ter and history without a blush or sigh! Happy that religious man, who knows that he is more holy since the year began, and who can hear without trembling the wings of the messenger as they sweep by him, bearing up to God the unchanging register of the finished season! He may hope to meet serenely the last hour of life. He may have peace when his eyes shall close on the last sun of his earthly existence. But if, careless and unprofitable Christian! your conscience reproaches you for the misspent time and wasted opportunities of this one year; if you look with shame and agitation at the empty record which it now gives in to judgment; oh, how will you bear the arrival of that day, when all the books shall be opened, and time shall be no more? Awake! Arouse yourself! Let it be enough that one barren year has past! Rouse yourself to diligence and duty! It may be that the fruitless tree will be spared one year longer. Awake! Be sober and watch unto prayer. Redeem the time that has been lost. Forget the things that are behind, and reach forth unto those which are before. But there are others, to whom this impressive hour addresses itself; those, who are not religious men; who as yet have not commenced the great work of life,—the acquisition of a Christian character. What shall I ask of them? Whether they have been improving? Alas, they have not entered on their course. Existence, so far as regards any intentional preparation on their part, is a blank. They make no pretence to have purposed to themselves a Christian life. They have yet to take the first step. Miserable men! who have a work to be performed, a life to be accounted for, a soul to be saved, and as yet have. done nothing concerning it! who see time flying, death approaching, and yet have not so much as com menced their great business in the world! Miserable beings! Have you forgotten that God's image is stamped upon your souls? that the son of God has died for you? that you are not your own? and that your hours are fast bearing you to his presence, who shall judge the world in righteousness? And for what is it, that you are willing to risk going unprepared to his awful bar? What is it that occupies your life, and is an equivalent for the hazard of eternity? Your business? Your pleasures ? Your pursuit of wealth? Is it these, that take the place with you of the God who made, and the Saviour who redeemed you, and the happiness that is everlasting? Is it these, that you are giving in exchange for your soul? Miserable men! madly choosing time instead of eternity, earth instead of heaven, when, by a wise obedience to the gospel, you might ensure all! satisfied with the life which now is, when you might also have that which is to come! - content with what you know will perish, when there lies within your reach what shall endure forever! Let the admonitions of this solemn season arrest your heedlessness, and rebuke your mad infatuation. As you cross the threshold of the year, give an hour to thought, and gird yourselves with a new resolution before you plunge into the dangerous future. Whatever the past may have been, let the coming days be redeemed by penitence and faith, by watchfulness and prayer. Cast yourselves prostrate on your knees before God, if you would be wise, and rise not up till you find yourselves ready and willing, by a sacred vow, to make the beginning of a NEW YEAR the beginning of a NEW LIFE. THE MORAL POWER CHRIST'S OF CHARACTER. THE views of every body of Christians are very much determined by some prominent view which it takes of the Savior. For Christ, unlike the philosophers, did not merely teach, but lived out what he taught. Christianity was embodied in his life. He is the sun at the centre, around which all Christian truth revolves. The prominent ideas that we have of him must, more or less, modify all our notions of his religion. Therefore, in all ages of the church, the views entertained of Christ have been deemed, and justly, of the very highest importance. But at the outset, we are struck with the fact, that, on this subject, men have been divided into two distinct classes; one class deeming the metaphysical view of Christ the most essential; the other, the moral view. That is, one has deemed it of primary importance that men should have just notions of the nature of Christ; the other, that men should have just conceptions of his |