"Meadows may be occasionally flooded, but the marshes are drowned by the tide at every return thereof."

There is all this difference between the sins of the righteous and those of the ungodly. Surprised by temptation, true saints are flooded with a passing outburst of sin; but the wicked delight in

transgression and live in it as in their element. The saint in his errors is a star under a cloud, but the sinner is darkness itself. The gracious may fall into iniquity, but the graceless run into it, wallow in it, and again and again return to it.

Dream not that a long period intervenes between the instant of death and the eternity of glory. When the eyes close on earth they open in Heaven. The horses of fire are not an instant on the road. Then, O child of God, what is there for you to fear in

death, seeing that through the death of your Lord its curse and sting are destroyed? And now it is but a Jacob's ladder, whose foot is in the dark grave, but whose topmost round reaches to glory everlasting.