form of systematic and scientific development. How much less can he expect ever to stand up side by side, with those intellectual giants of the past and the present, who have explored the centre and the circumference of human learning?

The analogies of art and of nature, are not without instructive significance in their relation to this topic. For in works of material, as of spiritual formation, it is by processes of patient and long-continued effort that those ends are attained which are wont to charm by their beauty, or startle by their greatness. It was thus that the builders of the pyramids reared their monuments in the pathway of the ages. Thus, painting, and sculpture, and architecture have been made fit vehicles for transmitting the character and the story of other times. Thus, too, in the depths of the ocean, the minute architects of the coral island, add atom to atom, and cliff to cliff, until at length their work overtops the waves with its coronal of fruits and flowers, existing ever after, as a home of commerce and a habitation for men. Such examples may be to us as living instructors. Were the pyramids reared without effort? Were the master-pieces of ancient art produced without patience? Are islands built up from the depths of the ocean without time? Time, and patience, and effort, are also the elements of intellectual and moral greatness, and he who will not use them may never hope to build for himself a character which other ages will delight to hold in remembrance.

4. Diligent effort in the work assigned us, is also a condition to the accomplishment of all high and honorable aims. There are objects embraced in the business of human life, the promotion and accomplishment of which should be to every mind matters of ceaseless endeavour. Some of these I have already brought into view, as indicating common features of the work assigned us. But there is a more specific view of this topic, which is here suggested. In those particular spheres of action, within which men individually seek their appropriate work, if it is their desire to act a truly manly part, they are accustomed to form for themselves precise and definite aims and I may add, the more precise and definite, the more likely are they to be successful. He who enters upon life without such aims, and who hopes to accomplish its high purposes, and to solve its momentous problems, without bringing to his work steadiness and definiteness of purpose, has no cenception of the true dignity of human nature. He relinquishes the just prerogatives of a rational and immortal being. We say not, indeed, that such an one will never be successful, in that low sense of success, which is measured by circumstances of pecuniary ease and profit. For men are sometimes seen to be borne on to fortune in spite of their own imbebecility and fickleness of purpose: just as straws in agitated waters -floating now in eddies, and now carried hither and thither by conflicting currents, are sometimes seen to find a quiet resting place upon the shore. I need not say that such cases are rare

exceptions. I need not tell you that men who have not learnt to form for themselves precise and definite plans for the accomplishment of high and honorable aims, and who have no purpose for which to live other than to eat, and drink, and be merry -men who are not capable of bringing up to their work the strength of an earnest and manly enthusiasm-thus giving to it the homage of their best endeavours, and their most persevering efforts are not fit for the business and the conflicts of life. They may enter upon that business; they may gird themselves for those conflicts; they may flatter themselves and beguile others with visions of anticipated success; but unless they are made successful in defiance of their own weakness, such visions will prove but idle dreams.

5. Diligent effort in the work assigned us, is a condition to the attainment of all real and permanent enjoyment. Exemption from labour-freedom from the cares, and toils, and responsibilities of a diligent life, are, indeed, in the view of not a few, essential elements of a truly happy existence. But they, whose circumstances and inclinations allow them practically to carry out this conception, are wont to find it a most fatal mistake. For of all kinds of misery, next to the wretchedness of positive suffering, that of having nothing to do is the most painful. The mistake, too, which such men commit, is the greater, because while congratulating themselves with the idea that they are men of leisure, and above the necessity of employing their hands, or their intellects in work, are yet really engaged in a task the most toilsome and the most hopeless ever yet undertaken by man—the task of getting rid of time, without useful employment. To pass through life, without having anything good, and useful, and ennobling to do-to spend its precious hours without being animated with the hope of accomplishing something worthy of an intelligent and immortal being-to rise each successive day, while the years are. pursuing their rounds, feeling that the night has been too long, and that the day will be yet longer: and saying, when the morning dawns, Oh, that it were night! and when the night comes, Oh, that it were morning!-thus to live listless, and idle, and useless, except as employment is found in feeding, and pampering the body-this, we say, is misery, compared with which the life of the galley-slave is a life of blessed enjoyment. The neces sity of diligent effort in accomplishing the high purposes for which life has been given, and this as a condition to the attainment of all that is great in character, and in human enterprise, has been appointed by God himself. He knows what is our constitution, and what our destiny, and what the essential elements of enjoyment here and hereafter. He desires the happiness of his creatures more intensely than any other being. He has given proof of that desire, in the gift of His own Son to a life of toil and suffering upon the earth for the salvation of men and yet it is His own direction, urged and reiterated in His word, that they shall themselves labour for the rewards of the blessed in heaven, by working out their own salvation with fear and trembling. He,

then, who lives without work not only disregards the appointment of God, but lives with no rational hope of happiness in this life, or in the life to come.

The subject which has occupied our attention suggests important lessons of instruction-important to all; but especially appropriate to those who are about to enter upon the duties and responsibilities of active life. Allow me then, in conclusion, to bring into view a few of these lessons.

1. It may furnish you, in the first place, with a standard by which to estimate the various pursuits in which men are accustomed to engage in life: and this, whether those pursuits assume the form of amusements, or of serious and business-like employments. We may recognize the great truth implied in our text, that work, directed ever to the accomplishment of God's will, constitutes the proper business of man in this world; and yet feel no hesitation in admitting that there are modes of relaxation which are both innocent and useful-innocent, because they violate no law; and useful, because they may serve to invigorate the body, refresh the mind, and thus prepare the whole man for engaging with a better zest in the higher employments of life. On the other hand, there are amusements of a widely different character-amusements which bring weakness and disease upon the body, which relax and unnerve the mind, and which render distasteful and odious whatever is worthy of pursuit in a truly manly and virtuous course. There are those whose only conception of enjoyment is that of access to such amusements, and with whom life itself seems but a continued holiday of pleasure, to be broken only by that satiety, and disgust with which a life of pleasure is wont to exhaust itself and defeat its own ends. So, also, there are those whose highest conception of the business of life is that of employment in pandering to the vices of others: in fanning the flames of unholy appetite; in giving unreal, but scductive charms to the multiplied forms of unlawful gratification : thus acting as allies to Satan in tempting to their own ruin those who have not the strength of purpose to turn aside from the paths of the destroyer. I need not say to you that such pleasures and such employments can have no place in the work assigned us by the Author of our being. In contact with those whose lives are devoted to such pursuits, the inculcation of inspired wisdom must be the talisman of your safety,-"Touch not, taste not, handle not." You may not tamper with their incentives to evil, and yet retain the purity of your own minds. You may not be drawn to their places of seduction, and yet retain the integrity of your own principles.

But, there are employments of a yet higher character; employments both honorable and useful in themselves, but which may yet be so pursued as not to accomplish your appointed work in life. You may love knowledge for its own sake, and pursue it with the zeal and intensity of a master-passion; but if it be with

out regard to its use, in subserving the cause of truth and virtue among men, you will not fill up in life the measure of your capacities and responsibilities. You may love property, and labour for its accumulation, but if it be only for the pleasure of accumulating and hoarding, you will but realize the miser's experience in life, and the miser's bitterness in death. The longing of your hearts may be for power and influence among men, and you may struggle for it in the arena of political strife, or fight for it in the conflicts of the battle field; but if you have no higher aspiration, life will only work out for you in the end results of disappointment and sorrow. It matters not, in fine, to what end your labours are directed. They may be those in which the highest achievements of earthly distinction and greatness are wont to be made; but forget not that those labours are to be pursued only in recognition of God's will, and God's authority. Nothing less than this will meet the standard of your duties and responsibilities

2. But, in the second place, our subject may show you with what habit and attitude of mind you should apply yourselves to the accomplishment of your work in life. Said the Saviour, in answer to the interrogations of his parents, when he was first entering upon his work,-"Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" And this was the feeling which animated his life; and which he carried into every scene of labour and of suffering. This, too, prompted his words, when he said, in the significant language of our text,-"I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day." His was a habit of steady, continued application to the work assigned him His mind did not waver and fluctuate; going from object to object, and from one scheme of effort to another, without the successful accomplishment of any. Its energies were not wasted in habits of dreaming reverie, or of idle speculation, or in baseless visions of good to be accomplished under circumstances impossible in the nature of things. His conception of the work assigned him was clear and definite; and the attitude of his mind was ever that of diligent attention to its accomplishment. In this, as in all things else, let his example be your guide and pattern. Carry it with you into the fields of effort and of conflict, on which you are entering. Carry it with you in the business of self-culture and improvement, until you have become animated by his spirit, and assimilated to his character. Carry it with you in your resistance to the power of evil within and around you; and in all your efforts to do good, by subserving the cause of truth and happiness among men, let that be with you the standard of your aims, and your high incentive to diligence and fidelity in the work.

3. Remember, too, as did the Saviour, that the night cometh in which no man can work. And if, perchance, it shall be to you the closing up of a long life, ushering in at last the darkness of the grave, its coming will, notwithstanding, soon be upon you, cutting short your work, and closing up the record of your doings. Yes, the night cometh! It may come before you have dreamed

of its approach, and while, as yet, your life seems to be in its meridian, overshadowing the day with clouds, and giving monitions of an early and premature darkness. Will you not, then, be diligent while it is day? Will you not see to it that your work is done, and well done in its appointed season? The night may then come, and it shall not be to you the night of a lost eternity. The night may come, and you shall greet its coming as the purcursor of a bright and more glorious day in that world where God is the light, and where the sun of your glory and happiness shall never go down.