themselves are surpassed by cherubim and seraphim.

Are

We urge to the cultivation of a high religious character, then, from its important bearing on your future standing. you sluggish, tame, compromising, little more than a cipher in the household of faith?-you sacrifice comfort and honor here; but you make an incomparably more serious sacrifice of honor and joy hereafter. It is a sacrifice stretching onward through everlasting ages.

On the other hand, your labor in the Lord shall not be in vain.

The record of

opened at the

your spirituality shall be judgment. It shall be displayed to the universe. It shall call forth marked expressions of approbation from the enthroned Lamb. It shall be the basis, through grace, of your high rank in the kingdom of your Father. Suffer me to

hope, then, that religion will not press her momentous claims upon you in vain. She imparts only purity, energy, and dignity to the character. She pledges to you the power of pouring blessings upon the world. She will crown your immortality with honor. Review the annals of the world; and point me to the men whose glory is to be coveted. Avarice has hoarded her splendid fortunes. Ambition has gathered her laurels; and the illusions of an hour have drawn forth the envy of rivals, and the homage and the acclamations of the multitude. But the illusion has vanished, and the glory has departed; and what seemed a lofty pre-eminence has sunk to "shame and everlasting contempt." Religion, too, has had her votaries—men who have "walked with God"-men who have lifted a voice of power in the cause of humanity and salvation-men who have sacrificed treasure and life upon the altar

of their piety. Their greatness was based upon their goodness. And they are destined to live in the choicest records of earth through time, as well as in heaven's book of everlasting remembrance.

Cherish, then, my young friends, a vigorous faith. It is this principle, which has been at the foundation of all that real excellence on which the eye lights with such interest, as it wanders back upon the history of our race. This gives fortitude, patience, and zeal. It creates grandeur of aim, stability of purpose, and promptitude of action. It stamps insignificance upon all that an unholy heart covets, and opens visions of glory beyond the grave.

Cherish then, I say, a vigorous faith ;that faith which receives every truth from the Bible as if the very voice of the Eternal were breaking on the ear; which will habitually give to your existence here the solemn reality of a probation for

eternity; which will spread around you, habitually, scenes tremendous as a falling universe, an opening judgment, an everlasting heaven, an eternal hell. This is the principle which can check all mad enthusiasm for the world-which can inspire burning zeal for the conversion of sinners-which can give dignity to holiness -render you tranquil and steadfast in every duty-and cause you to sing of victory even while death is impending over you.

Will you, then, cherish a vigorous faith? Will you aspire to a character of eminent piety? Will you make it an object of holy ambition to leave on earth some traces of your existence-some imperishable memorials of your worth? Will you now resolve in God's strength, not just to escape hell and enter heaven, but to "come off more than conquerors," and to start with the foremost and the strongest on the everlasting race?

LETTER V.

IN the foregoing pages eminent piety has been recommended chiefly as a means of your own happiness and that of others. And it would seem that such motives might have upon cultivated minds a commanding influence. To seek your own happiness, in objects truly worthy and enduring, is right. And it is honorable, as well as right, to aim at pouring extended blessings on mankind. But there is still another motive to eminent piety infinitely more important-THE GLORY OF GOD. Amid all your aspirings this should never be forgotten. Nay, by the true Christian it can never be forgotten.