attnietion links planet.I! to the sun. "Ae you stood IODle stormy day upon a lllla-OlHf; and· marked the giant billow rise from the deep to rnah on with foaming crest, and throw i-1! thundering on the trembling shore, did you ever fancy that you could ata7 ilB course. and hurl it back to the depths of ocean? Did you ever stand .beneath ti.e leaden, lowering cloud, and ma_rk the lightning's leap u it ahot and flashed, daaliq a$h-nrt the gloom, attd think that you could p p the bolt, and change ita path? Still more foolish and vain his thought, who fancies that he can arrest or tum aaide the purpose of God, saying, 'What is the Almighty, that we ahould serve him?' • Let 118 break his bands aaunder, and C88t away hi11 cords from wt.' Break his bands uunder I How he that sitteth in the heavem shall laughl" V. IT INVOLVBB AN OVBBWBBLlllNG 0ATASTROPBB. "Therefore ehall her plague& oome in one day [in one day shall her p]Agues1 death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: foratrong is the Lord God whojudgeth [which judged) her• (ver 8). "She thought herself strong," saya a modem expositor. "She forgot the strength of the Almighty. Her plagues were fourfold, 88 though from nery quarter her trouble came. Death, for her scom of t:J:ospect of widowhood; Dl01ll'll• ing, for her inordinate revelling; .famine, for her ab nee; and fire, the pnnisbmem of her fornication." When full judgment comes upon a corrupt community, the hor:rora involved not only transcend description, but even imagination. What·is lOBt? Friendship gives way to fiendish battlinga; peace gives way to furiOUB etorms; hope givei way to black despair and-terrible apprehensions; liberty gives way to a crushing thraldom, in whioh every faculty of the soul is bound in chains of darkness. All the lights of the aoul are quenched. and the whole heaven& are mantled in a atarlea mid· night. CoNOLUBION. Mark well, brother, and etndy deeply the final fall of corrupt sooiety. Every corrupt soul is in truth a moral Babylon the.t "is fallen, ia fallen." "Fallen" from whither? From aome local height? From some Himalayan apex to a fathom- less dungeon, or from some worldly pinnacle? From a mansion to a cot, from a prineeling to· a pauper? Such falls are not vital. Change of plal:e does not neceaarily affect the highest interest, of the soul. "The mind is its own place." Nor change of cireumatance&. In truth, a desoension from the bigheet affluence to the loweet indi- gence may oonduce to its true elevation. The fall is from virtue to f'ice, from wutl to ~rror, from liberty to thraldom, from ,u.nalnm to midnight, from the Di11itu to the devilwh. What more terrible sentence can he pronounced on a soul than "It ii fallen, it is fallen"? Will it continue to fall for ever? la there no hand to alTlll!t the descent, and to lift it to the heights from whence·it has fallen? "The band of merey is not shortened, that it cannot save." On the pages of ecclesiastical history, of sacred biography, and of our own memory, we read of souls that have fallen low, but have been raised again. They have been able to appropriate the language of an old Hebrew writer, and say," He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry ola7, and aet my feet upon a rock, and established my goings." "'Thy mercy, Lord, i■ like the morning.inn, Whose beams undo what sable night bath done; Or, like a stream. the current of whose ccmse, Restrained a.while, runs with a swifter force. Oh I let me glow beneath those sacred beama, And bathe me in those silver streams. To thee alone my sorrows ■hall appeal- Bath earth a wound too bard for Heaven to heal? (QU8l'lea.) D.T. Ver. 7.-Th« ,-ule o/ ntr,'bution. "How much ••• so much," ete. The subject here suggested is man'• futv.re retri'buti'.oo ruled by his pruent CO'lldition. "How much she bath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much ••• l:lOl'ruw give her." Thi.. stripped of all historical and metaphorical allusions, means the present circumstancee of the sinner shall rule his future suffering. I offer three remarks on this subjeci. I. iius BULE COMJIBNDB ITl!ELF TO OUB SENBII OF JUSTICE. That those of the wicked who in this world live iu affluence, and have more than heart ean wiah, pc,ues1 4:tt· TUB UVEC.ATION OP' BT~ JOHN THE DIVINE. [oa. r:m. 1-tfa
a.b11nd&itt.<11)portvdtiell "1- int.ellect11al and moral improvament and means of dofnf gwd~ soould in fut;ure tetributi-0n, fare alike with those who have none of these bleaa- t»~ or a.dv.11.1tmgea,. wgllJd be an outrage on our 11e91e of right. Justice requirea a b&hlncmg ofhu~an affaira-a kind of.oompensation for existing discrepanoias, and ihiaf l!'aiiul will hi,.ve. in the gteat rettlbu.ti.ve future. · · H. T1us &'7LB A~aa TO BlBLICAL 'IPlWlHDfG. Tbrooghout the whole SoriptUN l'll()flft} . ii. ia taught that sinnei:s, aftet they have passed through their proba.uonaq }ltlri0d'. will be dealt with aoootding to the mercies they have. sbtiaed, the opportunit.ies ihey have ~lecied, and the advantages they ht,ve wa&ted. "He. ~ i knoweth• hia master's will, and doeth it not," eto. ; . " Soo, rememHI: taou ilL thy lifot.ime didal .-ve."etc. . DL Tma RUJ,,11 .i.GBHII 'ITI'tB umvusA.L Ex:r.ERI¥NOB. Oon,cious etmtrold between i, pwpiti@ua put and a. distreasing preseut. is, and must, ever be, an element in mental irulbring. Tb.e.J& are hi!O p&UIJ81'11 equal, I will avpp&11e, m age, capaoity, sensibility, !¥Ml, Gh,a,acter. 'l'he ho'lleht they live in &ad Ille means, ol tJi.eir sustent\!Ml& are. alao ~'W. bu1 t~ eoe, is Jntensely wrenched, and the other-iaeomparatively happy. Why ~Hl Y. T.be WJ!iltcihed 11111,~ has come.down into that, hovel, fr0m the home of epulence and l~~ury, and the Dtlaer has never had a better home. Thus the crontrast gives a lbbt,ery te, tJut, one wltich the, other cannot exp!!rience. So, it llN)B._ ee: in the future; tJt,(uinner· who.goea into retributi&n from manlliou., colleges,. and churches. will, by the law of cootus~ find a more terrible hell than, tu. poor oreatue who has fallen into it fm1111 iporance and pau,perism.. Far more tem.ble,, methinks.-wfil be the hell of the . ariit~ than th~ he.1l of the struggling •nd sJarving millions. " How much she hath ghJrified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her.• Worldly advan.tagEB are n@t always transitory, but. often. permiit1ently injurious. "' 1'bo1,1gb, th~ sinner's excellency moun.t up to the he1ni8W1tt and hi■ heaid reacll ulllto ihe clouds, yeJ. he shall jl8ciah for iWer,"-D. '1'.