they may well consider this as '* the most convenient season" for piety that can ever occur.]
2. It may, for aught we know, be the only time that shall be allotted us —
[The youngest and the healthiest amongst us may he speedily removed. Let any one survey the monuments that surround him, and he will see that multitudes have been cut off at his age, though once they appeared as likely to live as any who have survived him. And what if disease or accident arrest you before you have truly devoted yourselves to God? Will you have any opportunity to repair your error in the grave ? " Is there any work or device there," by which you can accomplish what here was left undone ? No : " as the tree falleth, so it lieth : " and as you die, in a converted or uncon- verted state, so you must remain for ever. " To-day then, while it is called to-day, harden not your hearts," as the generality, alas ! are but too prone to do.]
3. No other thing in the universe can so contribute to our present happiness —
[It is quite a mistake to imagine that happiness can be found in the vanities of time and sense. From infallible autho- rity we can declare that every thing under the sun is mere " vanity and vexation of spirit." But in the service of God there is real joy : his ways are all, without exception, " ways of pleasantness and peace:" and "in keeping his command- ments there is great reward." Ask any one whether he ever regretted that he had given himself up to God too soon ? We have heard of men, even of good men, as Job and Jeremiah, cursing the day of their hirth : but who ever cursed the day of his neiv hirth? At every period of life this is a subject that will bear reflection and impart delight : and in proportion as we grow in piety will our joy in God be increased.]
4. There will certainly come a time when we shall wish we had sought the Lord in early life —
[The text speaks of " evil days as coming;" and sooner or later they are coming to all. There is a time of sickness or old age coming, " wherein we shall have no pleasure " in earthly things : and shall we not then wish, that we had sought the Lord in our youth ? Shall we then look back with pleasure on the sins that we have committed, or on the vanities that have kept us from God ? Nothing but the consolations of God will then be of any avail to make us happy amidst the evils, which, from pain or debility, we shall have to sustain. But there is a time of death also which we must meet : and what will be our thoughts at that period? Then it will be of little moment to us what joys or sorrows we have met with in our former life.