an eternal train of my usual thoughts be either worthy of me, or useful to me? I must feel for ever; would an eternal reign of my present spirit and desires please me? I must act for ever; would an eternal course of my habitual conduct bring happiness, or even bear reflection?" We could not bring our tastes and tempers to this test, without improving both. The moment we realize an eternity of any vice or folly, we are shocked. To be eternally passionate, or eternally sensual, or eternally covetous, or eternally capricious, is a state of being which must be appalling and repulsive even to the Ivictims of these vices. Thus, independent of all the light shed upon immortality by the gospel, immortality itself sheds strong and steady lights upon our personal interests and relative duties. Life involves, also, society, intercourse, and their natural results. Would, then, an eternity of the terms and temper of our present domestic and social life be altogether agreeable to us? Should we like to "live for ever," just as we now "live to gether" at home? Would an eternity of our present feelings towards certain persons be either creditable or useful to us? Should we be quite satisfied to obtain and deserve, for ever, no more respect than we now enjoy! Would an immortality of our present relative condition please us? Here, again, by realizing an eternity of social life, we catch glimpses both of duty and interest, which compel "great searchings of heart," and suggest many valuable improvements of character. It would, then, be equally unwise and criminal, not to realize even a veiled eternity. It would be both moral and mental weakness not to judge of our present character and pursuits of our present spirit and habits-by their fitness and likelihood to please and profit us in a "world without end." What attention, then, is due to an unveiled and illuminated immortality; and, what an influence it might have over us, if habitually realized as it is revealed? It comes before us, in the gospel, as everlasting happiness in heaven, or as everlasting misery in hell; as an eternity in the presence of God, and in the fellowship of all the godlike spirits in the universe; or, as an eternity in the presence of "the devil and his angels," and in the society of all the impious and impure. Extremes, thus infinite and endless, deserve all the attention which law or gospel demands for them. Habitual remembrance of them would be imperative duty, if Such an It is itself neither law nor gospel enforced it. eternity makes many laws for itself. a law, and felt to be so when it is realized. For as Sinai awed the thousands of Israel, by its solemn aspect, long before the trumpet sounded, so the very aspect of eternal bliss or wo appeals to the understanding and the conscience, by its own solemnity. Now we blame, as well as pity, those who banish the consideration of this unveiled immortality. We are thankful that we are not so mentally weak, as to be incapable of reflecting on the things which are unseen and eternal;" nor so morally infatuated as to be utterly unaffected by them. We had rather lose one of our bodily senses, than be wholly insensible to the glories and solemnities of the world to come. We see clearly, and often feel deeply, that without some just sense of them, there cannot be a due appreciation of the claims of the law or the gospel, nor of the duties of life and godliness. These have all such an express reference to eternity, that if we were to think and act without any pointed reference to it, we durst not give ourselves credit either for believing or for understanding truth and duty. This is well, so far. It is, however, one thing to be unable or unwilling to forget eternity; and another, to cultivate the remembrance of it. We may not evade the prospect, when it is forced upon us by death in the family, or by appeals in the sanctuary; but, do we invite it, for its own sake, when there is neither accident nor excitement to constrain our attention? Is the contemplation of "the powers of the world to come," any part of our devotional and meditative habits? We voluntarily and conscientiously give some set time to prayer, and to self-examination, and to the study of the great principles of truth and duty. We do not allow our sense of them to depend entirely upon accident or excitement. We require, in order to keep up a good hope through grace, to examine and review the grounds of hope; and, in order to maintain a good conscience towards God and man, we require to confront conscience, from time to time, with the claims of both. But, do we require, for our own satisfaction and improvement, to set apart some time for the deliberate and distinct consideration of the claims of eternal life? They are, indeed, mixed up in our minds with the other claims of religion and morality, and give some degree of force to both; but, if they are rather admitted than meditated, rather taken for granted than weighed, we do not give that "good heed" to them which they demand and deserve. The prospects of eternal life are revealed to us, that we may employ them to counterbalance the pressure of the sufferings and sorrows of "the life which now is." They were habitually employed for this purpose, by those who first believed that gospel which illuminated life and immortality. They did more than calculate, that all their trials were working together for good." They reckoned, also, that their "affliction " was working for them "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." They realized heaven so as to be relieved and refreshed by the anticipations of it. But what, in general, is our resource under suffering and sorrow? Alas! not this direct and distinct reckoning, that they are not "worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us;" but reckoning, that good will come out of them, and that we shall see better days "in the land of the living." Better days in the land of the dead, are not much desired by us whilst we have any rational hope of life. I mean-that it is not by them, chiefly, we balance our troubles, whilst death does not seem inevitable nor at hand. There |