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they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away," Psa. xc. 10. Death is at the very door. Flee from the wrath to come, and ponder on the passage, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord," Rev. xiv. 13.

If to the question, "How old are you ?"" you can give the same reply as the old man did, “I shall be fourscore, if I live till next Easter," you are absolutely beside yourself if you are not daily looking forward to eternity. If the warning voice whispers to youth and speaks audibly to manhood, it cries aloud to you. Not only with your mouth, but with your heart, you should say, "There is but a step between me and death," 1 Sam. xx. 3. If you have not, long ago, fled for refuge to the cross, and obtained mercy from the Saviour of sinners, go now, even at the eleventh hour. Think of the innumerable, the heaped-up transgressions of your youth, your manhood, and old age. Lose not a day, an hour, a moment, in applying to Him who "is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them," Heb. vii. 25. Since you first drew breath, more than four thousand sabbaths have passed away. The sun has risen and set between twenty and thirty thousand times, and thousands of millions of human

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beings have passed from time into eternity. Still there is mercy.

But if your treasure and your heart be in heaven, why, then, be of good courage. Though flesh and heart fail you, God will be the strength of your heart and your portion for ever. Go on, traveller; for you may even now see the end of your journey. You have borne the heat and burden of the day; you have passed through briers and thorns; you have but a little further to travel; endure to the end, and you shall be saved. The older you are, the nearer to heaven! The heavier your load, the greater your deliverance ! The darker your pathway below, the brighter your glory above. Sin, and tears, and sorrow, shall pass away; and "when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory," Col. iii. 4.

TOWN AND COUNTRY.

"I wish," says a town friend, "you had accompanied me to Exeter Hall; there is something so animating in the addresses of Christian men, when their eloquence is that of the heart, called forth by a grateful sense of the abundant mercies of their heavenly Father."

"I wish," says a friend in the country, "you could see the primroses, the cowslips, and the blue-bells around me, with the golden green of the beeches bursting forth in the woods, and then you would not be surprised to find that halleluiahs are irrepressible. The Psalmist found them so; and I, too, feel inclined to call on all the trees around me to clap their hands with louder chorus than ever burst from Exeter Hall. You should have been with me this morning, to have seen the gleams of living light glancing on the beech woods, while the refreshing gale made the towering trees bow their radiant heads, as if in adoration of their great Creator; and then I feel certain that many lively, poetic feelings, and

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many glowing, devout affections, would have been kindled in your heart."

Thus beset on all sides with Christian provocation, marvel not that, growing a little warm, not with anger, but with thankfulness, I should cry out aloud, "Praise God in his sanctuary! Praise him in the firmament of his power! Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!" Psa. cl. 1, 6.

WHO'S THE NEXT?

He

HERE comes the cheerful old man with his vegetables. So sure as the morning comes, so sure does he come too, with his horse and cart. is usually dressed in an old great coat and blue apron; and his cart, plentifully supplied with potatoes, greens, celery, parsley, bunches of turnips piled up at the front, and bunches of carrots hanging round the sides, is quite a picture. The old man has something lively to say to every customer; and his horse knows where to stop, and when to go on, almost as well as his master. As the seasons go round, a change takes place in his merchandise. In the spring, he adds fresh radishes and young cabbages to his stock; in the summer, peas, beans, lettuces, and cauliflowers! in the autumn, fruits of various kinds; and in the winter, laurel, prickly holly, and white-berried mistletoe. The dry wind may blow, or the rain come down in showers; the sun may throw his burning beams around, or the flakes of snow fall thickly one upon another; but they never hasten or delay the old man's appearance. At the