darting vengeance on all around. We have unavoidable enemies to encounter, and battles to fight; but the weapons we must use for those purposes are not carnal, but spiritual, for the pulling down of those strong holds.' This is the warfare which, from year to year, we are required to maintain; this that steady perseverance and inflexibility, which will not suffer us to yield, no not for an hour, to any malignant feeling; this the holy, courage and ambition, and thirst for victory and for glory, at which the Christian should aim; this the warfare, the only hostility to be maintained by us, if ever we would unite with the numerous throng, who, following the Captain of their salvation, are more than conquerors, and are finally rewarded with the crown of victory.

No. XXVI.

Tarn from him that he may rest, nntil he shall accom plish as a hireling his day.

JOB, chap. xiv, ver. 6.

THE verdant inclosure, cultivated and adorned by parental affection for the accommodation of the young traveller, is not precisely the spot likely to afford him a correct idea of the wilderness he has in future to explore. Neither are the vivid scenes pourtrayed by a youthful imagination at all calculated to prepare him for the realities which will soon obtrude themselves on his view; he is not disposed to believe, that to whatever class he may belong, he is even at his very best estate but a hireling, doing the work of a master, whoever that master may be. In the one case, while he deems himself a

free agent, and subject to no controul, he is a slave and a drudge to the prince of the power of the air; that spirit who worketh in the children of disobedience;' in the other, he serves a master, whose

yoke is easy, and his burden light.' And although the period allotted for these respective services is but a span-a speck, when compared with eternal duration; yet is it sufficiently protracted, to afford scope for deeds, which, at a future season, will be stupendous in their consequences; for, at that decisive season, every hireling will receive his wages, and will be rewarded according to his work.'

Now, respecting multitudes whom we behold, it is often too apparent in whose service they are enlisted: it is evident that the god of this world hath so blinded their eyes, that they cannot look above it for their reward; here their hopes centre; here terminates their ambition; thoughtless hirelings of a vile master! In his work they delight; on the wages they

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calculate not, till the day of reckoning arrives. Some of them we see are early arrested in their career; their labour is short, and short, too, their fleeting pleasures; while all beyond is sad disappointment, and positive misery. When thus their sun goes down at noon, they are compelled to leave their unfinished work for others to complete, who follow in the rear, and who as industriously undertake it, as though no such warning voice had solicited their attention.

These have accomplished their day;' their pursuits, of whatever kind, may have been followed with eagerness, or may have been so influenced by natural temper and constitution, as to incur the stigma of inertness and inactivity, by some of their more energetic fellow-travellers; yet, so long as the wages of sin is death,' they will be found to have performed the hireling's part, and according to the deeds done, and according to the master whose service they preferred, they will receive the hireling's reward.

There is a better Master, who invites us into his service; who addresses us by the expostulation, -Why stand ye here all the day idle?' It is a service, indeed, to which we are averse by nature; but its reward is abundant. To have body, soul, and spirit, employed for Him, is our reasonable service. Happy they, who are thus in labours more abundant;' they shall enter into the joy of their Lord, and wonder at the exceeding great reward that shall crown their feeble labours in his cause.

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But, alas! where is the servant, even among those that serve that better Master, who, on a retrospect of his past life, with all its various opportunities and advantages, can make it his boast that ' he has accomplished as a hireling his day?' That he has punctually fulfilled the duties of every relation, faithfully discharged the trust reposed in him, and strictly accomplished the designs for which he was called into existence and placed in this state of trial. Who can