. Where is truth? It used to be written all over the heavens. The earth was a rich volume, inscribed with truth on its ever varying pages. The heart of man was instinct with truth. But the heavens are now covered