THE CHRISTIAN NATURALIST. 15 



those most opposite things, the pleasures of indolence, 

 and the rewards of industry.' Little therefore does it 

 become the Christian to think of expecting to reap 

 ■what he has never sown. " God is not mocked." As 

 ■well might we expect to gather an earthly harvest 

 where we have never cultivated the ground, or scattered 

 the seeds which are necessary to produce the crop, as 

 to expect that a life of procrastinating negligence, 

 careless indiflference, or slothful indulgence, will be fol- 

 lowed by a harvest of eternal happiness. Men can 

 discern the necessity of making a due preparation for 

 any of the future advantages they expect in this life, 

 but for the life to come they seem to act for the most 

 part as if no preparation were necessary. Hence they 

 leave all to the miserable chances of a dying hour, or 

 to that more " convenient season" which never arrives. 

 Opportunities of grace and periods suitable for repent- 

 ance and reformation, are thus suflfered to pass away 

 unheeded and unimproved ; and too many there are who 

 never awaken from this dream of unutterable folly, till it 

 be too late, till standing on the brink of a dark eter- 

 nity, they feel the force of that awful exclamation of 

 despairing Israel of old, " The harvest is past, the 

 summer is ended, and we are not saved." 



