expected mercy, while the heart remains untouched; just as sometimes an external concussion, by making the whole instrument to tremble, calls forth sound from every string, though none is touched; but the long and loud vibration of praise is never heard from the heart, until the hand of heaven comes upon it. Oh! that it may come on every heart here to-day! and be not this hour only, but this whole day, and every future day of life sacred to gratitude, and then shall immortality be spent in praise.

The Psalmist addresses his soul; "Oh! my soul." He was wont to do it. On one occasion we find him expostulating with it, for unreasonable depression, "why art thou cast down, oh! my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me; hope thou in God;" and perhaps there are those here to whom this language seems more appropriate, than that of the text; to whom this day brings painful remembrances and renews the recollection of bereavement; some with whom the past year has been a year of sorrow, and who have brought a heavy heart with them to our sanctuary to-day; and feel as if their feelings could not chime in with our meditations. But is there one here who has not benefits to remember, and abundant cause why he should bless the Lord? What if you have been afflicted; will you except affliction from your list of benefits, when "whom the Lord loves he chastens ?" The Psalmist did not make this exception; he says "it is good for me that I have been afflicted;" "before I was afflicted I went astray;" "I know, oh! Lord, that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me." Affliction seems to be one of the pro

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mised blessings of the covenant, which, while it cannot but occasion grief, calls also for gratitude. Is never any thing salutary that is painful? It may be that, that very affliction, in the remembrance of which you feel as if you could not praise, has been the greatest of the divine benefits to you; and that God's dealings with you make a louder and more urgent call on you for gratitude, than is made on any other; invoking you to praise him through, and with your tears, and from the altar of your broken heart to send up unto him the sweetest and most abundant incense of gratitude. Let every one, then, join in the charge which the Psalmist gives his soul, "bless the Lord, oh! my soul, and forget not all his benefits."

The language of the text seems to chide the soul with forgetfulness, while it charges it not to forget. It seems to imply that there is a proneness in us to be unmindful of the divine benefits, and to let the instances and expressions of God's goodness slip from our memories. And who does not know this to be

the fact?

It is not in reference to this subject alone that we are forgetful. We are generally and characteristically, as sinners, forgetful, inconsiderate creatures. I couple these words together, for if we do not consider, we may as well forget. Indeed inconsideration is, practically, forgetfulness. Now, the great complaint of God is, "my people doth not consider." "Oh! that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end;" they consider not the work of the Lord, nor regard the operation of his hands. "God is not in all their thoughts."

"Now, consider this, ye that forget God." It is surely no wonder, if men forget God, that they forget his benefits; and that, if he is not in all their thoughts, that his goodness should not be. Perhaps there is no subject on which even Christians are more lamentably unmindful, than this, about which the Psalmist chides and charges his soul. The very uniformity and abundance of the divine goodness is abused to the promoting of this unmindfulness. Because there is so much to be remembered, and so much which, with the greatest effort of memory, must be left unremembered, we do not lay that burden on the memory which it can easily bear. We generalize on a subject, on which, of all others, we ought to be most particular. We acknowledge that he crowneth us with loving kindness and tender mercies, without considering the ways in which that loving kindness displays itself, and without remembering and reflecting on those mercies in detail; and consequently our gratitude is too much a general and indefinite emotion. We say "he hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities," without considering first what our sins have deserved, and then how we have been actually dealt with; and yet, unless we set in contrast what we have merited with what we have received, we cannot enter into the sentiment of the Psalmist as we ought; and our acknowledgment is, in a great measure, unmeaning. So we call upon our souls to forget not all his benefits, while we take no pains to remind our souls of any of them.

What if the divine benefits began to be conferred

before memory commenced its record? Yet do we not know, and can we not reflect that Omniscience has watched over us from the womb, and that Omnipotence rocked our cradle, supported our first unstable steps, and, through many dangers, led us along the path of infancy and childhood. And need we forget, though it be not properly a subject of memory, the circumstances of mercy, under which we came into being, the hands and hearts of tenderness that received us, and rejoiced in the care of us, and the manifold distinctions of the land in which Providence cast our lot, and above all that we were born beneath the star of Bethlehem, and opened our eyes on the radiance of the sun of righteousness. Oh! my soul, forget not these benefits of thy God to thee.

But

What if, from childhood up, there is much of the divine goodness that cannot be remembered. Yet may not this very fact be reflected on with gratitude, that, where one benefit is remembered, there are ten, yea, ten times ten, that cannot be remembered. we must not charge all this defect to the weakness of memory; there are other and stronger reasons why the benefits which God has been conferring upon us, are, for the most part, forgotten. They made but little impression on our hearts, when they were received, otherwise they would not have been forgotten. The memory is tenacious of every thing that deeply affects the heart. It is a law of the soul; and, again, in violation of another law of the soul, which requires that we should frequently review and recall what we would retain, we have not been in the habit from time to time of reviewing, and bring

ing afresh before us, the divine benefits; and, still again, we do not make those efforts to recollect that we ought. If you would sit down awhile to-day, and look back, and around, and within, and ply your memory, many are the mercies that you would be able to recollect, which hitherto you have been utterly unmindful of; and how can any of you more profitably employ a portion of this day?

I have not prescribed to myself the impracticable task of enumerating the divine benefits. They are too numerous. Even those that we all enjoy in common, are more than I could so much as cursorily mention; life, health, reason, kindred, friendship, liberty, peace, the Gospel, a Saviour; on which of these might I not dwell the whole time allotted for this service, and as for the last "forever his dear sacred name, might dwell upon my tongue." And they are so diversified; how many have we, which others have not, the accompaniments and effects of the glorious Gospel which has been put into our hands, while there are myriads of beings like us, which it has never reached and blessed. Let not these be forgotten in your reflections to-day. There are many and cogent reasons why they should not be forgotten; they exalt you, but they surely become, through your abuse of them, the occasion of your deeper and more destructive downfall. This is the heaviest of all condemnations, that light has come into the world, and men have loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. The direst curse is perversely distilled from the purest blessing. The condemnation of conscience and the