life. They may be the means, under God, of guiding your footsteps out of the snares of sin, into the strait and narrow path that leads to heaven. I could tell you of one who was thus rescued from the very borders of destruction.* He was the son of pious parents, and in infancy dedicated to God in the holy ordinance of baptism. In childhood he was faithfully taught the great truths of the Bible, and his early years gave bright promise that he would grow up in the fear of the Lord. And when he left his father's house to complete his education abroad, there was scarcely a fear in the hearts of those who knew him, that he would ever be a prodigal. But new scenes opened on him. New and gay companions welcomed the ardent boy to their circle, and spread before him the bright enticements of pleasure and sin. He struggled for a while against the tempter, but one barrier of virtue after another yielded, till at length he fell. The conquest was not easy,

* See "Elizabeth Thornton, with other Sketches." New York. M. W. Dodd. 1841.

but it was at last achieved; and he plunged headlong into the vortex that has swallowed thousands, and from which few have ever been recovered.

There were those who saw his danger, and who desired to deliver him as from death. They spoke to him of the evil nature of sin, but he felt it not; of heaven, but it had no attractions for his corrupt heart; of Jesus and his dying love, but their power was gone. He was standing one day in the room of a pious young man who said to him, “How would your parents feel should they hear that you had become a Christian ?" The arrow found its way to his heart. He fell on his knees and asked the young man to pray for him. He thought of home, and the memory of all his early lessons of Christ and of heaven came over him, humbling him in the dust. He resolved to turn to God. He became a Christian, and often have those parents' hearts been filled with joy to hear the gospel by the lips of that son whom once they feared was a lost prodigal.

The story is familiar of the sailor who was invited to attend church, by a man who passed him as he was standing in the door of his boarding-house. The sailor at first refused with considerable bluntness, but the man entered into conversation with him, and presently asked him if he had a mother. He said he had. "And what advice would she give you about going to church, if she were here to-night?" inquired the stranger. The sailor went, and was converted.

It may be that he who would trample on a Saviour's blood, and resist the grace of God, and break his laws, and despise his proffered love, may pause before he crushes beneath his feet his mother's heart.

Thus have we noticed a few of the gifts of God which you have squandered in your course of sin. With the early instruction of pious parents, with baptismal vows upon you, with Sabbaths, and Bibles, and a preached gospel, with the influences of the Holy Spirit, and the blood of the Lamb of God shed freely for your salvation, with all these rich gifts, who is so rich as you? The prodigal was

not so rich. What amazing extravagance it must be, that so soon has wasted so much. Heaven is in sight, and it is promised to you on easy terms, but turning your back on that glorious inheritance, you madly break away from the courts of God, you spurn the rich gifts of your heavenly Father, and wander away into a region of death.

"Stop, poor sinner, stop and think,
Before you farther go;
Will you sport upon the brink

Of everlasting wo?

On the verge of ruin stop

Now the friendly warning take:
Stay your footsteps-ere you drop
Into the burning lake."

CHAPTER VIII.

Famine-A starving man—A starving soul-Sin brings men to want-The Prodigal becomes a slave-He feeds swine, -The sinner is a slave to the world, the flesh and the devil-The Prodigal is reduced to despair.

"WHEN he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want." Riotous living usually brings men to want. Extravagance, intemperance, debauchery, gambling and kindred vices, will make wreck of the most splendid fortune, and reduce their victims to sore distress. It was so with the Prodigal. He went away from home rich. He ate, he drank, he indulged his licentious appetites without restraint, and never thought of the consequences, till compelled to feel, by the pressure of actual starvation. There arose a famine in that land. When he came to poverty, others around him were poor. They could not help him in his