perish. Christ declares, that unless we repent of our sins we all shall perish; if we love not our brother, we perish; if we love not God, we perish; if we love not holiness, we perish; if we forgive not the trespasses of others against us, we perish; if we love sin, we perish; if we be lovers of pleasure more than of God, we perish; if we are not renewed in our minds, we perish. To be lost is a curse of the greatest magnitude; to be conscious of being, and that existence our torment; to be immortal, and that immortality the endless source of our misery; to be conscious of the Deity, and not of his love, the idea is enough to rouse our dormant feelings. What then must it be to the spirits of the wicked entering the unseen world! However much in their lifetime they contemned the authority of Jehovah, his power they cannot resist when unveiled in awful majesty, to take vengeance on them who would not have Jesus to reign over them.

The resurrection of the body is a doctrine the heathen philosophers could not conceive,—it was left to the religion of Christ fully to disclose; it is a subject of the deepest interest to us, and it cheers the soul in the prospect of dissolution, that though our bodies should moulder to dust, still at a future day they shall be raised in glory immortal, and partake of all the glory of Jesus' body in the heavens. It is a thought that should banish all

fears of death, and make us rather wish to be free of this sinful body, that our spirit may enjoy unalloyed felicity, and at the last be joined with the body raised immortal and spotless in purity.

That the body should be raised after the lapse of so many ages, and having been incorporated with the dust, is the work of Infinite Power alone. Jesus rose with the same body that was suspended on the cross, and even the print of the nails and the mark of the spear was upon it; in his ascension it no doubt underwent a great change suited to the heavenly state. As he is the first begotten from the dead, and rose and ascended with the same body, so likewise we believe he will raise our bodies at the last day.

LETTER VI.

The light himself shall shine

Reveal'd, and God's eternal day be thine!
The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away,
But fix'd his word, his saving power remains,

Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns.-POPE.

Edinburgh, 23d December, 1820.

THE revolving years and fluctuating events that have passed over our heads naturally excite the inquiry, At what period shall we arrive at the truth of our being, or at a state of existence unaffected by change? God is truth, or the essence of all perfection. To inquire then how our spiritual existence may arrive at the acmé of truth is a subject of the most interesting nature.

To speak the truth is absolutely necessary for a moral being rising towards perfection. Truth is so amiable, that from whose lips it constantly flows they find a confidence reposed in them, that others who have deviated from its noble principle can never attain to; it flows from the lips with ease and

gracefulness; indeed it is natural for men to speak the truth when no selfish views induce them to do otherwise. The great effect that speaking the truth has upon our present and future welfare, can best be appreciated by experience, and the declarations of God in the Scriptures. We naturally give credit to a man until we have found him out in a lie, and then our confidence is so much shaken that we find it very hard to believe him in future; in consequence of that lie he sinks in our esteem, and we cannot give him that recommendation to the world that otherwise we would have done, had he maintained his integrity. It is by the concealment of the want of truth that liars find success in the world. Lying of itself is so cowardly and mean, that, at the first view, we are led to suppose that none but the ignorant and weak could resort to so much debasement; but the world's experience proves to us, that in all ranks, from the beggar to the courtier, it is daily practised. The beggar, to excite compassion, tells tales of woe unfounded on fact, entirely the offspring of his deceitful imagination. The labourer, to excuse himself from neglect, tells his master falsehoods with seeming truth and apparent honesty. And in trade it is so common, that few, very few, 'are free from its baneful influence. And they who are termed the noble and the great, who, with audacity, would deprive a man of his life if he presumed to call them liars, in all

their insignificant finesse of politeness carry on a system of lying. How mean is it for men who have it in their power to act an honourable part, to make promises they never intend performing, and to profess friendship to those they detest!

The Scriptures declare, that whosoever loveth and maketh a lie shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. Habit is so powerful, that it is considered one of the greatest exertions of human nature to overcome evil habits; if such is the case, how dangerous is it to acquire a habit of lying! When it is acquired, who knows but it may remain with its victim until death? and they who are unholy then shall be so to all eternity. The first deviation from integrity is marked with awful alarm; however gently the sinner may glide along the stream of vice, still its termination is destruction, and when once within the vortex of iniquity, like the whirlpool, it too often, at every circle, draws them nearer destruction, till at last they are engulfed in endless misery.

Youth ought to beware of so dangerous a vice as lying. Too often the gaiety of youth and the love of the marvellous induce them to tell tales for the amusement of their companions and the astonishment of the credulous; but it is a practice of the most dangerous nature; it insensibly forms in them the habit of lying, and from their success with this weapon in the amusement of others, they