fi6 TIME. ^ 



bor's history to seek for l)lemishes, which, alas, arc revealed too soon. 

 We will not be overwise to judge the actions of our fellow beings, scru- 

 tinizing them with an evil eye. We will wait with trembling until time 

 shall unclasp the ponderous tome of life, m which are kept the records 

 alike of the actions of the criminal and the judge, the peasant and the 

 prince. Then will hearts beat high with emotion, and eyes beam with 

 interest and weep with shame, and cheeks become pale and blush as the 

 forgotten past step by step is retraced. Alas ! who can abide the day, 

 when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, and the depraved soul 

 shall appear in all her naked deformity ? May time find us, gentle 

 reader, on that day clothed in the robes of our Saviour's sufficiency. 

 Time is old, but has lost none of his vigor. Our frailties and infirmities 

 increasing upon us every day, do but give evidence that his power is 

 undiminished. Yea, rather are they the tokens of increasing strength. 

 Before the time when Jehovah broke up the fountains of the great 

 deep and opened the windows of heaven, his power was paralized. — 

 Then was the infant an hundred years old and the hoary sire laughed at 

 time's threatenings. But now how changed. He knocks at the door, as 

 each successive year returns, to summon us to reflection, and we trem- 

 ble. He touches the raven locks and they become white as wool; the 

 eye, and it is dimmed and hollow; the cheek, and its roses fade and its 

 fullness falls into wrinkles; the body, and it stoops and totters, the 

 limbs, with difficulty and pain, dragging it along, until, in a [e\v years, 

 the grave has triumphed over it and the worm has fed and rioted on its 

 members. 



Oh man! thy time is short; and rapid as short. The moments haste, 

 like swift messengers, to tlie Judge of all to bear their testimony. Can 

 wc not burden them with benefits to our fellow-men and glory to our 

 God ? To-day thou hast in thy possession. Then improve it. Let it 

 not run to waste in vain resolutions and idle day-dreams, which dis- 

 honor the soul and mock high Heaven. To-morrow, if it come at all, 

 will be too late to discharge the duties of to-day. To-day has its own 

 peculiar work. Yet how we love to escape from the burden of to-day 

 and let it fall on the uncertainty of to-morrow. The youth defers to 

 manhood, and manhood to old age, and old age to the last hours of 

 mortality, the most important duty of life. The pen of the prophet, 

 guided by the Spirit of God, writes '■Ho-day if ye will hear my voice." 

 The fool saith to-morrow, hears not the voice of mercy and dies. The 

 golden moments of youth, the seed-time of lile, are thus permitted to 

 run to waste, and the mind, like a fertile but neglected garden, is choked 

 with the luxuriant growth of noxious weeds. It is a sore evil to the 



