Repentance. And who can doubt, that is a duty which it is eminently fitting for man to perform? Is he not a sinner? Has he not broken the law of his Maker, written on his heart, and faithfully interpreted by conscience? Has he not also violated that fuller and brighter announcement of Jehovah's will, which the sacred volume exhibits? And how, under such circumstances, can he enjoy any thing like peace and happiness, until he has learned to contemplate his past conduct in its true light, as deeply offensive to the divine majesty, and has formed the fervent resolution to spend the residue of his career on earth in a very different manner? Is it not becoming, that his heart should bleed with sorrow for the transgressions which he has committed? Is it not right, that tears of penitence should flow in torrents from his eyes? What can be more needful than the contrition which the Scriptures enjoin? Who does not feel, that the offender against heaven never acts with so much propriety and grace, as when, overwhelmed with a sense of guilt, he falls prostrate before the throne of the Most High, and exclaims in the language of Job, “I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes?"

Another duty of religion is Faith. And surely this duty is one peculiarly fitted to the situation of man as a culprit, all whose hopes of mercy must rest on the friendly offices of a Redeemer. He is wholly unable to save himself. No oblation which he can carry to the altar of heaven will expiate his guilt. He can be accepted at the bar of Jehovah only in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ. Of course he must rely implicitly and entirely on those merits as a ground of salvation. So that the leading injunction of the New Testament, BELIEVE, is exactly suited to the present condition of man.

Obedience to the whole revealed will of heaven is a third duty of religion. The fitness of this duty results

from the relation subsisting between every created being and the great Creator. It is unquestionably proper, that the thing formed should submit to the control and fulfil the pleasure of Him who formed it. And still more right and reasonable must this subserviency appear, when we reflect, that God requires of us nothing but what is calculated to promote our own advantage. In keeping his commandments there is an exceeding great reward. In yielding to his exactions, we pursue the course most truly and permanently profitable to ourselves. For example, if we advert to that class of his precepts which may be arranged under the general head of self-denial, and to which the mind undisciplined by virtue and piety, is always most ready to demur, we shall discover, on due examination, that they have a direct tendency to diminish the evils of the present, and to mature the human being for the enjoyments of a future state. They are exactly what he needs to preserve him from degradation and misery in a world, where temptations so many and so powerful beset every moment of his life-every step of his career. While they appear to bring him under a degree of restraint, their real effect is to liberate him from thraldom far more ignominious and wretched-to sever the trammels of corrupt habits, and to confer upon one who was once the veriest slave, the immunities of the noblest freedom. O! tell us, ye who object to the self-denying maxims of Christianity, can you conceive of liberty more exalted and more enviable, than that which comes to the soul of the man who emerges from the depths of intemperance, and puts for ever away from him the inebriating goblet! And is it not a glorious emancipation too which religion achieves, when it causes that significant injunction, "Love not the world, neither the things of the world," to tell on the conscience of the avaricious

individual, and compels him to unlock his hoarded treasures, and melts the stream of sympathetic feeling which had been so long frozen in his bosom, and relumes the light of benevolence which had faded from his eye, and renders him a ministering angel to the destitute and the suffering that surround him! What a sublimewhat a blessed transformation is this! And yet it is the simple effect which the precepts of self-denial contained in the New Testament, when carried into practice, necessarily produce on the moral character.

We see, then, that the duties which religion enjoins, are precisely adapted to the condition of man. And so the blessings which it confers in this world, and which it promises in the world to come, are exactly such as he is most in need of. We shall not attempt to speak of these blessings in detail. A passing allusion to one or two of them will answer our present purpose. First, the pardon of sin is among the most prominent of the benefits which the gospel bestows on our guilty race. Now, every one must admit, that no boon is better suited to our wants than this. The criminal sentenced to die for the violation of his country's laws, will tell you, that the most intense and absorbing desire of his soul, is that he may become an object of executive clemency. Nor can any language speak the joy with which he is transported, when he hears, that the claims of justice are to be relax. ed in his favour, and that he is not to perish by the igno minious stroke which he so much dreaded. In like manner the individual who has a proper view of his guilt as a transgressor of the divine law-who sees that he has incurred his Maker's direst displeasure, and that nothing but the interposition of most unmerited mercy on the part of his heavenly Sovereign, can rescue him from the deep dishonour and the excrutiating anguish of eternal death

-he who thus feels would exchange the treasures of the universe, were they his, for the well-authenticated intimation, that the sentence of condemnation passed upon him was revoked, and that the offences which he had committed were all expunged from the recording-book of his supreme Judge. To him forgiveness were, indeed "a joyful sound"—a sound which comes upon his ear with melody more exhilarating than "the music of the spheres." Another blessing which religion confers, is peace of conscience that internal tranquillity—that settled calm of the soul to which the wicked are strangers, and for which, in their hours of remorse, when haunted by the terrific spectre of a mispent life, they would gladly sacrifice all that they had ever deemed desirable in wealth, in pleasure, or in the coveted distinctions of earth. As a further blessing that springs from the benign influence of religion, we may mention the peculiar support and solace which it administers in the season of sorrow, in the hour of sickness, and in the crisis of death. The parent who follows to the grave a beloved and promising child-the man whose property is wrested from him by some sudden casualty, or, which is yet worse, whose reputation has been blasted by unfounded calumny—and the individual who lies on yonder couch, from which he is to rise no more, given over by his physicians, and admonished by sensations within him not to be mistaken, that the last struggle is at band,-these, brethren, are the witnesses to whom we appeal in behalf of the doctrine of our text, that religion is the one thing needful. And yet the benefits which it thus confers, are merely preparatory to those which it promises. We have mentioned only the beginning the inadequate foretaste, of its blessings. Unspeakably higher, indescribably brighter, incalculably dearer are the joys of which it is the source, in the state

that follows death. It lifts the human being to a future and celestial world, where, delivered from all that is gross in his nature, and elevated above those limits that here obstruct his vision and impede his march, he shall expa tiate over the regions of purity and bliss-unfettered by space-unbounded by time-the compeer of angels-the associate of kindred spirits from earth-the co-heir of Christ-the child and friend of God.

There is a further consideration suggested by the second clause of the passage before us, which especially shows that religion is the "one thing needful." "And Mary (says the Saviour) hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her." All other blessings are fleeting and precarious. Religion only is able to impress the signet of immutability upon the benefits which it confers. They who make these benefits their choice, select a portion of which nothing can deprive them. Their career on earth may be shaded by occasional gloom-untoward circumstances may now and then occur to mar their quiet-a mysterious providence may even visit them with many temporal calamities. But of what account are such light afflictions, compared with the eternal weight of glory which is in reserve for them beyond the grave? They may look upon these transient ills, as the parental inflictions of a God who chastens his children for their good; and who addresses them individually in such consolatory terms as these: "For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer." How happy and secure are those to whom Jehovah thus speaks! In the darkest and dreariest hour, they have a hope of which they are not ashamed-an