his brow; and the prospect nerves his arm, and sustains his courage. It lights up the darkest scene of conflict, and makes the severest toil easy to be borne. The mariner far off on the deep lives on the hope of a quiet haven, and the greeting of loved ones, whose caresses are to make him forget the boisterous winds, and the impending dangers of his voyage. But what are these prospects compared with the immortal crown for which the Christian contends, and which, if he is "faithful unto death," will be given him amid the congratulations of heaven's blissful inhabitants ? What haven is so calm as the "haven of eternal rest;" where, after being tossed upon this troubled sea, the soul is at last admitted, and moors itself along the banks of that river of life which is clear as crystal, and which is skirted by the immortal fruits of Paradise! Cheering prospects these! Surely the Christian can and ought to rejoice. The intermediate events may not, to the eye of sense, seem so auspicious as from his admitted character we should antici

pate; but we are to estimate his happiness not only by what is visible and present, but by what is unseen, and what is yet to be realized.

The pathway to our rest, if not all smooth

and verdant, is sufficiently so to give it a decided preference over those which the worldling and the sensualist tread. But the great attraction lies in the direction which it takes, and in the glories to which it leads. We can bear to traverse a rugged way, if it terminate in a fertile country, or if it conduct us to a splendid and well-furnished home. Now the Christian's course is far from being a rugged one on the contrary, as appears from what has been said, it has much to make the traveller elate and joyful. But O, its end! See where it leads. his feet! To what a calm and cloudless region it conducts him! HEAVEN is its termination! Its mansions of rest are ever in view. Like the never-fading glory which Bunyan keeps before his hero's eye-and which, though far in the distance, serves to cheer him on through difficulties and dangers; these promised scenes,

appeal incessantly to the eye of faith, and sustain the spirit in its upward flight. Here is a view of the Christian's prospects, which even they who deny his claim to present felicity must admit to be a joyful one. Ah, how often does the child of vanity sigh to think that he cannot have this world and Heaven too; and with what gladness would he at last accept of the good man's prospects, and share his bright reward. But to do this, he must consent to take his cross; to bear his burdens; to walk in the same path; then, and not till then, may he indulge the hope that "his last end will be like

his."

CHAPTER XIII.

OBSTRUCTIONS TO PIOUS JOY.

Having now developed some of the resources of Christian gladness, it is time to inquire if we avail ourselves of them, and are as joyful as our religion is designed to make us ?

The very statement of this question brings a sigh, I fear, from the reader, who is conscious, perhaps, that whilst there is no deficiency in his religion, there is a very deep and criminal one in himself.

It is with a view to make the Christian understand his privileges, and to improve them to the furtherance of his happiness, that these pages are indited; and this cannot be effected without laying open some of the obstructions which hinder the soul from reaching that mount of clear vision and bright prospects to which the blessed gospel invites us.

It is a melancholy circumstance--especially in its influence upon the unthinking worldthat the joy of the professors of religion seems so seldom to flow directly from their piety. Some are scarcely distinguishable from the world in their apparent sources of felicity. They drink eagerly at the same fountains, and range as freely and as exultingly among the same pleasures. But little need be said of such, since their preferences, and their associates, and their habitual joys evince that it is very possible to wear the name, without realizing the blessings, of the Christian.

But we will take those who, in the judgment of charity, "have passed from death unto life," and see whether among even these, there is not room for improvement; whether some serious obstructions do not exist to the full develope.ment of their moral influence, and to the allowed exercise of their pious joy.

In the world of nature, it is astonishing how much attention and cultivation will do, in advancing the strength and the beauty of her pro