have an end. Banks shall at length close their doors for- ever. Stock exchanges shall be shut. Parliaments shall be dissolved. The very sun, which since Noah's flood has done his daily work so faithfully, shall rise and set no more. Well would it be if we thought more of this day ! Kent-days, birth-days, wedding-days, are often regarded as days of absorbing interest ; but they are nothing com- pared to the last day.
There is a judgment coming ! Men have their reckon- ing days, and God will at last have His. The trumpet shall sound. The dead shall be raised incorruptible. The living shall be changed. All, of every name and nation, and people and tongue, shall stand before the judgment- seat of Christ. The books shall be opened, and the evi- dence brought forth. Our true character will come out before the world. There will be no concealment, no eva- sion, no false colouring. Every one shall give account of himself to God, and all shall be judged according to their works. The wicked shall go away into everlasting fire, and the righteous into life eternal.
These are awful truths ! But they are truths, and ought to be told. No wonder that the Roman governor Felix trembled when Paul the prisoner discoursed about " right- eousness, temperance, and judgment to come." (Acts xxiv. 25.) Yet the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has no cause to be afraid. For him, at any rate, there is no condemnation, and the last assize need have no terrors. The bias of his life shall witness for him ; while the short- comings of his life shall not condemn him. It is the man who rejects Christ, and will not hear His call to repentance, — he is the man who in the judgment-day will have rea- son to be cast down and afraid.
Let the thought of judgment to come have a practical effect on our religion. Let us daily judge ourselves with righteous judgment, that we may not be judged and con-