through the merits of our Redeemer. Yes, the time must arrive when what has happened to all, shall happen to you, "when the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail; when the silver cord shall be loosed, and the golden bowl be broken; when the dust shall return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." What is not the assurance worth, which can stand against that hour? which shall be calm, when all around are agitated, peaceful, when all around are anxious, and enable you to say, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him, against that day;' 66 my flesh and my heart faileth," there is no promise that they shall do otherwise, for they are of the earth, earthy; "my flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever." Thus, through the grace of your

1 Eccles. xii. 5. 22 Tim. i. 12. 3 Psalm lxxiii. 26.

conquering Redeemer, death will be yours, its sting drawn out, its terrors quelled, its power for ever broken. And this to the faintest and weakest believer among you, as certainly and unquestionably, as to the strongest and the most advanced. If you are are indeed placed upon a rock, though you stand but a single foot above the highest limit of the waves, you are as secure as he who stands ten thousand feet above your head, and that rock must fall, before your life be periled. So is it with the Rock of Ages! Whether life or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours, if are Christ's, for Christ is God's.

you

Such is a faint outline of the incalculable privileges of the saints on earth! Ought not every one among us, then, to ask his heart in sincerity, the great question upon which an eternity will depend,-Am I the Lord Jesus Christ's? have I fled to Him for refuge, for pardon, for grace, for strength? Is all my trust,

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all my righteousness, all my hope, in Him, and in Him alone? If you possess a belief, a reasonable, a scriptural, a well-grounded belief that it is, not a word which we have spoken this day, not a promise, not a privilege, which does not belong to yourself. "All are yours;" grace which the world cannot take away, peace which the world cannot understand, promises which the world cannot appreciate; All are yours. Live daily more and more in the belief and in the enjoyment of them, 'then shall life, with all its trials, be to you but a season of preparation for joys which shall never end; and death, with all its agonies, but the gate through which you shall pass from your prison to your palace; and "things to come," with all the infinity of their blessedness, shall be your purchased portion, your enduring inheritance, when "things present" shall have passed away for ever.

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SERMON IX.

THE SAINTS IN HEAVEN.

REV. VII. 13-15.

"AND ONE OF THE ELDERS ANSWERED, SAYING UNTO ME, WHAT ARE THESE WHICH ARE ARRAYED IN WHITE ROBES? AND WHENCE CAME THEY? AND I SAID UNTO HIM, SIR, THOU KNOWEST. AND HE SAID TO ME, THESE ARE THEY WHICH CAME OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION, AND HAVE WASHED THEIR ROBES, AND MADE THEM WHITE IN THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB. THEREFORE ARE THEY BEFORE THE THRONE OF GOD, AND SERVE HIM DAY AND NIGHT IN HIS TEMPLE."

SINCE We last assembled in this house of prayer, our Church has celebrated the return of one of the most important festivals in the Christian year-the ascension into heaven of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. All that remained to set

the seal of Omnipotence to the great and glorious work of man's redemption was on that day achieved; when He, who was more than conqueror over Satan, sin, and death, returned to the bosom of the Father, from whence he came, again to receive blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, of which, as we are told, the ten thousand times ten thousand of the hosts of heaven pronounced him worthy."

Our Church, well knowing how little disposed the hearts and minds of her members would be to dwell upon these high and elevating subjects; how much we are all bound down to earth, by the world, its duties and its entanglements; most wisely does not content herself with the beautifully appropriate services which she selects for the anniversary of the ascension, but again, by her Collect and Scriptures for to-day, endeavours to maintain and strengthen the feeling which she hopes her former efforts may