had from a child known and loved the Scriptures, which were able to make him wise unto salvation, through faith that is in Christ Jesus. His religion was clearly a principle engrafted in his heart, "a good thing in him towards God;" and springing from such a principle, it must have shewn itself in love to God's commands and to his worship. Religious principle in the soul is the only solid basis of any thing truly good; and where it dwells, there of necessity also must dwell the exalted graces of a renewed and heavenly character. Can we, then, doubt that the effects of the religion of this young person were seen in his conduct, or that his faith was proved by his works? The tender anxiety of his wicked father, and the deep lamentations and regrets of the people at his early death, serve strongly to prove that his life and disposition had been pious and just, dutiful and amiable; and the statement, that there was some good thing in him towards the Lord God, points out the spring of that exemplary conduct which so justly gained him the respect and affections of the people. He seems, in short, to have been circumstanced in a manner very similar to Moses in the court of Pharaoh, and to have acted on the same principle. Both Moses and Abijah might have enjoyed whatever the power and affluence of royalty could have afforded; and they had

every natural inducement to do so; but by faith they beheld things invisible and eternal; and their belief in what God had revealed, the implicit credit they gave to the Divine promises and threatenings, had so powerful an influence in silencing the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, that they both chose "rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season," esteeming the very "reproach of Christ" to be greater riches than the most splendid treasures of an earthly court; and this not without abundant reason, for they "had respect to the recompence of the reward."

4

Thirdly. Having thus considered the great religious disadvantages under which Abijah laboured, and the conscientiousness of principle with which he appears to have borne up against them, we are, thirdly, to remark the favour which God was pleased to shew to his early piety. In our ignorance of the counsels of the Almighty, we might have hoped that this rising ornament and glory of his nation would have been long spared, a blessing to himself and to the people committed to his charge. But God's ways are not our ways, neither are his thoughts our thoughts. He had a better portion in reserve for Abijah than to be an

earthly prince or conqueror, and in mercy he rescued him from the perils of his exalted, but dangerous, station; and, we cannot doubt, translated him to a brighter than any earthly crown, to a crown of immortality in heaven. The threatenings of Jehovah concerning his family and nation could not be reversed: Israel was to be smitten as a reed is shaken in the water, and to be rooted up and scattered; and there was no repentance, no supplication, no turning to God, on the part of the offenders, to avert the approaching wrath: the happiest lot, therefore, for this tender plant, was to be sheltered before the coming storm. And who can tell also, whether, as respected his own principles, there was not great mercy displayed in this his early dismissal to a world of eternal safety? For he was young, and exposed to powerful temptations; and the "good thing" which was in him might have melted away before the sunshine of prosperity, or been choaked by the cares of life and the allurements of pleasure and ambition. He was kept therefore from the peril. His early youth had been his appointed scene of trial; he had been enabled to overcome, and to endure to the end; and before he had advanced to manhood he was rescued from a world of change and temptation, and placed, as a pillar in the temple of God, to go out no more for ever. Not, indeed, that

the power and grace of God are ever wanting upon earth to protect any of his servants, who, feeling their own weakness, look up to Him for strength; but, taking the declarations of Scripture and the experience of life as we find them, and observing how many spring up fairly for a time, but in some season of temptation fall away, we have abundant reason to bless God for all who have departed this life in his "faith, fear, and love," and have finally escaped those storms which have caused so many to make shipwreck of their faith.

On earth, also, the memory of this young prince was to be blessed. He was to come to the grave in peace, and to be mourned over by a bereaved and affectionate people; many of whom probably had hoped, that, some years hence, he should be the happy instrument of restoring the pure worship of God. It is true that posthumous honours, paid to the frail remains of the body after the spirit has fled, are of little consequence in themselves, and of none to the breathless dust; but since God was pleased, under the Jewish economy, to make use of earthly as well as spiritual rewards and punishments, he would not suffer even these lesser marks of respect and affection to be omitted. Abijah had honoured him, and he made the memory of Abijah to be honoured by man; whereas the bodies of his idolatrous

relatives were cast into the streets: so that, according to the prophecy, "him that died of Jeroboam in the city, the dogs did eat; and him that died in the field the fowls of the air did eat; for the Lord had spoken it."

The example of this young man speaks powerfully to two classes of

persons. And, first, it addresses those who are commencing or continuing a Christian course of life under discouraging circumstances. Their disadvantages may be of various kinds-such as an evil education; the absence of early habits of religious observance; strong passions; powerful temptations; irreligious connexions; or peculiar difficulties in the way of procuring suitable spiritual instruction-but the example of Abijah proves that there can be no outward circumstances under which it is not possible for there to exist in the heart" some good thing towards the Lord God." We cannot, then, plead our disadvantages and temptations as an excuse for our wilful neglect of religion; nor ought we to be discouraged in our Christian course on account of them. Not unfrequently is it seen, that those who, like Abijah, have the fewest inducements of a worldly kind to assume a religious profession; those whose opportunities of instruction are the most scanty, and whose difficulties are the most formidable, ac