Him, believe on Him, cry to Him, confessing your sins, "Lord, remember me, now when Thou art come into Thy kingdom." Look on Him whom you have pierced by your iniquities, until your hearts are smitten with the sight, and you are made to mourn as for an only son, and to be in bitterness as for a first-born; and He will heal you by the virtue of His stripes, and by the sovereign efficacy of His free spirit.

But this example, while it invites to repentance, gives no encour agement to presumption. It has been justly remarked that one instance of conversion at the latest period of life has been recorded in the Bible, that none may despair, and but one instance, that none may presume, or delay this important work to the last. Not to insist on the singularity of this man's situation, and the propriety of the Redeemer's displaying the power of His grace, and the virtue of His blood when hanging on the cross by a signal and extraordinary act of mercy, the history of the converted, malefactor affords not a shadow of encouragement or excuse to those who resist the calls of the Gospel, and procrastinate repentance; for he had not enjoyed those calls, nor is there any good reason for thinking that he ever heard or saw the Saviour before.

It is sinful to limit the holy One, and to despair of His mercy and ability to save, in the most extreme case; but it is awfully sinful, it is a fearful tempting and provoking of the Most High, to delay repentance in the hope of finding mercy at a future period. When put into plain language it just amounts to this, "I will continue in sin because the grace of God abounds. I will go on to disobey Him, and rebel against Him, and affront Him, in the confidence that He will pardon me whenever I shall be pleased to turn to Him, and that He will receive me when I am weary of sinning, and can no longer find pleasure in it."

If this is not to "sin willfully, after having received the knowl edge of the truth”—if it is not to "sin the sin unto death," it is something very like it. What can such persons expect but that God will pronounce against them His fearful oath of exclusion, cease to strive with them any longer by His Spirit, say to the ministers of His word and of His providence "Let them alone," and give them up to the uncontrolled operation of their own corruptions, increased and aggra vated by indulgence, and by the influence of the god of this world.

How know you that you shall have time for repentance? You may be struck dead in a single moment, in the very act of sinning with a high hand. Or you may be struck motionless and senseless, without a tongue to confess your sins, or your faith in the Saviour-withou!

an eye to read the record of salvation-without an ear to hear its gladdening sounds from preacher or friend-without a memory to recollect what you have heard or known of it. Although time for reflection should be granted you, and though the gate of mercy should stand open before you, yet your soul may be so filled with darkness, and unbelief, and remorse that you can not perceive the way of escape, and may die, like Judas, in despair.

Though quaintly expressed, there is much truth in the saying, "True repentance is never too late, but late repentance is seldom true." How many instances are there of "repentance" in sickness, and in the prospect of death being "repented of." Judicious persons who have had occasion to deal with the irreligious in such circumstances, have a saddening report to make of the result of their experience. How many of them have died as they have lived, ignorant, insensible, hardened. Of those who survived, and were delivered from the terrors of death, how many "returned, like the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire!" And among those who died with the accents of penitence on their lips, of how few can they speak, but in the language of trembling hope!

We often hear of the contrition of condemned malefactors, and it is not uncommon to represent them as having exhibited decided marks of conversion in their cells and on the scaffold: but there is reason to think that credulity is mingled with charity in these reports. Charity should dispose us to form the most favorable hopes of individuals, but when we speak on this subject, and especially when we make our sentiments public, we should recollect that charity for the dead may be cruelty to the living. If such persons were to be pardoned and restored to life, we may judge what would be the result with multitudes of them, from what we see in the case of those who have been recovered from a dangerous sickness. How rarely do we meet, in such cases, with the unequivocal proofs of sin. cere repentance which were evinced in the crucified malefactor!

Fourthly. See here a striking example of the different effects produced by the preaching of Christ crucified. To the one malefactor the cross was the savor of life unto life, to the other it was the savor of death unto death; to the former it was the power of God unto salvation, to the latter it was a stumbling-block; it softened the heart of the former, it hardened the heart of the latter; it prepared the one for heaven, it rendered the other twofold more a child of hell. Here we perceive the exceeding riches of sovereign grace, and the desperate depravity of the human heart when left to its native operation.

O the blindness, the infatuation, the obduracy of this impenitent malefactor, whom neither the reproofs and contrition of his companion, nor the meekness and patience of Jesus, nor the acts of clemency and grace which he witnessed, could soften! He saw the rich treasures of grace opened; he heard the humble petition of his comrade; he heard the gracious return made to it, granting him more than he had ventured to ask; he was a witness to the king dom of heaven being bestowed on a fellow-convict:-and yet He remained proud and impenitent, and would not bend his mind to ask what he might have freely received. Yet this is no strange or uncommon thing; it is every day verified in multitudes who enjoy the Gospel.

Fifthly. How mysterious and manifold the ways by which God imparts the knowledge of His mind to men-makes those that are blind to see, and those that see, to be blind!

*

*

The inscription which a heathen ruler ordered to be affixed to the cross, and which he refused to recall or to modify, because the instrument of savingly enlightening an ignorant malefactor, and enabling him to silence and still the increasing tumult of those who maliciously or ignorantly reviled the Holy One and the Just. 0, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

Sixthly. What a small portion of truth will be of saving benefit to a person when accompanied by the blessing of the Divine Spirit! Who teacheth like God! When the vision of all is to the learned as a sealed book, and the eyes of the prophets and their rulers and seers are covered, He can unvail its mysteries to the most ignorant and uninitiated. By means of a few words He can make the outcasts of society wise to salvation, while those who despised and cursed them have "precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little," and yet all the effect is that they "fall backward, and are broken, and snared and taken." What slender means will prove successful when God puts His hand to the work!

What a small portion of truth will irradiate the mind of a sinner, and dispel its darkness, when the Spirit of God makes way for it, and accompanies it home with His secret and irresistible influence!

DISCOURSE SIXTY-THIRD.

THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D.

DR. CHALMERS was born at Anstruthers, near St. Andrews, in the year 1780. He showed in early life signs of great powers; and was soundly educated in the University of St. Andrews, where he won for himself distinguished honors in literature and the physical sciences. At the early age of twenty-three he was ordained; his first settlement being at Cavers, from which place he removed to Kilmany. It is well known that at the time of his ordination he had not experienced the transforming power of the Divine Spirit. He was awakened to his need of the saving knowledge of God, by the investigations which he made in the "Evidences of Christianity," in preparing an article on that subject for the "Edinburg Encyclopedia ;" and was thenceforward a new man. In 1815, Dr. Chalmers settled at Glasgow; and in 1824 he became Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of St. Andrews. Four years later he came to the chair of Theology in Edinburg University. Chalmers was foremost among the founders of the Free Church of Scotland, who went out of the establishment in 1843, to secure for their country the "Crown Rights of Jesus Christ." He afterward became Professor of Theology to the seceding body. Undimmed as to his energies by toil and age, he labored on in the Master's cause until the night of the 30th of May, 1847; when, after his usual Sabbath duties, he retired to rest with his writing materials at his side, to resume his studies in the morning; but died in his bed, as is supposed of a disease of the heart

It is needless to speak of Chalmers's unsurpassed pulpit ability, of the exhaustless wealth of his many productions upon morals, theology, and religion, and the rich legacy which he has left to the ministry and the churches, in his learned and eloquent sermons and discourses. Ample justice is done to these various subjects in the admirable Memoirs by Dr.Hanna. Chalmers is described as having been of about middle height, thick-set and brawny, but not corpulent, with a face rather broad, high cheek bones, pale and care-worn, eyes of a leaden color, nose broad and lion-like, mouth exceedingly expressive, and a forehead ample and high, covered, in advanced life, with thin, straggling gray hair.

An ardent admirer of this great divine has given the following eloquent and life-like picture of his preaching:

"His discourses resemble mountain torrents, dashing in strength and beauty, amid rocks and woods, carrying every thing before them, and gathering force as they leap and foam from point to point in their progress to the sea. Calm and even sluggish in his appearance when at rest, he was on fire when fairly roused; and at times, raising himself up in his pulpit, with hand outstretched and burning eye, seemed as if he were inspired. A true Son of Thunder, he swept the minds of his hearers, as the tempest sweeps the ocean, calling forth its world of waves from their inmost depths, and filling the firmament above with its farresounding roar. In his family and among his friends, he was 'gentle as the dew from heaven,' but in the pulpit, and especially when defending 'the Covenant and Crown Rights of Emmanuel,' he was as a storm amid the hills of his native land. With a majesty of thought and vehemence of manner perfectly irresistible, he swept every thing before him, and left his hearers with no power but that of admiration or surprise."*

It is a frequent remark that one would not have supposed him possessed of this vehemence of manner, judging by his printed productions.

The discourse which is here given, has not the boldness of expres sion which characterizes some of Chalmers's productions; but, in marking it as upon the whole his masterpiece, we have the concurrent opinion of some of the best critics who have pronounced upon the comparative merits of his sermons. He is grand and terrific in his "Fury not in God;" but that discourse lacks the depth, transparency, beauty, precis ion, and strength of expression seen in the one that follows.

THE EXPULSIVE POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION.

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him."-1 JOHN, ii. 15.

There are two ways in which a practical moralist may attempt to displace from the human heart its love of the world-either by a demonstration of the world's vanity, so as that the heart shall be prevailed upon simply to withdraw its regards from an object that is not worthy of it; or, by setting forth another object, even God, as more worthy of its attachment; so as that the heart shall be prevailed upon, not to resign an old affection which shall have nothing

Rev. R. Turnbull, D.D., in "Tribute to Memory of Vinet and Chalmers."