your outward situation, yet remember her, remember her, for if, like her, you are the destined prey of God's avenging justice, it will find you out, for "wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together." 3. Lastly, they who are, like Lot's wife, almost saved, may not only, like her, be destroyed in the very moment of deliverance, but, like her, so destroy ed as to afford a monumental warning to all others, that the patience and long-suffering of God are not eternal. Looking back to the cities of the plain, they may not only be involved in their destruction, but, as "pillars of salt," record it and attest it to succeeding generations. To a certain extent this is true of all who perish. God has made all things for himself, even the wicked for the day of evil. They who will not, as "vessels of mercy," glorify his wisdom and his goodness, must and will "show his wrath and make his power known," as "vessels of wrath fitted to destruction." They who will not consent to glorify him willingly must be content to glorify him by compulsion. This is true of all who perish, and who therefore may be said to become "pillars of salt," standing, like mile-stones, all along the broad road that leadeth to destruction, solemn though speechless monitors of those who throng it, and planted even on the margin of that "great gulf” which is "fixed" forever between heaven and hell. But in another and a more affecting sense, it may be said that they who perish with the very foretaste of salvation on their lips, who make shipwreck in the sight of their desired haven, who are blasted by the thunderbolt of vengeance after fleeing from the city of destruction, and amidst their very journey towards the place of refuge, become "pillars of salt" to their successors. What a thought is this, my hearers, that of all the tears which some have shed in seasons of awakening, and of all their prayers and vows and resolutions, all their spiritual conflicts and apparent triumphs over self and sin, the only ultimate effect will be to leave them standing by the wayside as "pillars of salt," memorials of man's weakness and corruption, and of God's most righteous retributions. Are you willing to live, and what is more, to die, for such an end as this? To be remembered only as a "pillar of salt," a living, dying, yet enduring proof, that sinners may be almost saved, and yet not saved at all, that they may starve at the threshold of a feast, and die of thirst at the fountain of salvation. It is not unusual for those who have outlived their first impressions of religion, and successfully resisted the approaches of conviction, to subside into a state of artificial calmness, equally removed from their original insensibility and from the genuine composure of a true faith and repentance. As you feel this new sense of tranquillity creep over your excited senses, assuaging your exasperated conscience, you may secretly congratulate yourself upon a change of feeling so much for the better. But you may not be aware that the relief which you experience is similar to that which often follows long exposure to intense cold, when the sense of acute suffering begins to be succeeded by a grateful numbness, and the faculties, long excited by resistance, to be lulled into a drowsy languor, far from being painful to the sense, but as surely the precursor of paralysis and dissolution, as if the limbs were already stiffened and the process of corruption even visibly begun. Or the change of feeling now in question, may resemble that which came upon Lot's wife as she began to lose her consciousness of pain and pleasure beneath that saline incrustation which enchained her limbs, suppressed her breath, and stopped the circulation of her life's blood. Was that an enviable feeling, think you, even supposing it to be exclusive of all suffering? Or could you consent to purchase such immunity from pain by being turned into a pillar of salt? It is not the least affecting circumstance about the strange event which has afforded us a theme for meditation, that although Lot's wife was fearfully destroyed, and at the very moment when she seemed to be beyond the reach of danger; we have no intimation that the lightning struck her, or that the fires which they kindled scorched her, or that the waters of the dead sea, as they rushed into their new bed, overwhelmed her, or that any other violence befell her. But we read that she looked back and became a pillar of salt, perhaps without a pang of "corporal sufferance," perhaps without the consciousness of outward change; one moment full of life, the next a white and sparkling, cold and lifeless mass. If this, my hearer, is the death which you would choose to die in soul or body, then look back to Sodom, stretch your hands towards it, and receive the death which comes to meet you in your cold embrace. Turn back, turn back, if you would fain become a pillar of salt. Look not beEscape to the And though you scenes which you have left, yield not to it, but let memory do the work of sight. Instead of turning back to perish without hope, let it suffice you to REMEMBER LOT'S WIFE! VIII. 1 JOHN 3, 2.—It doth not yet appear what we shall be. THESE words admit of being taken either in a wide and comprehensive, or a more restricted and specific sense, as referring to a blessed immortality beyond the grave, or to futurity in general, including the as yet unknown vicissitudes belonging to the present state of our existence. It is in this larger application of the language, and indeed with special reference to a proximate futurity, that I invite your attention to the fact that "it doth not yet appear what we shall be." There is nothing, in the actual condition of mankind, or in the method of God's dispensations towards them, more surprising than the fact, that, while the very constitution of the mind impels it to survey the future with intense solicitude, futurity itself is hidden by a veil, which can neither be penetrated nor withdrawn. The light which glimmers through this veil is strong enough to show that something lies beyond it, and the demonstration is completed by the mis- . shapen but gigantic shadows which occasionally flit across its surface; but the size, and shape, and rela |