the earth will exhibit the sad effects of their impiety, the indelible records of their shame.
And where can we turn our eyes without seeing memorials of human folly, and evidences, that all creature-confidences are vain? Ask the aged, and they will testify; inquire even of the young, and they will confess ; that the creature, however fair its appearance or promising its aspect, is only " a broken cistern which can hold no water." All of them, both rich and poor, " have gone to it with their vessels, and come away ashamed6." They renew indeed their applications from time to time; but only to experience repeated disappointments. There are but few who have not found their cup, notwithstanding its occasional sweets, so distasteful on the whole, that they are almost weary of the world by the time that they have half com- pleted their destined course. And the more eager they have been in their pursuit of earthly good, the more painfully have they been made to feel, that it was all " vanity and vexation of spirit."
If we look into the eternal world, what monuments shall we there find of disappointed ambition ! What multitudes are there, who once said, ' I aspire after happiness ; I shall find it in the attainment of wealth, and in the gratifications of sense ! ' They passed their time in dreaming of happiness which they never realized ; and knew not that they had been dreaming, till " they awoke to shame and everlasting contempt." And though, while in this world they justified their choice, they themselves will to all eternity be witnesses for God, acknow- ledging the folly of their former conduct, and the justice of their present doom.]
We cannot conclude without observing,
1. How awfully do we at this moment suffer under the curse inflicted on them !
[Difference of language has not only placed obstacles in the way of commercial intercourse, but has given occasion to contiguous or distant nations to consider each other as enemies. Moreover, it has been the means of excluding the greater part of the world from all the advantages of revelation. And if a benevolent person, desirous of diffusing the knowledge of Christ among the heathen, engage in the arduous undertaking, he must first lose several years before he can attain a com- petent knowledge of the languages in which he is to address them: even then he labours under the greatest disadvantages in speaking to them ; and, after all, he must limit his exer- tions to two or three nations at the uttermost. Multitudes
e Jer. xiv. 3.