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now in our world. There are some who are following him in the regeneration: they are the trophies of his free and almighty grace: they were once sinners, but are now renewed in the spirit of their mind; they were once darkness, but they are now light in the Lord, and are all looking to him and saying, "not unto us, O Lord, "not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy "mercy, and for thy truth's sake!

But O, what will it be, when he will be seen in company with all his people on the heavenly plains! What a day when the Redeemer will be seen with all his captives; the Physician of souls with all his patients: and all of them acknowledging, that by his grace, they are what they are! What a multitude! How full of joy, and how full of praise! And on his head will be many crowns! He will inhabit all the praises of Israel ! Then he shall come to be GLORIFIED IN HIS SAINTS, and TO BE ADMIRED IN ALL THEM THAT BELIEVE.

DISCOURSE X.

WINTER.

-Thou hast made winter.-Ps. Ixxiv. 17.

AND he makes nothing in vain. Winter therefore

is as worthy of our attention, as either of the former seasons which have passed under our review.

The scenes indeed all around us, which we lately beheld, have assumed a new and chilling appearance. The trees are shorn of their foliage. The hedges are laid bare. The fields and favorite walks have lost their attractions: and the garden, now it yields no perfumes, and offers no fruits, like a friend in adversity, is forsaken. The vegetable creation looks dead. The tuneful tribes are dumb. The cattle are grave, and no longer play in the meadows. The North-wind blows; "he sendeth abroad his ice like morsels, who can stand "before his cold ?"-We rush in for shelter.

But let us take some particular views of this subject. And first, winter belongs to the plan of heaven, and is a season indispensably necessary. It aids the system of life and vegetation. It kills the seeds of infection, and destroys pestilential damps. It refines the blood. It gives us vigor and courage. It confirms the nerves, and braces up the relaxed solids.

Snow is a warm covering for the corn: and while it defends the tender blades from nipping frosts, it also nourishes their growth. Isaiah remarked this long ago; and speaks of "the snow-coming down from heaven, " and watering the earth, to make it bring forth, and "bud." The case is this. When the snow thaws, it

melts into genial moisture; sinks down into the soil, and leaves the nitrous particles with which it is charged in the pores. Thus, the glebe is replenished with that vegetable nutriment which will produce the bloom of spring, and the fertility of autumn.

Winter therefore is only the needful repose of nature, after laboring for the welfare of the creation.But even this pause is only to acquire new strength; or rather it is a silent and secret energy of preparation to surprise and charm us again with fresh abundance. Nor has the Creator forgotten our well-being, and comfort during this period

For winter is, secondly, a season which has its pleasures. I love to hear the roaring of the wind. I love to see the figures which the frost has painted on the glass. I love to watch the red-breast with his slender legs, standing at the window, and knocking with his bill to ask for the crumbs which fall from the table. I love to observe the husbandman carrying forth the provender for his harmless charge-while the creatures of his care, not with boisterous impatience, but with waiting eyes turned towards the place of their supplies, ask for their meat in due season and I see here one of the many ways in which HE "openeth his hand and satisfi"eth the desire of every living thing."

Is it not pleasant to view a landscape, whitered with snow? To gaze upon the trees and hedges dressed in such pure and sparkling lustre? To behold the rising sun labcring to pierce a fog, which had enveloped the heaven and the earth, and gradually successful in dispersing these vapors-so that objects by little and little emerge from their abscurity, and appear in their own forms, while the mist rolls up the side of the hill, and is seen no more?

A few things also brave the rigor of the season, and remain evergreen. The box, the laurel, the yew-tree, the laurustinus are grateful exemptions from the law of desolation. Nor should we forget the curling ivy, nor the crimson berries of the wild hawthorn.

Winter affords recreation for the understanding, a well as for the senses. If we are less abroad, we have more intercourse within. If rural pleasures are diminished, social ones are increased.

"O winter

"I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem'st
"And dreadful as thou art !"

"Compensating his loss with added hours
"Of social converse, and instructive ease,
"And gath❜ring at short notice, in one group
"The family dispers'd, and fixing thought
"Not less dispersed by day-light and its cares-
"I crown thee king of intimate delights,
"Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness,
"And all the comforts that the lowly roof
"Of undisturbed retirement, and the hours
"Of long uninterrupted evening know."

Yes there are amusements to be found, without having recourse to noisy, public dissipations, in which health, innocency, and peace, are frequently sacrificed; where vicious passions are cherished, and persons are rendered incapable of relishing genuine pleasure--

"Cards were superfluous here, with all the tricks
"That idleness has yet contrived

"To fill the void of an unfurnished brain,
"To palliate dullness, and give time a shove."

"Discourse ensues, not trivial, yet not dull,
"Nor such as with a frown forbids the play
"Of fancy, or proscribes the sound of mirth :
"Nor do we madly, like an impious world
"Who deem religion phrenzy, and the God
"That made them an intruder on their joys,
"Start at his awful name, or deem his praise
"A jarring note.-"

Thirdly, winter is a season in which we should peculiarly feel gratitude, for our residence, accommodations, and conveniences. Things strike us more forcibly by comparison. Let us remember how much more temperate our climate is than that of many other countries. K 2

VOL. II.

Our winter is nothing, when we turn to the frigid zone. Think of those who live within the polar circle; dispersed; exposed to beasts of prey; their poor huts furnishing only a miserable refuge; where linger months of perpetual night and frost; and by the abscence of heat, almost absolute barrenness reigns around.

When the French mathematicians wintered at Tornea in Lapland, the external air, suddenly admitted into their rooms, seizing the moisture, became whirls of snow; their breasts were rent when they breathed it; and the contact of it with their bodies was intolerable. We read of seven thousand Swedes who perished at once, in attempting to pass the mountains which divide Norway from Sweden.

And while our winter reigns here with great comparative mildness; how many blessings distinguish our portion from that of others around us, and demand our praise? We have a house to defend us. We have clothes to cover us. We have fire to warm us. We have beds to comfort us. We have provisions to nour ish us. What shall we render? "Bless the Lord, O

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my soul, and forget not all his benefits."

Let

Fourthly, this season calls upon us to exercise benevolence. Sympathy is now more powerfully excited than at any other period; we are enabled more easily to enter into the feelings of others less favored than ourselves. And while we are enjoying every conveniency and comfort which the tenderness of Providence can afford-O let us think of the indigent and miserable.— Let us think of those whose poor hovels, and shattered panes cannot screen them from the piercing cold. us think of those whose tattered garments scarcely cover their shivering flesh. Let us think of the starving poor, who after a struggle which to relinquish, give up their small pittance of bread, to get a little fuel to warm their frozen limbs. Let us think of the old and the infirm; of the sick and the diseased. When evening draws on let us reflect upon the scene so exquisitely touched by the pencil of sensibility.

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