to wake some dormant heart to the sweetness of the chime, and to cause it to be the peal of its espousals in the sweet uniting bonds that gospel which would fling around it! There is much misery in the world, and there is many a soul lamenting in despair even while this gospel is so near. If there be one such present now, let him take the assurance, that the fingers of Jesus are ready to draw aside the dark crape veil which hangs its folds before his eyes, and show him the radiance of his own marvellous light. It is the full assurance of the willingness of Christ to pardon, which alone can lift up the fallen and down-trodden. Surely, if you have any hesitation in taking that assurance from human lips, you can have none in taking it from His own. Hear once more His earnest assurance that your sins, though as scarlet, shall be as wool; and though red like crimson they shall be whiter than snow. And hesitate no longer while He who shed His blood for you, declares that He waits to hail you to His everlasting rest.

"What is thy hope? Oh! if to the earth,

Like the grovelling vine it clings,
Nor shoots one aspiring tendril forth
In search after higher things,

;

In vain is it nurtured with ceaseless toil,
Confined to the cold world's ungenial soil
Each prop that support it must perish, and all
Its buds of fair promise unopened fall.

Alas! for the hopes that are nourished here

'Midst the storms of earth's changeful atmosphere.

Then what is thy hope? To what pitch of pride
Would thy restless ambition tower?

Would'st thou over fallen empires stride

To the summit of human power?

Couldst thou conquer realms, make thy will their law,
And hold the subject world in awe;

Should kings, as vassals, attend thy nod,

Thou must die, and thy spirit return to God;

And how worthless are sceptres and thrones of power
To a monarch's soul in his dying hour!

Say, what is thy hope? Dost thou pursue
Of pleasure the giddy round,

With the phantom of happiness ever in view,
Where true happiness never was found?
Oh! plunge not in search after bliss supreme,
'Midst the whirlpools of pleasure's polluted stream;
Amidst her mad orgies thou never canst find
Joys worth the pursuit of a rational mind;
Oh! fly her seductions, resist her control,
She poisons, debases, and ruins the soul.

But what is thy hope! Dost thou pant to find
Of riches a treasure untold?

Thou never canst purchase peace of mind,
Nor length of days with gold.

It procures no exemption from worldly woe,
Nor will death for a bribe his prey forego:

Though thou hoard up wealth, and "add field to field,"
No advantage in death will thy treasures yield;
Thou must leave thy possessions to other men,
And where will thy hope and thy soul be then?

Yet, what is thy hope? Is it that which leads
The aspirants to glory forth,

To win for themselves, by heroic deeds,

The fleeting applause of earth?

Thou may'st couple thy name with high renown,

And send it to future ages down;

And men yet unborn may applaud the tale,—

But what will their plaudits to thee avail,

When thy form shall be mould'ring amongst the dead,

And thy soul to the last great audit fled ?

Then what is thy hope? Consider how high
Is thy destiny-think on the worth

Of a soul that is born for eternity,
Though it sojourn awhile upon earth.

Oh! why are the views of immortals confined
To narrower limits than Heaven assigned ?
Why, when form'd to exist in a happier sphere,
Should we bury our expectations here;
And vainly seek for substantial good

In a world of unceasing vicissitude?

What is thy hope? Will it stand the test
Of nature's expiring hour?

Like armour of proof, will it shield thy breast,
Against the grim tyrant's power?

Will it gladden thy soul, and dispel the gloom,
The horror of darkness that veils the tomb,

When the damps of death to thy brow shall start,
And the life-blood ebbs from thy freezing heart?

Away with it else !-it is worse than vain
To cherish a hope that shall fail thee then.

But hope thou in God! To a dying hour
This hope sweet assurance brings,

When worldly perferments, and wealth, and power,
Shall all be forgotten things.

Ay-hope thou in God, though a feeble worm
And thy soul shall be safe and thy confidence firm;
Thou shalt traverse in triumph the gloomy abyss,
Which divides the eternal world from this,

And consigning in hope thy frail flesh to the sod,
Thy soul shall ascend to thy Saviour and God.

I would fain spread out these overtures, and enforce them by line upon line, and precept upon precept of remonstrance and appeal; but the time has come for me to say that hard reluctant word farewell. I confess I would rather hold it back a little longer, but that would be of no avail. It is no use being sentimental about it, although I do really part from you with more unwillingness than I have ever done before. I bid you farewell with the same hope of meeting you again which I expressed last year; but time is uncertain, and some of us will never meet on earth. May we all meet in Heaven! I thank you from my heart for the kind attention you have always paid to me. I think it is not a little thing to be able to say, that during a hundred meetings of five or six thousand working-men at a time, we have never had any annoyance or interruption. I thank you very sincerely for preserving that silence. without which it would have been impossible for me to

speak. I think we part with mutual goodwill. That God may send you every blessing, averting from the artizan during this threatening year all the trials of want, or hard times; that he may enable you to keep the wolf still further from your door by honest, sober industry; that he may keep you from all vice; that he may bless you richly in your homes, knitting your families together in love; and that above all, He may give you that grace, and those impartations of His blessed Spirit which shall secure for you a home at length in that city of "many mansions," whose builder and maker is God,-is the fervent prayer of,

Dear Friends,

"Yours faithfully,"

ARTHUR MURSELL.

Town Traps and City Snares.

AM much more anxious that this address should be useful than ornamental, and shall not, therefore, attempt that elaboration which would charm the ear, but not arrest the heart. I do not deny that in making this virtuous resolution I am to some extent making a virtue of necessity; for the time at my disposal in the preparation of the address entirely precluded anything more than the most ordinary stringing together of the most ordinary thoughts. The title has the rare merit, as things go now, of proclaiming its own object; and those who read the subject will anticipate the gist of the address.

"Experientia docet," is a motto whose truth is only to be fully learned by experience. But still, if gentle precept can in any degree anticipate the severer lessons that experience brings, and break the severity of the blow which it inflicts, it is surely worth while to raise the timely note of warning. That note of warning-as it affects the peculiar temptations by which young men become surrounded on their removal from the restraints of home and its endearments, to the whirl and turmoil of a large town-it is our design to try to raise to-night. There is no time at which a young man is, in reality, so fast asleep as when he affects to be particularly wide awake. Few of us are proof