for the opinion of your companions. And as the public opinion among boys, as well as men, is swayed by the influence of decided characters, so two or three individuals, steadily and quietly acting as they think right, will in a short time, be like a leaven, to leaven the whole mass they will win over to their side that number, in all societies, who follow the turn of the stream; and the bad will be left in that state in which it is our hope that they may be hereafter in the universe-a minority of unmixed evil.

Therefore I would say to all of you, if you wish to avail yourselves usefully of this solemn occasion,-if you wish to be really confirmed in Christian principles,-let your most earnest prayer to God be, that you may follow Christ with a single mind and a single heart; not with affections divided between him and his enemies, with a wish to please him when it will not interfere with pleasing the world. Attach yourselves to your Saviour who has died for you, and let him be indeed your bread of life for ever. I use the forcible language of Scripture for the purpose of impressing upon your minds, that the simplest and surest way to learn all holiness and all goodness, is to learn a

personal love and trust for that gracious Saviour in whom God has made himself comprehensible to man, whom we may look to at this moment as standing in his own human form at the right hand of the Majesty on high, our Redeemer, our Lord, and our God. This is Christianity, this is life eternal,-to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. And this, although the very language of it may seem strange to your ears, is nothing extravagant, nothing foolish, nothing to make you affected in manner or behaviour, to make you ignorant, or to make you gloomy. True it is, it does require that you should be in earnest; that you should feel, that this world, beautiful as it is, and the rich happiness that even yet is to be found in it, is not our eternal portion; that as all these things must pass away, and we must dwell for ever with God or with the devils, it is our wisdom to learn to know God and to love him here, even in our youth, or else heaven, even if we were to be admitted there, could afford us no enjoyment. True it is, that our evil and careless nature will require many efforts to change it; and the best of those efforts must be our prayers. True it is, that you must pray when your

prayers are not a mere form; that you must read the Scriptures, when you are not called to read them as your lesson. You have much to do; but that ought not to discourage you in the full activity of youthful spirits, when to do is to enjoy. You have much to overcome; and if you leave the chapel to-morrow, with hearts ever so much warmed and resolutions ever so earnest, yet you will be sure ere long to slacken in your efforts. Zeal will cool, and resolutions will be broken. But be not afraid-Christ's blood cleanseth us from all sin; Christ's Spirit can give us at the last the victory. Be most afraid of carelessness, of forgetting God altogether, of letting days, and weeks, and months pass by, unmarked by any spiritual improvement, and, therefore, surely marked by spiritual decay. If this be your case, I pray that God in his mercy may visit you with disappointments, with distress, with sickness, with any sorrow that may awaken you in time, and save you from the sorrow that worketh death. Better a thousand times that you should give all the world in exchange, than that you should lose your own souls. And now remember, that in this rite of confirmation, and in the words that you have now heard, you have received

a talent for which you must answer at the judgment-seat of Christ. It may be either, with God's blessing, the seed of your eternal life, or a savour of death unto death, heightening your guilt, if you know, and were warned, and yet refuse to listen. It is my duty to place this responsibility upon you, as Christ has charged his ministers, and as he did himself. May God grant that we may each give our account with joy, and not with grief; and that when our Lord shall call us all out of our graves to meet his coming, we may stand at his right hand together, amongst the number of his redeemed.

SERMON XXIX.

ISAIAH XXXII. 13.

Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city.

THERE are two parts of the Christian preacher's office, and both of them of very great usefulness. The first is, that he should expound the Scriptures ;-the second, that he should address his hearers on those things which concern them particularly; that is to say, on the particular faults which he may know them to be guilty of, on the particular temptations to which they are exposed, on those circumstances, whether in themselves or in their outward condition, which most affect their character, whether for goodor for evil. No man would speak to his own children or household exactly in the same way that another man would speak to his; and