the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ."

These and such like main truths of Christianity you have heard, brethren, and received, as we trust, with penitent and obedient minds. The point of conjunction between this revelation and your hearts, as in the case of the Corinthian converts, has been your faith. Here has been the practical union between the truths and facts of the gospel, and your individual state and opinions. All this is well. You have "received" what has been delivered to you, "and therein ye stand." And if you continue firmly to retain in your memory and hearts these blessed instructions, and to act upon them, you will daily advance nearer and nearer to final victory, and ultimate and complete salvation.

But the evil of the world and the arts of Satan present many, many difficulties to the continual remembrance of divine truth. As the Galatians had forgotten too much the great article of justification, by mingling with it the works of the Law; and as the Colossians were exposed to the letting slip their faith through philosophy and vain deceit, so the Corinthians were also in danger of "making shipwreck of faith and a good conscience," by the inventions of Sadducean infidelity or Gentile fable, on the subject of the resurrection of the dead.

Let us proceed then to consider,

II. Some of the difficulties of duly keeping in memory the main truths of Revelation.

1. For the faculty itself, like every other in our fallen state, is enfeebled, especially as to any thing that contradicts the appetites and passions. It lets the unwelcome truths entrusted to it slip through, as a leaky vessel.

2. The strong tide and current of the world flows directly in opposition to the tendency of the truths we have been considering. The principles of Christianity are soon forgotten; they escape from us; they pass slightly over the surface of the affections; they do not sink deeply and perma nently into the memory and heart; there is no affinity, no natural bias of the will and affections to aid them. The current of the world flows full and strong against these slight barriers. Unless there be a constant struggle and effort on our part, we are insensibly carried down the stream, and find ourselves upon inquiry at an immense distance from the point where we imagined ourselves to be firmly fixed.

3. The difficulty is augmented by winds of doctrine and the cunning craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. It was thus, as I have mentioned, with the Corinthians as to the great doctrine of the resurrection. The particulars of St. Paul's inspired preaching on that topic had faded from their memory; new impressions had been made by the glittering eloquence of the false teachers; the corrupt propensities of fallen man had agreed but too well with their seductions; metaphysical subtilties had been made the occasion of objections as to the manner of the dead being raised, their order, and the bodies with which they should appear. They thus relaxed much from their former steadfastness, immoveableness, and abundant labors in the work of the Lord.

It is surprising how soon the impression of the most capital articles of faith fades from the memory of the age, when some sweeping error, or heresy, becomes fashionable and is decked up in meretricious ornaments to appear like truth. The Gnostic heresies of the first centuries, the Arian of the third and following, the Pelagian in the time of Augus

tine; that concerning the use of images and the worship of saints and angels in the dark ages that succeeded, drove from the minds of the immense majority of men, the memory of the mighty doctrines of salvation.

4. Distance from the public means of grace; the rarity of those means-as is too frequently the case in India; impediments as respects climate and health; prevalent habits of indifference in those about us; the frequent breaking up of our plans by removals; the want of religious society and a standard of excellence around us; the vices and impurities of a vast Heathen and Mohammedan population; unfavorable marriages; the sceptical and semi-infidel language of a scornful age holding up to ridicule the peculiarities of the Christian scheme of redemption, augment in many instances the number of our difficulties. The foundations of truth are shaken, the cement and compactness of it are relaxed, the memory first lets go one particular and then another; the imperfect knowledge we had of the gospel is gradually weakened and effaced, and we lose all the practical principles once drawn from it.

5. The mere lapse of time, and the little use to which we have put our knowledge, together with a familiarity with Scripture terms, disconnected very much from the ideas and affections they once awakened, betray the memory too often. Men become insensible to sermons, advice, warning. The terms of Christianity are familiar even to contempt. All doctrine is admitted. Nothing is opposed, nothing resisted-but then nothing is remembered, nothing felt, nothing acted upon. Like the ground on the way-side, all is so trodden under foot of men, that the seed cast on it remains upon the surface for the birds to bear it away.

6. Religious emotions and joys, with sudden resolutions and projects, if not balanced by a due

knowledge of the bearings of practical Christianity, and controlled by humility and meekness, soon expose the convert to a forgetfulness of what he has so hastily and superficially caught at, rather than learned. He rushes into religion; and he rushes out again. The heart has been unrenewed, the habits unchanged, the memory not richly and solidly stored with truth. Temptation and persecution arise. He has no root, and withers away.

7. The excessive burden of worldly business and cares, however lawful in themselves, and however important or even sacred the station we fill, unavoidably presses into a narrower space our religious thoughts, and ultimately expels them from the memory. No man can think of two things at the same moment. Our worldly business is then only pursued in a suitable manner, when it leaves us time for prayer, leaves us time for Christian friendship, leaves us time for meditation, leaves us time for preparing for the Sabbath and celebrating its duties with unoccupied minds. But when " cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things" grow luxuriant around the tender plant of religious memory and feeling, they choke and overshadow it, and it becomes unfruitful.

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Some good affections may for a time remain, some good habits survive, some amiable dispositions be exercised, some general approbation of the gospel be retained, some friendship with religious and devout persons be cultivated; but these will be the effect of custom, not love; of regard for reputation, not principle. The memory of the mighty truths of the gospel is gone. The Savior is a stranger to the soul; the Holy Spirit is departed. The man sinks into mere nature, the world, philosophy, poetry, the arts, earthly pursuits. He has "believed in

vain."

Let us then proceed to consider,

III. The best means of fortifying the memory to retain religious truths.

The improvement of the mind is more remarkable in the case of memory than in any of the other faculties.

1. Attention in the reception of the truths of the gospel may be first noticed. It is according to the measure of original impression, of the voluntary act of the mind in bending its attention to Christianity, that the memory becomes susceptible, retentive, ready. In the conversion of Lydia, the circumstance of "the Lord opening her heart, so that she attended to the things spoken of Paul," is deserving of particular notice. Till you gain a child's attention to the lesson you are unfolding, what effect can you expect? "The forgetful hearer, is like a man beholding his natural face in a glass, for he beholdeth himself and goeth his way and straitway forgetteth what manner of man he was ;" but the practical hearer, not only "looketh into the perfect law of liberty" as the mirror of truth, but continueth therein "with a requisite attention and interest of mind; and "this man," and this only, is "blessed in his deed."

2. To review occasionally the arguments in favor of Christianity, and especially of the primary facts of the resurrection of Christ and the promulgation of his gospel by the simple and unaided apostles, will strengthen the memory as to Christianity. This is St. Paul's method in the chapter before us. He states the main arguments for the resurrection of Christ, answers objections, and proves its inseparable connection with our own. Thus he lays the foundation of rational conviction. What is well learnt in its principles, is not soon forgotten. It is laid up safely in the store-house of the memory. But what

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