heart is bleeding over that undutiful and ungodly youth, who despises your authority, your prayers, and your tears. "God is able, even of these stones, to raise up children unto Abraham."

This observation is for you, O minister! whose sabbath-day evenings are imbittered by the exclamation, Lord, who hath believed our report? who are looking with despondency on that hearer, who, after all your faithful warnings, is rejecting the counsel of God against himself. The desire of his eyes may be torn from him. He may be

shipwrecked, and thrown on the shore of a better country. Sickness may recall him from the wanderings of health. He may go into a new neighbourhood; he may meet with very different companions; he may hear another preacher; and he may so hear, as that his soul may live. Is any thing too hard for the Lord? He can vary his means. His resources are endless. We are prone to give up characters too soon. Persons have been considered as abandoned of God, at the very time he was going to display his power, and the riches of his grace in their conversion.

This observation is for you, O sinner! who have to this hour been unhappy, or rather criminal enough to live without God in the world; but now that you feel a willingness to return, are concluding that it will be in vain. No. "There is

hope in Israel concerning this thing. Where sin has abounded, grace shall much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Fourthly. Conversion makes a man useful. "Who was in time past unprofitable, but is now profitable." This is the case with every regene

rate sinner. To render us profitable, is the design of religion; and it is easy to see, that it must be the effect of it. Religion is social, and diffusive. According to our Saviour's language, the possessors of divine grace are the salt of the earth, to keep it from corruption. They are the lights of the world, to keep it from darkness; and this light is not to be concealed under a bushel, but to be fixed "on a candlestick, that it may give light to all that are in the house." And their light is "so to shine before men, that they may see their good works, and glorify our Father who is in heaven." The talents they receive from God, look beyond themselves. The blessings they enjoy, they are to communicate. They are to "comfort others with the comforts wherewith they themselves are comforted of God." Of their fortunes they are only stewards, not owners. They are commanded to bear one another's burdens. And even in their prayers, they are taught brotherly love; they are to plead for others, as well as for themselves; they are to say, "Our Father-forgive us our trespasses-give us this day our daily bread." Divine grace never leaves us as it finds us. It produces a change the most wonderful, and glorious, and beneficial. "The wolf also dwells with the lamb; and the leopard lies down with the kid; and the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together, and a little child leads them. Instead of the thorn comes up the fir tree, and instead of the brier, the myrtle tree. The wilderness and solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose."

Divine grace destroys those vices by which we are injurious to others. For the best charity I

can exercise towards my fellow creatures, says a good man, is to leave off sinning myself. It subdues the selfishness which is so common to our depraved nature; it enlivens and expands the affections; it leads us to rejoice with them that do rejoice, and to weep with them that weep. It teaches and enables us to act with propriety in every capacity and relation in life. Every company and neighbourhood is the better for us: we are as a dew from the Lord. And thus the promise is fulfilled in every child of Abraham, by faith: I will bless thee, and thou shalt be a BLESSING.

Finally. We remark that our being useful does not depend upon our abilities and station. See Onesimus-a slave-profitable-even to such men as Philemon and Paul-profitable to thee and me. It is with the community as it is with the body: "For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it, therefore, not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it, therefore, not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor, again, the head to the feet, I have no need of you." Thus, we behold in the world, and in the church, difference of rank, of office, of talents-but there is a connexion between the whole, and a dependence arising from it. And from this none are exempted; even the king is served by the labour of the field. Every man, whatever be his condition and circumstances, is of some importance in society

and we should labour to impress our minds with this reflection-especially in three cases.

Let us remember it-when we are in danger of pride and disdain, with regard to any of our fellow creatures. The idol you adore is not every thing, and the wretch you despise is something. Perhaps he is more necessary to you, than you are to him. Let us remember it when discouraged from exertion. "O, if I had such opportunities and means, I would serve my generation." But if great faculties were necessary, they would be more frequently bestowed. Situations calling for ten talents are rare-those which require five are more common-but those which demand only one, are to be found every where, and every day. And in nothing are we so likely to be mistaken, as in such conclusions. He that is not faithful in little, has no reason to believe that he would be faithful in much.

We should also remember it, when we are tempted to do good in unlawful ways. What I mean is this: Some suppose that they can only be useful in such a particular station or office, and hence they are ready to leave their present condition to rush into it. But says the apostle, "Let every man abide in the calling, in which he is called of God." Things are so constituted, that if any man wish to do good, he may do it in the circumstances in which he is placed: he has some influence. For instance-and to refer to the case before us-are you a servant? Jacob was a servant, and Laban, his master, said, "I have learned by experience, that the Lord has blessed me for thy sake." Joseph was employed by Potipher: "And it came to pass, from the time that he had made him overseer in his house, and over

all that he had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake: and the blessing of the Lord was upon all that he had, in the house, and in the field." Hence, says the apostle to Titus, "Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again, not purloining, but showing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things." And hence he says to Timothy, "Let as many servants as are under the yoke, count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed." Here we see how much depends upon Christian servants: they may either recommend their religion, or disgrace it. For the people of the world are not quite so kind as we sometimes suppose them to be: though incapable of entering into Christian experience, they can estimate the value of principles, by the goodness of their effects. And what can they think of the gospel, if the professors of it be as bad, or even worse than others: inattentive to the duties of their places, idle, gossipers, busy bodies, heady, insolent, unfaithful to their trust. On this principle, I am sorry to say, that there are some who have expressed a determination to have nothing more to do with religious servants. But they surely mean servants who are religious only in pretence-who raise hopes by their profession, which they disappoint by their practice; and thus cause the ways of truth to be evil spoken of:-for, as to those servants who are really religious, they must be better than others, they must be profitable.

Let us therefore conclude with two reflections: I. If religion render people in all situations. valuable and useful, how deserving is it of en