their power, and exhibits their influence upon his character,
is he who lives by faith.

When, under this mental exercise, a man brings himself into the
immediate presence of the eternal One;--when he arraigns himself, as it
were, before the bar of the omniscient Judge;--when he places before
him that future state which stretches forth into endless existence,--a
train of feelings must arise in his mind, to which he was a stranger, so
long as he placidly resigned himself to the influence of sensible
things. He views this being of infinite purity, as one who has been all
his life the daily witness of his conduct; and feels that even the
secrets of the heart have been at all times open to divine inspection.
Each day, as it passed unheeded over him, was a portion gone by of his
period of moral discipline; and each, as it glided amid the frivolities
of life, or the active pursuit of temporal good, had its moral aspect
assigned to it in the judgment of the eternal mind. Along with these
impressions, which no reflecting man can put away from him, a voice
within forces upon him the conviction, that, were his whole history
disclosed to his fellow-men, he would, even in their estimation, be
found wanting. How much more deeply must this be fixed upon his inmost
soul, when he feels that the whole is, at one glance, exposed to the eye
of omniscience; and that an hour is rapidly approaching, when a strict
account must be rendered, and a righteous sentence pronounced, the
result of which will extend into eternal existence. With these truths
upon his mind, what reflecting man can view, without awe, the moment
which is to close his state of moral discipline,--when, disencumbered
from his earthly tenement, he shall find himself alone with God,--and
there shall burst upon his astonished faculties the blaze of an endless
day. These are not speculations of fancy, but eternal truth. The man who
habitually acts under their influence, knows that his faith rests upon a
conviction which cannot be shaken, when he recognises in all his ways
the presence and the inspection of the Deity,--when he feels the
obligation to have even the desires and affections under subjection to
his will,--and when he resigns himself to his guidance and asks his
powerful aid, both for the conduct of this life, and the preparation for
the life which is to come.

* * * * *

Solemn is the hour when a man thus retires from the tumult of lif