watchful eye observing me, spoke to me, he knew well Old David, too, helped me by I am thankful, too, to be

knew there was a kind and and that, though he seldom enough how I was going on. his stories about the "guv'nor." able to say that I sought higher help; and God was very gracious to me. I was led to repent of my sins, and to flee for refuge to the only Saviour.

Time passed on, and still I waited and hoped for some recognition on the part of my employer. At last it came. Our interview was a most happy one. If I could hardly tell him, from emotion, how much I owed to his kindness; he on his part felt the joy of a good man in knowing that he had been the means of saving a soul from death. He offered me a situation in the house of great responsibility and importance, and there I remained till I went into business on my own account. Mr. C has long since gone to his rest, but his works follow him. I am not the only one who has had to bless God for having been brought under his influence as a Christian man of business.

A NEW YEAR'S ADDRESS.

"And that knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed."— Rom. xiii. 11.

"Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light."-Ephes. v. 14.

YES, "it is high time to awake out of sleep." What has a season like this to do with spiritual sloth? A new year has come the old year-with all its signal mercies, its solemn providences, its precious opportunities, its dread responsibilities, its holy sabbaths, its indelible records of sin in the book of God's remembrance-is gone for ever; and a new year is begun.

Is this, then, a time for sleep? If "God requireth that which is past," is not this a time for deep solemnity of spirit? Some, many, there are who spend the last moments of the departing year and the first of the new year in devout communion with God. It is well, thus in the closet alone with God, thus in the family circle, around the common household altar, thus in the great congregation, prostrate in awful silence before the mercy-seat, to keep midnight watch and to welcome a new year.

To each class the new year brings a message:-I. A solemn yet animating appeal to the slumbering saint. II. An alarm to the sleeping sinner.

1. There is a message of warning to Christians themselves. This is evident from the motive subjoined. It is, then, a mournful fact that even believers may sleep. Yes, Christians are often in a drowsy frame. While the bridegroom tarried, even the wise virgins "slumbered and slept."

2. Such a condition is sadly reproachful, O child of God, to thee! Saved by grace, plucked as a brand from the burning, bought with such a price, and yet negligent while others are active! loving to slumber while others are pressing on to the goal! precious opportunities for receiving good or doing good unimproved! How shouldst thou be filled with shame and confusion of face this day! Art thou a disciple of Jesus? Did he ever speak an idle word? Did he ever lose a useful moment? "I must work," said he, "the works of Him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work."

How helpThe flames

3. Again, how perilous is such a condition. lessly exposed to danger is a man asleep. may rage around and may seize on the couch on which he lies, yet those flames may but lull him in to a more profound repose. The assassin with his dagger may stand over him, and his eye may take measure of the blow; but the victim sleeps on, unconscious of his peril. And so it is when by Satan's successful devices, and by spiritual sloth and self-indulgence, the child of God is led on gradually but surely into greater sins, as David was: then how profound that guilty sleep in which the soul is wrapped! This sleep deepens and becomes more profound, until, like the drowsy state which forebodes the approach of death to the body, there seems to come over the soul the coma that must speedily end in death eternal.

Let Christians resist the first approaches of spiritual slumber: let them shun all contact with those influences, employments, or companionships, which would chill and freeze the current of spiritual life. The Alpine traveller, toiling up the snow-wreathed pass, benumbed with cold, feels a soothing torpor creep over him. He lies down and sleeps, to wake no more.

And have we not read of Christian, when climbing the hill Difficulty, falling into a sound sleep in a pleasant

arbour, and how in his sleep that roll which symbolized the Spirit's witness of a free and full salvation to his soul, "fell out of his hand."

And let us mark also how apostasy begins:

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Now,' said Christian, let me go hence.'

'Nay, stay,' said the Interpreter, 'till I have showed thee a little more; and after that thou shalt go on thy way.' "So he took him by the hand again, and led him into a very dark room, where sat a man in an iron cage.

"Now the man, to look on, seemed very sad: he sat with his eyes looking down to the ground, his hands folded together, and he sighed as if his heart would break.....

"How camest thou,' said Christian, 'into this condition ?'

"I left off to watch and be sober; I sinned against the light of the word and the goodness of God. I have grieved the Spirit, and he is gone; I tempted the devil, and he is come to me; I have so hardened my heart, that I cannot repent.'

"Christian: For what did you bring yourself into this condition?'

"Man: For the lusts, pleasures, and profits of this world. Oh, eternity, eternity! how shall I grapple with the misery that I must meet with in eternity?" "

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The motives urged for wakefulness are two-fold :First, the peculiar solemnity of the time. “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep." When the apostle wrote these words, judgments were impending, or had already burst in tempest on the world; and nearer and nearer drew nigh the "great tribulation"the destruction of Jerusalem and the overthrow of the Jewish church and nation. Was this a time for the church of Christ to slumber? That day of doom on Jewish unbelief was also to be the crisis of the church's larger triumphs. Her bitterest foes, who had not only killed the Prince of Life, but persecuted all that called on his name, invoking heathen aid in their cruel assaults-these would soon be swept from her path, and a career of spiritual conquest is before her. Shall she sleep at such an hour as this?

And does not the present year open on a world trembling under the heavings of those mighty earthquakes, which holy seers and apocalyptic visions have taught us to expect? And shall we, who are Christ's,-we, who are

taught that he sits on the throne of providence-we, who believe that he shall ere long (when judgment has done its dread work as his avenger and herald), in addition to the 66 many crowns " he already has received, receive yet one crown more, "the crown of all the earth "shall we, I say, "knowing the time" and discerning its signs, now give way to slumber? God forbid.

It is at any period, however calm and peaceful, a solemn thing, on a new year's day, to look back on the ravages of time, and the desolations of death. Solemn too is it, with the dark future of another year only begun before us, to gaze on that uplifted curtain, and to wonder who among us ere the year is out shall die.

With the new year's dawn began death's dread progress, and the harvest of this Great Reaper extends over all the year.

"Leaves have their time to fall,

And flowers to wither, at the north wind's breath,
And stars to set-but all,

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O death!”

Death's ravages, then-death's certainty to each one of us, and life's uncertainty-and all this coupled with time to be redeemed, the flesh to be mortified, holiness to be advanced, God to be glorified more than ever we have done it-tell us, as the year begins, that "it is high time to awake out of sleep."

But a second and more animating motive remains to believers in Christ: glory is nearer; the fulness of the beatific vision, the personal presence of that Lamb in the midst of the throne, whom, all unseen, through years of conflict and trial, we have trusted. "Our salvation," as a new year reminds us, "is nearer than when we believed." Christians! you were saved the moment you believed (for "he that hath the Son hath life"). You were sealed unto the day of redemption, yet still that full "salvation with eternal glory" which the day of redemption shall reveal hath not come; but now, nearer and nearer still it approaches. Wake up, then, and hail the first streaks of its dawn in the dappled east. Wake up, sleeping saints; lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.

As the weary traveller revives when from some distant hill his cottage home is seen afar; as the land-birds and floating weeds and plants far out at sea tell the homesick exile that ere long the white cliffs of his country shall

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greet his eyes; as the pilgrims in the desert press on with new vigour, as the soft perfumes of "Araby the Blest" and "the land of frankincense" wafted on the breeze assure them that the desert is well nigh past; so, believers in Jesus, watchfully, earnestly, joyfully, let us go forward; for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." Very soon, sooner it may be than we expect it may be ere this year has seen its noon, or reached its dying day-we may be with our Lord. Watch, therefore, and sleep not. Watch and pray; for ye know not when the time is. Watch; for even to-night the summons may come. "Blessed is that servant whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing."

II. With the new year there comes a cry of alarm to the sleeping sinner: "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead!" Alas, sinner, careless sinner! how awful is your condition! You are asleep on the brink of destruction: you are insensible to the danger; but is your immortal soul less exposed to ruin? Look yonder. See that canoe gliding swiftly down the mighty river: no oar is plied; no helmsman guides the bark. The Indian owner is asleep. With his blanket wrapped around him, unsuspicious of peril, and dropping the long-plied oar far up the stream, thinking he could wake at any time, and would wake long before the rapids were nigh, he still sleeps. The rapids toss the bark, but still he sleeps; the rapids hurry him to the cataract, but on its very verge he sleeps. Another moment, and the sleeper is over the precipice.

During the past year, how many have thus perished! Upon most men death comes unexpectedly. How many instances have we known of this kind within the last twelve months, where the summons was as unexpected as the soul was unprepared! Shall the new year, then, come and pass away in spiritual sleep? "What meanest thou, O sleeper?" The tempest of Divine anger rages; and, as the Lord liveth, there is but a step between thee and death eternal. Are you saying, "Time enough yet?" Is it thus you requite God for the mercies of the past, and for the dangers you have escaped? Shall not his goodness lead you to repentance? Will you abuse his long-suffering and quench his Spirit any longer? Before death comes, your day of grace may be over. There is "a day of visitation;" a day of mercy, which, if unimproved, the sinner must pass from his sleep of sin to wake up in the place of everlasting sorrow.