a man ever had is Jesus. I know him. I believe in him. I have put all my hope on him. He has never betrayed me. He will never betray you; and the best thing that you can do now is this moment to surrender yourselves. to him for time and for eternity. But do not take my experience. It is comparatively brief. There are some, as you look over the audience, who have frost on the brow; ask them what they think of Jesus. Ask them whether he ever betrayed them. In what dark hour? By what grave? In what sickness? Ah, these old people can tell you a better story than I can of how in sickness Christ was their best physician; and how-when they came to give the last kiss to the cold lips that never might speak again, and to stand on the verge of a grave deep enough to bury all-they found Jesus the Comforter; and that this morning their brightest anticipation of the future is the presence of him whom, having not seen, we love; in whom, though now we see him not, yet believing, we rejoice with a joy unspeakable and full of glory.

I thought it best to say some of these things as I stand on the verge of my summer vacation, for I will be absent from you until September. I thought I would give my testimony for Jesus, and then urge you to look after this matter immediately, while I put to you the question of the text, "What is your life?"

There never was a better illustration of its uncertainty than we find in the disaster of our sister city. Some of you think of Syracuse only as a dépôt through which you pass on the way West. Some of you who know it better know it to be one of the most industrious and busy cities on the continent. It is the Golden Gate between the East and the West. Through its heart rolls the tide of a na

tion's life, beating hard with the motion of the great lakes on the one side, and the ocean on the other. Its convention halls filled with popular assemblages that have come there to decide great questions of philanthropy or politics. On either bank of this rushing stream of life are mansions, counting-rooms, stores, shops-hives where the voices of busy men hum while they gather in the honey of wealth. Feet shuffling, anvils ringing, bridges rumbling, printingpresses rattling. Illumined lyceum, and literary club, and churches lighted for week-night services, and houses swarming with fashionable levee. But it does not appear to me especially in that light. When I think of Syracuse, I think of it as the place of beautiful homes, and warm sympathies, and ardent friendships, and blessed associations. Among the happiest years of my ministry were those spent in that city, and the sorrow comes from there to my heart to-day. The young pastor of that church, the son of the leading minister of his denomination in this country, had only a few months ago gone to his new field; and last Tuesday night, surrounded by his congregation, in a merry festival, every thing going pleasantly and prof itably on, with a sudden crash that I have not the heart to depict, many were ushered into the eternal world, and more were taken out half dead. Awful wreck of youth and old age; bride and bridegroom; the distinguished and the unknown. That city to-day is frantic with grief, and already the long processions have gone out to Oaklands, that beautiful cemetery where I have helped to put down some of my very best friends. It is a good place to sleep in. O men and women who know how to pray, pray for those broken hearts! O men and women who have had troubles of your own, cry unto God for that

groaning city-for companions bereft, for parents suddenly made childless, for homes where father and mother will never come, for the pastor of that church, that he may come forth from this anguish of soul newly set apart and ordained by the "laying on of hands" of this calamity! Issuing from such a scene, he will be mightily in earnest now, and his cry will ring through the city, "What is your life?" But while we pray for them, let us also pray for ourselves. Be ye also ready. Risk not one moment away from Christ. For all the unregenerate and unpardoned there is not one hour of safety between this and the judgment-day, and after that there will be a tumbling-in of eternal calamities. Your first, your second, your hundredth, your thousandth, your last want is a heart changed by the almighty grace of God. Oh! get it now. Bow your head on the back of the seat in front of you, and be quick in surrendering yourselves to Jesus. He is mighty to save, and he would just as lief do it now as any other time. I do not think that cowardice is a characteristic of my nature, and yet I tell you plainly that I would not dare to walk down the street or cross the ferry were it not for a hope in Christ that whatever happens to my body my immortal soul shall go free. Why, the air is so full of perils, flying this way, flying that, flying before your face, flying behind your back, flying within, flying without, that we need God's promises hovering over us like a canopy, and marshaled all around us like an armed host.

Standing as we do at the beginning of a season when there is more sickness than at other times in the same year, and when many of us will be exposed to additional perils by travel, I thought it this morning better for me to cry out with an emphasis deepened by the calamity at the

West, asking you, "What is your life?" Is it a test? Make a successful experiment. Is it an apprenticeship? Make it an industrious one. Is it a conflict? Fight a brave fight. Is it a prophecy? Let it foretell glorious results. Is it a preparation? Make sure work. Is it an uncertainty? Get a Divine insurance. You say, "I will do this, I will do that. I will go into this city, and I will get gain." Whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow; for "What is your life?" "It is even as a vapor that appeareth for a little season, and then vanisheth away."

THINGS WE NEVER GET OVER.

"All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.”—Matthew xii., 31, 32. "He found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears."-Hebrews xii., 17.

L

ET it be understood at the outset that the Protestant pulpit has no revelation not given to the Protestant pew. The minister of Christ has no right to lord it over the consciences of men. When we preach, we do not utter edicts; we only offer opinions. Let the old Mother of Harlots from the Vatican issue the fiat that makes the people bow down into the dust; but in this land, and in this age, where King James's translation is in almost every hand and in almost every house, let every man understand that he has a right, equally with others, to interpret the Word of God for himself, asking only Divine illumination.

As sometimes you gather the whole family around the evening stand to hear some book read, so to-night we gather a great Christian family group-to study this text; and now may one and the same Lamp cast its glow on all the circle!

You see from the first passage that I read that there is a sin against the Holy Ghost for which a man is never pardoned. Once having committed it, he is bound hand and foot for the dungeons of despair. Sermons may be