me.

it by the peculiar circumstances of those who hear One congregation is not like another; and it seems to me, that we should choose, as far as possible, such points to dwell upon, as our hearers may feel not only to concern themselves, but to concern themselves particularly. God's call to you, therefore, is not exactly the same as it is to others; your reasons for not listening to it are not exactly the same with the reasons of others; and although the final punishment of disobedience be indeed the same to all, yet the more immediate and earthly one is different, inasmuch as it varies according to the particular nature of that good thing which God offered, and which we declined to accept.

God's call, addressed to the soul of every man, is a call to him to be happy for ever; and this is the same thing as calling upon him to be holy, for holiness and happiness are one in God, and they are one also in the children of God. Holiness in God's creatures consists in their drawing near to God, and becoming like unto him. No man hath seen God, however, at any time;-but the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, man has seen: and although now we, in this generation, see him no longer with our bodily eyes, yet with the story of his life and character handed down to us from those who did see and hear him, and with his Spirit

ever dwelling amongst us and revealing him to all those who desire him, we do, for all practical purposes, see and know him still. To be like Christ, then, is to be like God: he who has the image of the Son, the same has also the image of the Father. Now in Christ, the main point of imitation to us is this, that in all things he did the will of him who sent him, and laboured to finish his work. This he began from boyhood, and in this he persevered even till that moment when all was accomplished, and he resigned his spirit into the hands of his Father on the cross. To him, God's call was to be the great prophet of his people, to go about doing good, to teach them the knowledge of the Most High, to prepare men's minds for that kingdom of heaven, which by his blood was to be purchased, and preached to all mankind. This was to him, so far as he was man, God's special call;-for his death, as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, belongs to his nature as he was both God and man; and here, therefore, there is no place for our imitation. As, then, Christ laboured all his life, beginning in his boyhood, to obey God's special call to him, so we can best imitate Christ by labouring all our lives to obey God's special call to us. Now this call is made known to us, not by a miracle, nor by a voice from heaven; but partly by the circumstances of our age and outward con

dition, and partly by the different faculties and dispositions of our minds. For instance, your youth points out to you one especial call of God, to obey your parents and teachers, and to improve yourselves for the duties which you will hereafter have to perform as men. And your outward circumstances, your birth and condition in life, point out to you another especial call of God ;that is, they point out to you what particular duties you will have hereafter to perform, and what sort of improvement is particularly required of you. Generally, to all young persons God's call is to improve themselves; but what particular sort of improvement he calls you to, that you may learn from the station of life in which he has placed you. If you were born in a station, in which you would be called upon to work chiefly with your hands hereafter, then the strengthening of your bodies, the learning to be active and handy, to be bold and enduring of bodily pain and labour, would be your special duty, over and above that common duty of love to God and to man, which belongs to every age and every condition alike. But, as it is, you will be called upon to work chiefly with your minds hereafter: and although it be very true, that the mind works but feebly when the body is sickly; and that, therefore, you are called upon, like all other persons, to make yourselves, as far as you can, strong and

active, and healthful and patient in your bodies; yet your especial call is rather to improve your minds, because it is with your minds that God calls upon you to work hereafter. And for the younger part of you, I need not go any further than this for the particular calling in which you will have to work with your minds,-I mean the particular profession or situation of life which you are to fill, can hardly yet be fixed: and at any rate, you are yet too young to begin your professional course of studies, and your business is to attend to those studies which are pointed out for you as likely to be useful generally to your understandings, be your profession hereafter what it may.

But some of you are old enough to inquire what is God's call to you, as to the choice of a profession; that is to say, what course of duty is pointed out to you by the particular dispositions and faculties of your minds. It is very true, that this choice does not always rest with yourselves: it is true, also, that you cannot yet fully judge of what your faculties may hereafter ripen to, nor how habit may make your inclinations conform to what now you may feel most strongly to dislike. These are circumstances, which naturally point out to you the benefit of listening to the greater experience of others; and not deciding for yourselves alone. But, although you should not judge for yourselves

absolutely, and in defiance of the advice of others, yet it does become you, earnestly and carefully to look into your own hearts and minds, to observe, so far as you can, what your character is,-what is its strength, and what its weakness;-what are its intellectual faculties, and what its moral tendencies;-what faults it is most prone to, and what duties it seems best fitted successfully to perform. Few parents would refuse to listen to their son, when he laid before them the results of his own best inquiries into his own heart and mind, and accordingly represented his greater fitness for one particular calling, his greater unfitness for another. Nay, every wise parent would rejoice and be thankful to see his son thus opening his character before him; and furnishing him with the knowledge by which he could best judge what was best for him.

Undoubtedly, it is a solemn deliberation in what line of life God calls upon us to serve him; and we know this, that it is beginning with most evil omens, if we enter upon any profession or way of living, to which we cannot humbly believe that he has called us. Family convenience, prospects of preferment, must not outweigh higher considerations; and this applies especially to that most solemn of all callings, and in which, above all others, worldly well-doing in it may be quite independent of the fitness of our hearts and minds. for the discharge of its duties.

A young man of