hy constitution, the
easy fortune, the cheerful and good-humoured temper, the quickness and
power of understanding; all these, no doubt, are hopeful signs for a
period of forty, or fifty, or perhaps sixty years to come. But what is
to come then? what is the prospect for the next period, not of fifty, or
sixty, not of a hundred, not of a thousand, years; not of any number
that can be numbered, but of time everlasting? Is their actual state one
of hopeful promise for this period, for this life which no death shall
terminate? Nay, is it a state of any promise at all, of any chance at
all? Suppose, for a moment, one with a crippled body, full of the seeds
of hereditary disease, poor, friendless, irritable in temper, low in
understanding; suppose such an one just entering upon youth, and ask
yourselves, for what would you consent that his prospects should be
yours? What should you think would be your chance of happiness in life,
if you were beginning in such a condition? Yet, I tell you that poor,
diseased, irritable, friendless cripple has a far better prospect of
passing his fifty, or sixty, years, tolerably, than they who have not
begun to turn towards God have of a tolerable eternity. Much more
wretched is the promise of their life; much more justly should we be
tempted, concerning them, to breathe that fearful thought, that it were
good for them if they had never been born. And now if, as by miracle,
that cripple's limbs were to be at once made sound, if the seeds of
disease were to vanish, if some large fortune were left him, if his
temper sweetened, and his mind became vigorous, should not we be
excused, considering what he had been and what he now was, if we, for a
moment, forgot the uncertainty of the future; if we thought that a
promise so changed, was almost equivalent to performance? And may not
this same excuse be urged for some over-fondness of confidence for their
well-doing whom we see so near to the kingdom of God, when we consider
how utter is the misery, how hopeless the condition of those who do not
appear to have, as yet, stirred one single step towards it?

LECTURE XIV.

* * * * *

MATTHEW xxii. 14.

_For many are called, but few are chosen_.

The truth here expressed is one of the most solemn in the world, and
would be one of the most overwhelming to us, if habit had not, in a
manner, blunted our painful perception of it. There is contained in it
matter of t