eyes, and bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house."* And again, it was said that "the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined."† And it was in continuation of the same figure, and in a very similar style of language, that Simeon, when he blessed the infant Jesus, declared of him that he came to be "a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of his people Israel."+ 2. But alas! it is not only the heathen who have lived under this clouded atmosphere of moral darkness and gloom. There are even now innumerable multitudes, it is much to be feared, of those who, even though "the light hath shined in darkness," still "comprehend it not; "§ nay, who love the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds are evil." Even while the cheering promises of the gospel are proclaimed in their ears; even while its full and meridian brightness is diffused around them, how large a proportion may we find of communities professedly Christian who will not hear,-who will not see; -who make for themselves dark and gloomy Isaiah xlii. 7. + Isaiah ix. 2. || John iii. 19. Luke ii. 32. hiding places of their own ;-who "meet, meet," as Job says, "with darkness in the day time, and grope in the noon-day as in the night;"* and who as the psalmist describes, "have suffered the enemy to make them dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead!" To those whose views are wholly confined to sublunary things, and who make this world's gain or this world's pleasure, without any reference to the will of their Maker, the sole and engrossing objects of pursuit, life, in every moral point of view, is indeed as a dreary night. Sin "darkens the understanding" while it hardens the heart, and obscures our prospects at the same time that it endangers our souls. And they who attempt to "live without God in the world,"-or, in other words, to deaden their perceptions and their hearts to the presence of Him who, whether they. desire it or not, still must ever witness and attend them, are acting no less madly than if they were to hide themselves away from the sight of the sun, in some remote haunts or caverns of the earth, lest the broad light of day, which they are ashamed to face, should break in-an unwelcome intruder on the deep self-chosen gloom of their miserable dwellings. To the sinner still unrepentant and heedless of eternity, an Egyptian + Psalm cxliii. 3. *Job v. 14. darknessa "darkness that might be felt"overspreads all things, and hides every object that is really good and glorious from his eyes. He shuns that light which would reveal the wickedness of his deeds; and his existence is, at the best, but as a long and dreary sleep in which his best faculties are lulled to rest, and he becomes a prey to the devices of a wicked and corrupt imagination which deludes him continually with vain visions and phantoms of the night. 3. But even the very best of us are involved, in our present state of existence, in the comparison contained in the text. And perhaps it was this life in general, as contrasted with the superior perfection of the next, of which the apostle meant to speak when he said, "the night is far spent." The sacred writer knew full well the relative value of the things of time and the prospects of eternity. He was not inexperienced in the attractions which this world had to offer, for he had moved much through its busy scenes, and had been no inactive spectator of the mighty struggles and conflicts that pass over the wide arena of society. And, what was still more to the purpose, he had some acquaintance also with the greater attractions that awaited him, and all the true followers of Christ, in the world to come. His soul was deeply imbued with the spirit of that blessed gospel by which, to every bosom humbled and subdued under the influence of the divine grace it offers, the word of God is brought home with an impressiveness of power, and the promises of God are made to possess a substantial and realizing value which nothing that is of this world can bestow. But, besides this, he was favoured too with the extraordinary and preternatural effusions of the Holy Ghost. He had been made almost a partaker of the more secret counsels of the Deity. He had been admitted a near observer of the wonders and the mysteries of heaven. And it certainly, at all events, is not too much to maintain, that he spake from far higher sources of information than could have been derived from the clearest anticipations of a mere spirit of prophecy, when he discoursed so confidently as he did of the superior happiness of eternity as contrasted with the things of time. It was by comparison therefore-a comparison which the extent of his spiritual knowledge peculiarly enabled him to draw-that St. Paul spoke in the language of the text. He wrote with the authority of one who himself experimentally knew the certainty of what he enforced. He observed the imperfection, at its very best, of all human knowledge, especially in spiritual things, while man should continue subject to the delusions of his senses, and condemned to the narrow prison-house of his animal and material frame. He perceived the utter incapacity of so fallen and sinful a creature, under the best and most favoured of circumstances, for any longsustained exertion of his moral prowess, or any steady and continued resistance to the seductions of the evil spirit. He knew full well the many cares, and trials, and temptations that necessarily encumber our mortal state, and so materially impair our present enjoyment. And it was, therefore, from no morbid spirit of gloomy asceticismwhich would lead him unnecessarily to disparage the value of the present world, but from the contrast which he actually, and from well authenticated sources, was able to trace between the character of this clouded scene and the inconceivable glories of the life to come, that he described the course of his advancing years, in the Christian's progress to the realms of bliss, as a gradual transition from the darkness of night to the beauty and the brightness of the dawning day. 4. Nor will there be found in this comparison any grounds for a charge which the careless and undiscerning very frequently make against religion, that it is calculated to tinge our views with melancholy, or to make us discontented with our condition here. To those, indeed, who are |