to pestilential climates, the soldier's head becomes grey like the heads of other men; and then there is forced upon him, by old age, by increasing infirmities, by the near approach of death, the memory of a thousand mercies received without thankfulness, of a thousand thousand blessings abused to his own hurt. The young soldier will, therefore, best consult his own peace, both here and hereafter, if he learn, while yet the evil days are remote, to make a friend of his Creator. Still, God forbid that the aged and wornout veteran should be shut out from hope. Much cause he may have for remorse and self-upbraiding, ample reason to exclaim with the publican, God be merciful to me a sinner! Yet, if he be sincere in this, and show forth his sincerity in his life, he may rest assured that his prayer will be heard, for the sake of the great Mediator. May God grant that this effect shall be produced on both classes, so that the death-beds of those

who have served their country well may be cheered, not so much by the fading lustre of their earthly renown, as by the prospect of a crown of glory laid up for

them in heaven.

SERMON IV.

MAN'S DEPRAVITY.

GENESIS vi. 22.

Thus did Noah; according to all that God had commanded him, so did he.

I Do not know how far it may be necessary for me to explain that in appointing the lessons for the eight Sundays that go before Good Friday, the compilers of our Liturgy had in view the best means of bringing before us, as it were, at a single glance, the great history of the creation, the fall, the wickedness, the misery, and the redemption of mankind. Septuagesima Sunday, for example, presents us with an account of the mode in

which God formed this earth, and of His great goodness towards the parents of the human race. In the Morning Service for Sexagesima Sunday, we read how that pair acquitted themselves, after the Lord their God had put them on their trial, and what the consequences were, sad indeed, yet not utterly hopeless, which ensued on their transgression. At present, we have to contemplate a picture of man corrupted and depraved—of the melancholy effects that sprang from a melancholy cause, and of the manner in which God dealt with creatures who had cast his guidance from them. It may not be amiss, if, before I advert fully to these topics, I say a few words by way of supplying the links in the chain of events which may seem to be wanting.

Our first parents having erred, were driven, as we saw, from Paradise. They returned, therefore, to what may be called their natural state,-that is to say, they found themselves once more inhabitants

of the wide world, and reduced to earn their bread, from its now comparatively barren surface, by the sweat of their brow. For God having passed on them the sentence of death, cursed the ground, not in anger, but in pity; in order that the difficulties which they should have to encounter in wringing from it an unwilling subsistence, might gradually wean their affections from things in time, and teach them to look to the grave, as to a place of rest for the weary. But it was not in this respect alone, that their nature felt the effects of the fall. All that extraordinary instruction which God had vouchsafed to them in Eden, ceased. They were left in a great measure to the guidance of the knowledge which they had so much coveted; and the image of God, in which they had been created,―their purity, their uprightness, their anxiety to do always what was right, sustained a shock. Hence Adam is said to have begotten a son in his own