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I address multitudes to-day who have heard this saying ten thousand times, but it has been as an idle tale. Is it a true saying that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners? and how can you reject it? Gratitude should prompt to an acceptance. When guilt, like a heavy cloud, hung over our world, ready to burst upon us-when the wrath of God was kindled against us when earth, smitten with the curse, gave signs that all was lost-then the Lord Jesus Christ came into our world, took upon him our nature, obeyed the divine law, endured its penalty, yielded up his life on the cross, that we might live. Are your hearts steeled against such love? "God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ did for us. O listen to his kind invitation this day, though you might justly be left to perish, and might expect the minister of death to vindicate slighted mercy and abused goodness, still the voice of love is addressed to you, "turn ye, why will ye die." How long will ye refuse to yield your hearts to Christ? Recollect under what circumstances I stand before you, as an ambassador of Christ. I place before you life and death; if you reject this message, it is at your peril. God is concerned for the honor of his Son. Such grace as that offered in the gospel, necessarily involves the deepest responsibility. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? Think of the guilt you contract by rejecting this gospel. You reject the truth of God; for it is a faithful saying; every line of it is true, and sealed with God's seal; you are reflecting upon the wisdom and goodness of God, for it is worthy of all acceptation; your every interest, for this world and the next, for time and eternity, is involved in it; in refusing to believe, you sin against your own soul. The objects for which you are about to barter your immortal interests, are vanishing away. Soon you will be left, devoid of comfort; youth and beauty fled; pleasures and honors gone; friends and companions removed; the world a blank; the soul unsaved; defiled with sin; stung with remorse; before you, an undone eternity-above you, an offended Godbehind you, a misspent life. O the guilt and folly of unbelief! Is there no way to arouse you to reflection? Has a sleep-the prelude of eternal death-fallen upon you? O that you were wise-that you would accept the offer of life. Two worlds concentrate their interests here. Now is the accepted time.

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IT IS GOOD FOR A MAN THAT HE BEAR THE YOKE IN HIS YOUTH.

"It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth."-LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH iii, 27.

YES, it is good for a man, that he bear the yoke-bear it always: not in his youth only, but in his manhood, and old age, bear it, and carry it, patiently and cheerfully all his life.

Youth, we will all admit, is the forming period of human character-the time when impulse and restraint-when check and spur -when indolence and effort are most largely influential for good or evil over our future condition and destiny. And yet, it is true, that always, and everywhere, and under all conditions, the will of man must bow to a Higher Will: it must submit itself to an omnipotence mightier than its own. Man must always acknowledge a Law-a Sovereign--a Might and a Right, out of, and above himself, or he fails in the healthful and proper unfolding of his na ture: he loses the dignity and nobleness of his humanity. His life and character, without this, take a wrong direction-a twist, a gnarl, a bend, which distorts and deforms both. Man must always be governed and restrained. Look at a child! It has hardly gained strength to erect and hold itself up, before its will expresses itself in actions and wishes which show you how much the neck of childhood needs, absolutely needs a yoke, a curb-a rein-a guiding and controlling power to keep that child in the

right way to check it when it goes wrong, and to discipline it unto subjection to the law of right and duty, rather than the law of self-will and inclination. But does the child outgrow the need of this yoke? Does he not grow stronger, and sturdier, and firmer set in the opposition of his will, to all wholesome advices and restraints? is not this the natural tendency? And the young man, full of the ardor and impulse characteristic of his age, does he not need a yoke-a disciplinary and controlling power of some kind? Where would his passions, his temper, his appetites, hurry him, blindfold and headlong had he no safeguard-no check or restraint? And the man, the wise, sagacious, practical man, who has outlived the follies and fervors of youth, has he, therefore, outlived the necessity of imposing upon the neck of his inclinations and passions a yoke a bond-a fastening to hold him to the law of duty, and high and holy enendeavor, rather than to the law of self-indulgence and selfinterest? And the old man-the very old man-who has passed his seventy or eighty mile-stones on his way to the realm of the dead, will it do for him to throw off the yoke? Is it safe for him to unloose from his neck the reins--to throw off all the restraints human and divine laws impose upon him? If it were safe-if the law of right had become the fixed law of this life-if his steps have been so confirmed in the paths of virtue and piety that they could not stray into wrong or forbidden paths-yet still does the old man need this yoke as much as ever. Does not age, with its infirmities and dependence-with its temptations to complaint and fretfulness-to irritability and impatience, and misanthropy, need the wholesome restraints of the Christian Yoke, to hold it uncomplaining and unmurmuring on its declining wayto keep it calm, and patient, and serene, and hopeful, till the last great change shall come, and death itself shall unloose the yoke.

But need I stop here to argue the truth of the sentiment expressed in the text-that all men-but especially the young, do need, imperatively need, some sort of discipline and restraintsome coercion of their own wills--a yoke to bind and fasten their activities and energies in the right line of endeavor to regulate and restrain all their faculties of thinking, willing, and doing within the right path--the grand highroad of religious duty that leads to God and blessedness. Will not every honest mind acknowledge, and that, too, with a strength of conviction forced from the profoundest depths of self-consciousness, that the human soul is in a disordered, wayward, and fallen state-wrong in all its natural propensions, and passions, and dispositions, and, therefore, unfit to guide and govern itself-unable, without a leader and a guide, out of itself to begin or end the journey of life aright.

While man was a sinless being-while he was a dweller beneath the clear sky of Paradise-his faculties did all spontaneously de

velope themselves, in exact and beautiful harmony with the law. of holiness and love, through which God in His beneficence and wisdom works out the happiness of His intelligent creatures throughout the vast universe. But in laying down rules for the conduct of life now-in chalking out the course of education and discipline which will best develope his nature-we must never forget that that nature now, is nature in its fallen state-a nature inclined to evil-a nature which though upright as God made it, it has by the abuse of its free-agency, by voluntary transgression, ruined and disabled its original powers and capabilities for good -a nature, which though jarred and disordered in all its higher and nobler instincts, still it is a nature which God our Father seeks to restore again unto Himself, and to the dominion of his own most holy law by the discipline of labor, trial, suffering, and the still higher discipline of the cross.

Human life is educational and disciplinary. It is a period of probation and preparation. Nor can we understand all its grand ends and uses, till we have fully grasped the idea of its why and wherefore upon the earth. Improvement, and not enjoyment, ought to be the end and aim of our lives.

"Life is combat-life is striving,

Such our destiny below!
Like a scythed chariot driving
Through an onward pressing foe,
Deepest sorrow, scorn and trial,
Will but teach us self-denial!

Like the Alchemists of old

Pass the ore through cleansing fire;
If our spirits would aspire,

To be God's refined gold."

Correction, amendment, right moral and spiritual development is the true business, and ought to be the great labor and strug gle of our earthly life. Earth, this sin-shadowed earth, is the place for labor and toil. Heaven, the holy and calm heaven, the place for rest and fruition. And he who strives and expects to find rest and enjoyment only in this life, but lays himself to sleep upon a bed of roses, whose thorns will sooner or later pierce him to the quick. Labor, discipline, and the patient wearing of the yoke, is the true way of life-a way whose ending is lost amid the beatitudes and blessedness of heaven. But the human soul prefers to follow its own impulses. It dislikes to submit its own will to any higher will. Subjection is painful to it. Domination, rule and power over others, it delights in. It dislikes obedience. It spurns labor. Wayward, self-loving, and selfwilled, it seeks its own, and not that which promotes the happiness of others, or even its own highest ultimate good.

And how shall a young soul, setting forth on the journey of life, be broken in-be habituated to bit, and bridle, and check

to the healthful, and wise restraints of virtue and goodness? When shall the taming and training process begin? Can it be commenced and carried forward hopefully, unless it is begun early -begun in youth? With the Prophet, we believe it is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth. Perhaps no greater calamity can befal a young man, than to be lord of himself-his own master-to acknowledge no will, no law, no authority, higher or more obligatory than his own. This was one of the main elements of Lord Byron's misfortunes-one of the most productive sources of that waywardness and self-will, which marred and spoiled his whole life. Speaking of Lara, whose father died when he was but a child, he says:

"Left by his sire, too young such loss to know,
Lord of himself, that heritage of woe,
That fearful empire which the human breast,
But holds, to rob the heart within of rest,
With none to check-and few to point in time
The thousand paths that slope the way to crime!
Then, when most required commandment-then-
Had Lara's daring boyhood govern'd men.
It skills not-boots not-step by step to trace
His youth through all the mazes of the race.
Short was the course its restlessness had run,
But, long enough, to leave him half undone."

Now here we have the secret element of all that frowardness which manifested itself in so many ungainly forms in the life and history of that majestic but erring man. And we may lay it down as an axiom that whenever we find a youth restiff under wise and just restraints, or irreverent and reckless of the opinion or good feelings of others, there is an obliquity in the moral nature of that youth, that will, sooner or later, unless checked, work out evil and sorrow to himself and others. In Byron's own words, to be lord of ones-self-to own no interest, no law and no restraint, but his own self-will--is to a youth, a "heritage of woe." And hence, indeed, one of the deepest sources of sympathy for the young, who in early life are deprived of a father's wise and kind restraints.

But let us enquire concerning that discipline--that particular and peculiar kind of yoke, that can manage and shape human life and character aright, so as finally to evolve the perfection and symmetry of the soul, bring it ultimately into everlasting harmony with goodness, the end of its creation. Let us begin with the beginning of life and notice in their natural order the several yokes, which all human souls must successively put on and wear, according to their age and condition, before the habits of the soul's life can be permanently conformed to the law of holinessthe law of its happiness.

First, then, the yoke that must be put on the earliest is, the yoke of parental obedience-implicit, unquestioning obedience.

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