OW various and how pressing are the wants, real or imagined, of our poor fallen human nature! How earnest and how clamorous the appeals of the world! How engrossing and how harassing the anxieties and the labors they occasion! And how artificial and frivolous are the chief enjoyments of society! Alas! it is seldom that the human heart is satisfied with the necessary blessings of life, or content with the simple provision which nature demands and true religion warrants. The manifold lusts of the flesh are ever seeking new gratifications. The eye of Fancy ever roves abroad to discover unknown [84] charms. The pride of life ever fills the soul with fresh ambitions and with novel fantasies. How difficult for the Christian, commingling in the cares and labors of the world, to escape its entanglements! The fashions of the hour, the gayeties, the amusements, the follies of life, seek constantly to intrude themselves into the best-ordered household. The fondness of natural affection, the yielding temper of marital love, the ceaseless pressure of surrounding example, at once conspire to ensnare and overcome Christian principle, and oft succeed in filling the home of the righteous with many unwonted cares, and fears, and burdens--diverting the attention from the things of eternity and piercing the heart with many sorrows. Oppressive toils, imposed by the tyranny of fashion, enslave each member of the family and leave little time for pious meditation. The exacting demands of a transitory and selfish world forbid the delightful charities of the religious life. The nightly amusements, dissipations, and vain enjoyments of giddy youthfulness replace the once sweet time of family devotion and the hours of needed rest, while, amidst the hurrying [85] vortex, conscience remonstrates and piety pleads in vain.

      Still, amidst its trials, may the burdened soul live on, ever hoping for relief from its unprofitable toils, and ever refusing to yield up the hopes, the joys, and the precious promises of the gospel. Still may the heart desire to seek the Lord where he may be found, to draw near to him while he is near, to wait before him in his sanctuary, and to renew once more the spiritual blessedness of the past. How delightful the privilege to be permitted here to withdraw the mind for an interval from the bustle and the unsatisfying pursuits of the passing world! How sweet the moments which may be thus redeemed from the fast-fleeting hours of this vain and mortal life!

      Surely, then, it is on this solemn occasion that we should endeavor to draw nigh to God that he may draw nigh to us. Surely, it is here that these sacred memorials of a Savior's dying love should bring us into a peculiar nearness to our Lord. It is here that Jesus is set before us in his sufferings and death for the sin of the world, and that we appear before him as those who, by [86] faith have been made partakers in his salvation. Are, then, our hearts prepared for true and blessed communion with Jesus? Have faith, and hope, and love been aroused to lively exercise? Do we come with earnestness, sincerity, and penitential tears to the foot of the cross? Do we long in prayerful hope that the blessed vision of redemption may be unfolded before our eyes?

      As Jesus came into the world for judgment, and as he shall judge us at the last day, so, most assuredly, is he here to judge us now. Do we realize that it is with his all-seeing eye upon us that we are counseled here to examine ourselves, that we may not eat and drink that condemnation which he awards to those who partake unworthily? Do we come with minds preoccupied and hearts unmoved by the momentous significance of the fact which we commemorate? Has the light of heaven been shut out, and does the darkness of the world still brood upon our souls? It is here, even amidst this darkness, that faith may reveal to us the scenes of Calvary, that our world of earth-born [87] cares may be shaken as by an earthquake, and the flinty rocks of our insensibility be rent asunder, and that we may be enabled to realize that this was truly the Son of God. It is at this hour that the veil which conceals from us the inner sanctuary may be torn away, in order that we may behold the glory of the Divine presence. It is here we may revive the recollections of the past, and bid the burial-places of memory give up their dead that we may go with them even into the Holy City. It is here that Christ himself may commune with us, and that our hearts may burn within us while we gain larger views of the mystery of redemption, and comprehend what the prophets have spoken of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. And it is here, above all, that the films of error may be taken from our eyes that we may recognize the spiritual presence of our Savior, and that he may be made known to us in the breaking of bread.

      How precious, then, this opportunity! How divine that bread of heaven of which, if a man eat, he shall live forever! How glorious the [88] hopes which this blissful fellowship inspires! How sweet the peace which it diffuses over the soul amid the turmoil of life! How true a foretaste of that rest which remains for the people of God, that inheritance of eternal joy and blessedness which awaits the heirs of salvation! [89]

[CITS 84-89]