than open and professed infidelity. The common tenor of men's lives, the routine of daily occupations, encourage it very much. Many things divert our minds from religion, and are naturally more acceptable to us. We require to be constantly watching against the inward and seducing spirit of indifference. It ought to be the subject of all men's prayers to be saved from it.

Therefore I strongly advise you who are about to approach the Communion of Christ's body and blood, to set yourselves expressly on your guard against this danger. Do not let the days, which will pass between this day and the Communion, slip away one after another without your coming to a distinct and definite contemplation of those high Christian truths. Do not be content with a general feeling that you are in earnest, a vague sense of a wish to receive spiritual help in the Sacrament; but take these truths one by one, the atonement, the divinity of Christ, the helplessness of man, the help of the Holy Spirit, the judgment to come; consider them carefully pray that each may be vividly and practically impressed upon your hearts : pray that you may not come to disbelieve, or, what is practically the same thing, to forget them. Therefore, if you wish to come to the Lord's Supper in faith;-and remember that it is by faith alone that we can discern the Lord's body in the bread, and His blood in the wine of the Communion, or obtain any of the blessings promised in that sacra

ment; -take care to examine your faith in this intermediate time. Take care to read your Bible, to read principally such parts as declare those doctrines which are most closely connected with the Holy Sacrament; to pray for grace to believe fervently, and to be saved from all coldness and indifference of heart in matters of such high importance.

But in order to take the Holy Sacrament with due effect, it is necessary that you should attend to another precept-the precept of St. James, selected from the beginning of to-day's Epistle, and which I have chosen for my text,-namely, that ye be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. However necessary it is that I should urge you to meditate on doctrine, and to enliven by prayer and reflection your faith in the truths connected with this sacrament, I should yet fear that if I added no further directions I should rather tend to stimulate feeling, to produce momentary excitement, than to assist you in cultivating that steady and lasting religious frame of mind in which your real comfort and hope must be placed. I do not desire to do this. I do not desire to awaken a sudden, passing, transitory warmth, to be re-awakened at each sacramental season, and to slumber in the intervals between them; but I wish to direct you where to look, and how to gain that strength which will enable you to fulfil your future duties, to resist your fu

ture temptations, to endure your future trials, to make your future life holier, purer, more and more acceptable, more and more like the image set before you in your Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

over.

Remember therefore that you must not only go to the Sacrament in faith and repentance, and earnest feeling, but that your conduct must be the holier for all that feeling, when the Sacrament is Remember that all present feeling is idle,— a mere bubble, an useless heat, a cheat, a delusion, unless it issue in a better life. You hardly know, you hardly can know, how important a caution this is. Those who feel in earnest, often, it is hardly too much to say that they always overrate the steadfastness of their feeling. The imagination and affections, wholly possessed with one object, cannot conceive the altered state of mind in which this object shall be replaced by others. We are not voluntary agents in changes of feeling; they take place often, suddenly, strangely, from causes often as far beyond our philosophy to trace, as beyond our power to control. And therefore I strongly recommend you to make your devotions and your faith practical, by mingling with them specific and particular practical resolutions. Connect them thus with your daily life which is to follow the Sacrament. Do not be contented with vague purposes, such as "to be holier," "to be purer;" but resolve that you will do certain specific things, because you have taken the Sacrament; because

you desire that your faith should issue in works; because you desire to have the comfort of knowing that the tree is good, from the good fruits which it produces. Pray to God to bless these resolutions, to preserve you in the mind to keep them; remember that the principal danger begins when the Sacrament is over; when the excitement begins to fail, the devotion to grow cool, the return of ordinary occupation to restore the train of ordinary thought; remember then to be still more jealous of your regularity in prayer, and holiness of daily life.

To you, whose present years are spent in the midst of the regular occupations and habits of a school, there are peculiar dangers, and there are peculiar advantages. Your practical resolutions now, and your practical improvement afterwards, must have reference to these dangers and advantages. I will not enter in detail; all will be able to understand sufficiently my meaning to be able to apply the direction. If there be words, which you have been accustomed to utter unworthy of Christian lips, resolve now in prayer to forego them, remember the resolution at God's altar, remember it, and renew it in daily prayer afterwards. If there be tempers which you have indulged which are inconsistent with Christian charity or meekness, or in any way alien to a Christian heart,-if there be deeds, of omission or commission, whereby you have either neglected

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duty or committed express sin, let these form the topic of your thought, and resolute determination. Pray that your faith and devotion, which you now feel, may be made effectual for the reformation of these precise sins. Remember that ye become doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. It is self-deceit to feel, without acting to think that you have faith and devotion, if you have not holiness of life. For if any man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass; for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. who only heareth, who only feeleth, who does not go forward to execute, and accomplish, and perform what he hears, receives no useful or lasting impression on his mind. The effect is soon lost, the impression is soon effaced; he returns to his usual habits; he goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what he saw. But whoso looketh into, that is gazeth upon, studieth, thoroughly understandeth, and in his deeds exhibiteth the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein habitually, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

Thus let your earnestness and seriousness of present purpose be proved and tested by your improved life. Be diligent to gain good habits. As God has been very gracious and merciful to you in giving you full opportunity of knowing His