nity than I ever was, and less prepared to enter on it. I have made progress to judgment, but have increased my account. When the year commenced, mercy cried, "Lord, let him alone this year also:—if he bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut him down." The year is gone, and I am found the same fruitless tree, yea, with less prospect of ever bearing fruit. Promises were made, and good intentions formed; but I have lived only to give another proof, that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked."

But the last day of the year reminds me of two solemn periods-the last day of my life, and the last day of the world. The last day of my life will surely come. How fast is it hastening on! Who can tell me how near I am to the grave? I look back on the years already gone; they appear but a handbreadth: how few to me remain! it may be, not one. There may literally now be but a step between me and death. Could some celestial messenger speak to me on the morrow, he might say, "This year thou shalt die." On my coffin lid may be inscribed, "Who departed this life, 1841, aged Oh, how many solemn thoughts are associated with the last day of my earthly probation!

Think of the last day of the sinner. What anguish rends his heart! So unexpectedly called to die! He had hoped that many years were yet in reserve; but now he is told he must die. He looks back in anguish of spirit; he looks forward, and all is dark and hopeless. "Farewell all my gains and projects, my merriments and thoughtless companions, my abused sabbaths and seasons of grace, my murdered hours,' my promises of amendment! Before me is nothing but misery, and the blackness of darkness for ever!"

How different the last day of the believer! Hear the dying saint exclaim, "Welcome death, welcome glory! The time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness,' 2 Tim. iv. 6, 7.. 'Though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I shall see God,'" Job xix. 26. When the hour comes that shall end my pilgrimage below, will it be my happiness to take my farewell, for ever, of sin and sorrow, pain and death,

and at once rise to light and holiness, and bliss, and join the ransomed throng in singing the "new song" before the throne of God, ascribing all the praise of salvation to the Lamb that was slain? What answer does my heart give to this inquiry? "Search me, O God, and try me; and see if there be any wicked way in me," save me from deceiving my own most precious soul.

The last day of the year seems prophetic of the last day of the world. Every day, as it is added to the thousands that are past, is bringing on that day, of which "Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all," Jude 14, 15, when "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up," 2 Pet. iii. 10; and though scoffers, who walk after their own lusts, ask, "Where is the promise of his coming?" yet it will come

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as a thief in the night." Oh, that day! who shall abide its coming? I shall be a party to its solemn transactions, though thousands of years should intervene, and this body pass into the finest dust, until not a vestige is left to denote that it once formed a part of a human being; yet I shall be there, not as a spectator, but as one deeply interested in the sentences that shall then be passed. Then the year that is now departing, will be brought into review, with all its mercies and privileges, its misimproved hours and accumulated guilt. Oh, where shall I stand? on the right hand, or on the left hand of the Judge? Is He that shall be the Judge, now my Saviour and Friend?

Thus, from this point of time, I look forward to the last day of my life, and the end of the world; and with the solemn realities connected with those days crowding on my mind, I seriously resolve, God's grace assisting me, to set out anew, or at once for heaven.