^.ci3:'fz 
 
 PRINCETON THEOLOGICRL SEMINARY 
 
 BY THE HEIRS OF THE LATE 
 
 professor Ibcnrg Garrinaton BlcjanDcr, 2).H)., XX.2), 
 
 BX 9178 .B37 L54 1859 
 Barnes, Albert, 1798-1870. 
 Life at three-score 
 

-§tu M 1 
 
 v>^ <>■ 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA, 
 NOVEMBER 28, 1858. 
 
 ALBEET BAEITES. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 PARRY & MCMILLAN. 
 
 1859. 
 
Collins, Printer. 
 
An apology seems to be necessary for publishing a 
 sermon having so much reference to my own life and 
 opinions as this has. It is easy to conceive that cir- 
 cumstances may exist which would make it proper for 
 a pastor thus to allude to himself in preaching, though 
 they might not justify a more extended publication 
 than that which is necessarily made in the pulpit. 
 
 The following discourse was preached, without 
 having been written, on a rainy day, when compara- 
 tively few persons were present. Some who were 
 present have expressed a desire to possess it, and 
 some who were absent have expressed a wish to know 
 what was said on the occasion. It has accordingly 
 been written out, as nearly as could be recollected, in 
 the language in which it was delivered, though some- 
 what enlarged in the process of committing it to 
 paper. It contains sentiments which I regard as 
 important, and which I would wish to commend to 
 those who are entering on life ; and, if it has nothing 
 else worth}^ of attention, it has one feature at least 
 which I w^ould hope may be useful. It will show that 
 a man who has reached an age at which he can hope 
 
for little from the world, may take a cheerful and 
 hopeful view of life — a view which may do something 
 to stimulate those who are about to engage in the 
 struggles, to meet the temptations, and to bear the 
 burdens of life ; that a man who has reached the last 
 stage of his journey may see much to live for on 
 earth — much to encourage those who are just entering 
 on their way. At the risk, therefore, of a charge of 
 vanity which could not, I confess, be very easily replied 
 to, but with, as I would hope, so prevalent a desire to 
 do good as to justify what I am doing even with this 
 risk, the sermon is committed to the press. 
 
 Albert Barnes. 
 
 Philadelphia, Dec. 31, 1858. 
 
^bkrfisniunt k i\t Stctmb €hiixm. 
 
 I HAD no expectation that a second edition of this 
 sermon would be demanded. It was not stereotyped^ 
 and I anticij^ated only a very limited sale, and sup- 
 posed that that would be confined mostly to my own 
 congregation. It is equally surprising and gratifying 
 to me to learn from the publishers that it has received 
 such favour as to justify them in issuing a new edition. 
 The discourse was designed to show that a cheerful view 
 of life may be taken by a man who has come near to 
 its last stage, and who can expect little more from 
 earth ; that such a man may feel that there is much 
 that is worth living for, even when he has a prospect 
 and a hope of a better life than this; that it is not 
 necessary that one who is growing old should feel 
 that the world is becoming worse, or that all plans 
 for its improvement have failed; and especially that 
 temperance, industry, and religion will do much to make 
 life prosperous, and old age, when it comes, genial and 
 
bright^ — will lead to gi^ateful reflections on the past, 
 and to a haj^py anticipation of the closing scene. 
 
 From the demand for a new edition of the discourse, 
 I infer that men are willing to take these views of 
 life, and to welcome such words from one who has 
 arrived at a period at which he ought to be qualified 
 to say something as to what life is. I send forth this 
 new edition, therefore, essentially unaltered, grateful 
 for the manner in which the former edition has been 
 received, and as furnishing another illustration of one 
 of the main points in the sermon itself, — that the world 
 will welcome any efforts which are made to promote 
 the cause of truth and virtue. 
 
 Albert Barnes. 
 
 Philadelphia, Feb. 23, 1859. 
 
LIFE AT THREE-SCORE. 
 
 God, thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto 
 have i declared thy wondrous works. now also, .... 
 God, FORSAKE me not ; until I have showed thy strength 
 
 UNTO this generation, AND THY POWER TO EVERY ONE THAT IS 
 
 TO COME. — Psalm Ixxi. 17, 18. 
 
 The occasions are rare on which it is proper 
 for a minister of the gospel to obtrude himself, 
 or his private concerns, on the attention of his 
 people. He has, indeed, like other men, his 
 own private history — the history of his feelings 
 and opinions; his struggles and conflicts; his 
 successes and reverses ; his trials and comforts ; 
 his hopes and fears. All these are of great in- 
 terest to him, but in themselves they are of no 
 more importance than the same things as they 
 occur in other men. He may also have arduous 
 labours to perform in his profession, but so have 
 other men in theirs ; and I have not learned 
 that the work of the ministry is any more ar- 
 
8 Life at Tl tree-Score, 
 
 duous, or more beset with cares and trials, than 
 the path of men engaged in other callings of 
 life. Merchants, farmers, lawyers, physicians, 
 teachers, have their own history, and their own 
 struggles, and I know not why such private 
 matters have any more claim to public atten- 
 tion, or to public sympathy, when they occur 
 in the lives of ministers of the gospel, than 
 when they occur in the lives of men occupied 
 in other professions. 
 
 Influenced by considerations such as these, 
 I have never, in the thirty-four years of my 
 ministry, — twenty-eight of w^hich have been 
 spent in your service, — regarded my own work 
 as of sufficient public interest to lead me to 
 preach a sermon on the anniversary of my 
 ordination or installation, nor have I been ac- 
 customed to allude to myself, or to my private 
 feelings, any further than occasionally to illus- 
 trate some point connected with the work of 
 religion in the soul. This I have supposed 
 was to some extent allowable, for it sometimes 
 occurs that there is no way of illustrating the 
 nature of religion, or of describing the Chris- 
 
Life at Three-Score. 9 
 
 tian warfare, better than that which is de- 
 scribed from personal experience. 
 
 If I live three days longer, however, I shall 
 have reached a period of life which seems to 
 me to make it proper to depart for once from 
 the rule which I have prescribed for my con- 
 duct; a period not only of great moment to 
 myself, but eminently favourable for taking a 
 view of life as it ajDpears in the past, and in 
 the future. A man who has reached the six- 
 tieth year of his life ought to be able to give 
 some views of living which will be worth the 
 attention of those who are starting on the 
 way; he ought to be able to offer some counsel 
 which it would be wise and safe for those who 
 are young to follow; he ought to be able so to 
 speak of the temptations of the world as to 
 show how they may be avoided or overcome ; 
 he ought to be able to say something which 
 will encourage the next generation in the 
 duties of life; he ought to be able to utter some- 
 thing bright and hopeful in regard to the pros- 
 pects which are to open upon the world which 
 he is soon to leave — bright and hopeful in re- 
 
10 Life at Three-Score. 
 
 gard to the world to which he is so soon 
 to go. 
 
 Any young man has a right to ask a man of 
 sixty, How life seems to him now? How has 
 the reality been as compared with the antici- 
 pation ? How does the world appear now, as 
 contrasted with the vision which rose before 
 the mind of the boy when he sat by his father's 
 fireside and formed in imagination his plans for 
 future years ; or when from College Halls he 
 looked out on the world on which he was soon 
 to enter ; or when he left the place where he 
 had performed the duties of a clerk or appren- 
 tice to go out, cheerful or sad, to make his way 
 in the world? Has the world been what it 
 promised? Or are those visions all illusory 
 and vain ? What is there, as seen by a man 
 of sixty, which is worth living for? What 
 should be sought by those entering on the jour- 
 ney? What should be avoided? 
 
 At this period of my life, therefore, will you 
 permit me so far to depart from my usual 
 course, and from what seems to me to be usu- 
 ally proper in this place, as to say some things 
 
Life at Three- Score. 11 
 
 in a plain way of myself, as to what I have 
 found life to be, and how it seems to me now ? 
 
 Mr. Hume, in his well-written autobiography, 
 says, " It is difficult for a man to speak long 
 of himself without vanity ; therefore," says he, 
 " I shall be short." I am sensible of this dan- 
 ger, and I will endeavor not to expose myself 
 to this charge. If I do, it shall be hut once. 
 
 What then have I found life to be ? How 
 does it seem to me now ? 
 
 The FIRST thing which I have to say is, that 
 I have found it to be all, and more than all, 
 that I had hoped ; all, and more than all, that 
 it promised. In other words, I have now a 
 higher idea of life as such — of the desirableness 
 of living — than I had at the outset. It seems 
 to me to be a greater matter by far to live, and 
 to carry out the real purposes of life, than it 
 did when I began my course. 
 
 I mean by this, that there is more that enters 
 into the idea of living — of living in this icorlcl. 
 It is a greater matter. It is a more desirable 
 thino;. There are more thinsrs to be accom- 
 
12 lAfe at Three-Score. 
 
 plished ; more to interest the mind, to win the 
 heart; to impart happiness ; more to make it a 
 serious matter to leave the world at all — to leave 
 it with no prospect of returning to it again. 
 
 I know that this is contrary to the impres- 
 sion which is commonly entertained in regard 
 to the feelings of a man as he approaches the 
 period when, in the ordinary course of things, 
 he must expect soon to die. The impression 
 of the young commonly is, that when a man 
 approaches the end of life, the objects which 
 may have been so interesting to him at first 
 must cease to interest him; that, as he has 
 secured all the honour which he can hope to 
 obtain, and gained all the wealth which he can 
 hope to acquu'e, and tasted all the pleasures 
 which he can hope to enjoy, life can have little 
 to attract him then, or, in other words, that 
 he can see little then which would be worth 
 living for. 
 
 That this may occur, I cannot doubt ; but it 
 is not so with me, and this is not the view which 
 I now take of living in this world. Life, as 
 such, has now more to interest me than it has 
 
Life at Tliree-Score. 13 
 
 had at any former period ; more than it had 
 when I looked out upon it in the bright visions 
 of youth, or than it has had at any stage of my 
 progress through the world. There is more to 
 learn; more to do; more in the world than 
 I supposed ; more to make it a matter of regret 
 that it must be left. 
 
 I do not refer here to the things which oc- 
 cupy the attention of so large a portion of 
 mankind, and which constitute, in their appre- 
 hension, all that there is in living; the desire 
 of wealth, fame, pleasure. Of the first of these, 
 as a motive for living, I have never been, to 
 my recollection, conscious at any time, nor am 
 I conscious of it now. The second of these I 
 confess I have indulged to a degree which I 
 cannot now justify, and I cannot but feel that 
 I may have been influenced by it even when I 
 have supposed that I was acting from higher 
 motives; but I have aimed to subdue it, and to 
 keep it subordinate to a higher end, the desire 
 to honour God. The third of these, whatever I 
 may have felt in my earlier days, in common 
 with others as they enter on life, I trust ha^ 
 
14 Life at Threescore. 
 
 been subdued by the grace of God, by advanc- 
 ing years, and by the growth of higher princi- 
 ples of action. When, therefore, I spoke of the 
 world as more desirable to live in than it 
 seemed to me at the beginning, I mean the 
 world as such — as a part of the universe of 
 God — as a place where He is developing his 
 great plans ; and when I speak of life as seem- 
 ing more desirable to me now than ever before, 
 I refer to it in reference to the great objects 
 for which it was given, and to what may be 
 done in securing those objects. 
 
 I will specify a few things as illustrating 
 this idea : — 
 
 This is a different world from what it was 
 sixty years ago. The universe, if I may so 
 express it, is larger than it was then ; the earth 
 is more ancient and more grand. It is true, 
 indeed, that to the eye of an Omniscient Being 
 the universe is the same ; but it is more vast 
 and grand as it appears to man. Every sixty 
 years of the earth's history, except perhaps the 
 period of the dark ages, has made the world 
 different; but no period of sixty years has made 
 
Life at Tlireo Score. 15 
 
 so great a change as that to which I now refer. 
 The universe to human view is inconceivably 
 more extended. There is not a science whose 
 boundaries have not been greatly enlarged. 
 Many of the most important discoveries in 
 science, and inventions in the arts^ which are 
 to be developed in their influence on following 
 ages, have started into being in groups and 
 clusters. Worlds and systems have been 
 brought into view unknown to man before. 
 
 The universe above is greater. During all 
 that period, the astronomer has been pointing 
 his telescope to the heavens, and penetrating 
 the fields of blue ether, and revealing to man 
 the wonders of the distant heavens; enlarging 
 the universe by all those measureless distances 
 through which the eye has been made to pene- 
 trate. New stars have been discovered and 
 mapped on the great chart of the heavens ; a 
 new planet as belonging to our system has been 
 found from the fiict of its disturbing influence 
 on those before known — a planet on which no 
 human eye ever before rested ; a vast number 
 of asteroids, fragments of a larger planet, have 
 
16 Life at Three-S(xjre. 
 
 been seen to revolve between the orbit of Mars 
 and Jupiter j and distant nebulae, floating 
 islands in the measureless distance, have been 
 brought into view, and resolved into distinct 
 and separate worlds. 
 
 The world heneatli is greater and more won- 
 derful than it was. The microscope was indeed 
 known, as was the telescope, sixty years ago ; 
 but it had but just begun to reveal the world 
 beneath us. It has not finished its work, but 
 it has already disclosed a universe beneath us 
 as unlimited and as wonderful as that above us. 
 It has peopled every leaf in the forest, and 
 every drop of water in rivulets, lakes, and 
 oceans, with teeming multitudes of inhabitants, 
 amazing us as much by their number, and by 
 the delicacy, skill, and beauty of their organi- 
 zation, as the telescope does by the number 
 and the magnitudes of the worlds above us. 
 We find ourselves as men standing thus in a 
 universe extending inimitably above and below 
 us, as incomprehensible on the one hand as on 
 the other : boundless space above filled up with 
 w^orlds where we thought there w\as an empty 
 
Life at TlivcC' Score. 17 
 
 void, and beneath countless myriads of beings 
 starting into life, and playing their little part, 
 where all seemed to be blank. 
 
 Our own earth is vaster and more grand 
 than it was. Half a century ago, the prevail- 
 ing — the almost universal — belief was, that 
 the earth was created six thousand years ago, 
 in its essential structure as it is now — rocks, 
 and seas, and rivers, and hills having been 
 called into existence as they now are, by the 
 immediate command of God. It began, in- 
 deed, to be whispered that it is older, and that 
 important changes had occurred upon the earth 
 before man appeared on it ; or that the earth 
 had a history before the history of the human 
 race. I remember in one of the earliest stages 
 of my education, meeting with a remark by 
 Dr. Chalmers, designed to solve some of the 
 growing difficulties from the new science of 
 geology, that between the first and second 
 verses of the Book of Genesis there might be 
 supposed to have intervened an indefinite 
 period of which no account was given, the pur- 
 pose of inspiration having been first to attest 
 
18 Life at Three- Score. 
 
 the general truth that "GbcZ created the heavens 
 and the earth,'' or to secure this belief in the 
 minds of men in opposition to the idea that the 
 world is eternal^ or is the work of fate or 
 chance, and then, without detailing the inter- 
 mediate history of the globe, to proceed at once 
 to the main purpose of the volume, the history 
 of the Creation, the Fall and the Eedemption 
 of man ; that in fact the earth itself may have 
 existed through a vast number of ages, and 
 may have gone through a vast number of revo- 
 lutions, with which man in his history was not 
 particularly concerned, or which did not bear 
 on the main purpose of the volume — the record 
 of the Fall and Kecovery of a lost race. What 
 was then almost conjecture in regard to the 
 past history of the earth, has been verified. 
 The prevailing opinions respecting its recent 
 origin have been set aside. To all that was 
 before regarded as grand in the conception of 
 the earth, there is now added the truth that it 
 has moved on its axis and in its orbit millions 
 of ages ; that successive generations of animals 
 have been formed, and have acted out the pur- 
 
Life at Three-Seore, 19 
 
 pose of their creation^ and liave disappeared 
 forever; that vast changes have occurred in 
 the waters and on the land, displacing each 
 other, and then peopled again with new 
 myriads of inhabitants appropriate to each, 
 and then again to pass away; that immense 
 deposits of minerals had been made by the 
 slow progress of ages, fitted for the use of an 
 order of beings that had not yet appeared; 
 and that at last man, to whom all these 
 changes had reference, and for whom all the 
 previous arrangements were designed, appeared 
 upon the earth, a being of higher order — the 
 last in the series that Avas to occupy the globe. 
 With this view of the past, what a different 
 object is the earth now from what it was half 
 a century ago! 
 
 A large part of the discoveries in science, 
 the inventions in the arts, and the arrange- 
 ments in the schemes of benevolence that are 
 to affect future times, and whose bearings can 
 now be scarcely appreciated, has been ori- 
 ginated also in this period of the world. The 
 power of steam was not indeed unknown be- 
 
20 Life at Three-Score, 
 
 fore ; but the great changes which it is des- 
 tined to produce in the commerce of the world 
 are the results of the inventions of this age. 
 The raih^oad and the magnetic telegraph have 
 been originated in these times. Every science 
 has been pushed forward. Elementary books 
 of instruction have been changed, and those 
 which were adapted to the condition of the 
 w^orld sixty years ago would be useless now. 
 If I were now to begin my education again, a 
 large part of the books which I studied when 
 young, would be valueless. I should, indeed, 
 retain my Homer, my Yirgil, and my Euclid ; 
 but the books in which I sought instruction in 
 chemistry, and geography, and natural philo- 
 sophy, would no longer represent the science 
 of the world, or convey correct views to my 
 mind. The books w^hich I then studied belong 
 to another age, and though they will serve to 
 mark the steps by which the advances of 
 science have been made, they will never again 
 be a proper exponent of the true state of know- 
 ledge among mankind. I see wonders around 
 me which have sprung up anew. Every river, 
 
Life at Tliree-Scoi^e. 21 
 
 lakeland ocean is navigated by steam; an iron 
 road is laid down everywhere, connecting all 
 parts of a country together, along which are 
 borne, by a power unapplied when I was young, 
 the productions of agriculture, manufactures, 
 and the arts, with a rapidity and a precision 
 of which no one then could have formed a con- 
 ception. A mysterious and incomprehensible 
 network, like spiders' w^ebs, is weaving itself 
 over all lands, and making its way beneath 
 deep waters, by which thought is transmitted 
 simultaneously to millions of minds, and is dif- 
 fused over distant lands regardless of mountains 
 and of oceans. How different such a world 
 from what it was sixty years ago ! 
 
 In the same time there have sprung also into 
 being arrangements, then unknown, no less 
 adapted to affect the moral and rehgious con- 
 dition of mankind. The great enterprises of 
 Christian benevolence, yet to result in the en- 
 tire conversion of the w^orld to God, have been 
 originated in that time. The Bible w^as indeed 
 in men's hands, and the gospel was preached, 
 and the power of the press was known, but the 
 
22 Life at Threescore, 
 
 serious thought had scarcely found its way into 
 the minds of the friends of the Saviour of 
 bringing the combined influence of these agen- 
 cies on the widest scale possible to bear on the 
 unconverted portions of the race. Within the 
 period of which I am now speaking, this 
 thought has taken a firm possession of the 
 Christian mind and heart, and the great work 
 of the world's conversion has been entered on 
 in earnest. The Bible has been translated 
 into nearly all the languages of the world; 
 the strongholds of the earth have been occu- 
 pied as missionary stations 3 millions of children 
 are taught the great truths of Christianity from 
 week to week in Sabbath-schools; and a Chris- 
 tian literature is spreading its influence far 
 and near over nominally Christian and Pagan 
 lands. Whatever there is of power in these 
 arrangements as bearing on the future, is the 
 fruit of the spirit of this age ; and now, in refer- 
 ence to science, to the arts, to the efforts of 
 benevolence — to the world above, the world 
 below, the world in the past, and the world 
 
Life at Three- Score. 23 
 
 around us, I see a different — a larger — world 
 than it was when I began to live. 
 
 I augur much from this ; I hope much in 
 reference to the future. I see that the next 
 age is likely to be more fruitful of great results 
 than even this has been; that it will be an age 
 in which it will be more desirable to live than 
 this has been. I look now on the beginning 
 of things; on the commencement of develop- 
 ments which are to be far more grand and 
 glorious than any which we have seen. John 
 Kobinson, the pastor of the Pilgrim Church at 
 Ley den, in his fiirewell discourse to the depart- 
 ing pilgrims, "• charged them before God and 
 his blessed angels to follow him no further than 
 he had followed Christ; and if God should 
 reveal any thing to them by any other instru- 
 ment of his, to be as ready to receive it as ever 
 they were to receive any truth by his ministry; 
 for lie looM very confident the Lord had more 
 truth and light yet to hreah forth out of Ms Holy 
 WbrdJ"^' The Bible, in his apprehension, was 
 not exhausted. All its truths were not made 
 
 * Cheever's Journal of the Pilgrims, p. 1G5. 
 
24 Life at Three- Score, 
 
 known, and there was much in reserve for 
 future times. So I look on the world now. 
 The i^owers of nature are not exhausted. Her 
 secrets are not yet all explored. The improve- 
 ments in the art of printing ; the applications 
 of steam to commerce and the arts ; the dis- 
 closures by the telescope, the microscope, and 
 the blow-pipe ; the application of light in fixing 
 the forms of things, and of the magnetic fluid 
 in the transmission of thought, have not ex- 
 hausted the secrets of nature. They have 
 opened to us a world of wonders, and taught 
 us to anticipate still greater inventions and dis- 
 coveries, and not to be surprised at any thing 
 which may seem now to surpass the compre- 
 hension of the human mind. We have but 
 just begun to wonder at nature — to feel that 
 we know but little about it — that its disclosures 
 are but just commenced. I look forward then 
 to greater wonders in the future, and as I leave 
 the world I shall see opening upon rt new inven- 
 tions, discoveries, and improvements, as mar- 
 vellous in their nature as those which have 
 marked the age in which I have lived, and as 
 
Life at Tltree-Score. 25 
 
 far in advance of what we now see as those 
 amazing discoveries are in advance of what 
 preceding ages had done. You will not be sur- 
 prised then at what I said, that I have now a 
 higher idea of life as such — of the desirableness 
 of living — than I had at the outset. 
 
 So also in reference to the grand purpose of 
 living — the preparation for a future world — it 
 seems to me to be a greater object, a more 
 desirable thing, to live in this world, than it 
 did when I began life. The importance of 
 this life as a season of probation steadily in- 
 creases as we come in sight of the end, and see 
 a vast eternity not far before us. The interests 
 at stake grow larger and larger. Those things 
 which ordinarily occupy the attention of man- 
 kind dwindle almost to nothing. The earth, 
 as it moves in its orbit from year to year, main- 
 tains its distance of ninety-five millions of miles 
 from the sun ; and the sun, except when seen 
 through a hazy atmosphere, at its rising or its 
 setting, seems at all times to be of the same 
 magnitude — to human view an object always 
 small as compared with our own world. But 
 
26 Life at Three- Score. 
 
 suppose the earth should leave its orbit, and 
 make its way in a direct line towards the sun. 
 How soon would the sun seem to enlarge its 
 dimensions ! How vast and bright would it 
 become ! How soon w^ould it fill the whole 
 field of vision, and all on the earth dwindle to 
 nothing ! So human life now appears to me. 
 In earlier years eternity appears distant and 
 small in importance. But at the period of life 
 which I have now reached, it seems to me as 
 if the earth had left the orbit of its annual 
 movements, and w^as making a rapid and direct 
 flight to the sun. The objects of eternity, 
 towards which I am moving, rapidly enlarge 
 themselves. They have become overpower- 
 in gly bright and grand. They fill the whole 
 field of vision, and the earth, with all which is 
 the common object of human ambition and 
 pursuit, is vanishing away! 
 
 The SECOND thing which I have to say is, 
 that I have found the world favourably dis- 
 posed towards those who are entering on life; 
 favourably disposed towards the efibrts which 
 
Life at ThreG-Score. 27 
 
 may be made to promote its welfare. I found 
 it willing to aid me when I was young; I have 
 found it willing to favour my efforts thus far 
 along the journey. I now regard it as kindly 
 disposed towards young men; as willing to 
 assist them in times of trouble and embarrass- 
 ment; as willing to commit all its great interests 
 into their hands. 
 
 I know that this also is contrary to a very 
 prevalent impression. I am aware that there 
 is a feeling in the minds of many young men 
 that the world is stern and unfriendly ; that it is 
 disposed to "turn on them the cold shoulder;" 
 that they who have filled the various profes- 
 sions, and who must soon leave the world, look 
 with an eye of jealousy, if not of envy, on those 
 who are so soon to come into possession of 
 whatever they have gained themselves — who 
 will reap the reward which they would them- 
 selves gladly reap, and fill the offices which 
 they would even yet, though in advanced life, 
 secure for themselves : in one word, that they 
 give up the world reluctantly, and regard with 
 <"' U^ust and suspicion those who are preparing 
 
28 Life at Three-Score. 
 
 to succeed tliem; that they look on young men 
 rather as rivals than as vigorous allies, and 
 commit the great affairs of the church and the 
 world into their hands because they are com- 
 pelled to do so, rather than because they have 
 any confidence that in the hands of a succeed- 
 ing generation the work will be well done. 
 
 That there are such men I do not doubt. 
 That there are those who are envious, and 
 jealous, and selfish; that there are those who 
 are indisposed to sympathize with young men 
 in their efforts to get along in the world, who 
 treat them with neglect, and who do nothing 
 to aid them in their honourable exertions to 
 start well in life, and who see them struggle 
 along with difficulties without extending to 
 them a helping hand, I cannot deny. There 
 have been such men in every age; and it is 
 ^oossihle that any one entering on life may come 
 in contact with such men. 
 
 But I have not found the world so disposed 
 towards me; nor is this my experience in 
 respect to those who have borne the " burden 
 and heat of the dav," and who have toiled for 
 
Life at Three- Scc/i^e. 29 
 
 objects which they have regarded as valuable. 
 It was not my lot to find that the men who 
 were in possession of the honours of the world, 
 or who occupied positions of trust and respon- 
 sibility, were unwilling to leave them to other 
 hands; nor has it been my experience that 
 those who had gone before me were disposed to 
 throw obstacles in my way as I entered on life. 
 I early formed the opinion, which I still enter- 
 tain, that the world is favourably disposed 
 towards young men, and that all which they 
 who have filled the professions, and who have 
 occupied positions of trust and responsibility, 
 ask in regard to those who are to come after 
 them, is that they shall evince traits of charac- 
 ter which will make them worthy of confidence. 
 When that is done, they are willing to commit 
 all that for which they have toiled, and all 
 which they regard as of so much value, into 
 their hands. 
 
 I began life with no wealth, and with no 
 patronage from powerful friends. I was blessed 
 with virtuous and industrious parents, and 
 
 entered on my course with the advantage which 
 
 3«- 
 
30 Life at Tlirce-Swre. 
 
 was to be derived from their counsels and 
 example. I was dependent on my own efforts. 
 I claim no special credit for this, or sympathy 
 on account of it, for this is the way in which 
 most men begin the world. 
 
 I have always foujid the world kindly dis- 
 posed towards any exertion which I was dis- 
 posed to make to put myself forward in life. 
 I do not remember that I ever found a man in 
 my early years who was disposed to throw an 
 obstacle in my way, or who would not have 
 rejoiced in my success. My old pastor, my 
 teachers, my neighbours, I always found willing 
 to help me forward ; and what I found in them 
 I have found also in the strangers whom I 
 have met in the journey of life. When I en- 
 larged my acquaintance beyond the limits of 
 boyhood and youth, I did not encounter a cold 
 and unfriendly world, or find that the men 
 who had not before known me were disposed 
 to impede my progress, or to throw embarrass- 
 ments in my path. 
 
 I have never lacked friends; never failed to 
 find a friend when I had need of one. I know, 
 
Life at Three- Score. 31 
 
 indeed, what it is for a young man to weep 
 when he starts out alone to engage in the great 
 struggles of life; but I know, also, what it is to 
 have tears wiped away, and anxieties dispelled, 
 and clouds dispersed, and the heart cheered, as 
 a man meets with smiles, and good wishes, and 
 new-made friends, and as the voice of public 
 sentiment encourages him to go forward. 
 
 As an illustration of this, it may not be im- 
 proper to refer to my coming among you, and 
 to some of the incidents connected with my 
 ministry here. 
 
 I came here a young man, with but little 
 experience, with no personal acquaintance with 
 the manners and habits of a great city, and 
 with no such reputation as to make success 
 certain. I had never preached before the con- 
 gregation, when I was called to be its pastor. 
 I came at that early period of life, and with 
 that want of experience, to succeed the most 
 learned, able, and eloquent preacher in the 
 Presbyterian Church; a man occupying a posi- 
 tion in this community which no other man 
 occupied ; a man who had ministered here more 
 
32 Life at Three-Score. 
 
 than twenty years; a man whose opmions 
 secured a degree of respect which few men have 
 ever been able to secure ; a man beloved and 
 venerated by the congregation to which he had 
 so long ministered. I came to take charge of 
 one of the largest and most influential congre- 
 gations in the land. I came when I was fully 
 apprized that I must encounter from without 
 a most decided and formidable opposition to 
 the views which I had cherished, and to the 
 doctrines which I had expressed. 
 
 I found v[\y venerable predecessor already, 
 by anticipation, my friend. He defended my 
 views. He endorsed my opinions. He exerted 
 his great influence in the congregation in my 
 favour, commending me, in every way, by his 
 pen and his counsel, to the confidence and 
 affection of the people to whom he had so long 
 ministered. For six months, the time during 
 which he lived after I became the pastor of the 
 church, he was my friend, my counsellor, my 
 adviser, my example; he did all that could be 
 done by man to make my ministry here useful 
 and happy. 
 
Life at Three- Score. 33 
 
 I found a united people. During the six 
 years of conflict which followed — years which 
 are now so far in the past that they can be 
 remembered by only a small portion of the 
 congregation — notwithstanding all the efforts 
 made from without to crush a young man, and 
 to divide the congregation, it never swerved or 
 hesitated. None were drawn away; none 
 among us attempted to make a division. In 
 every new phase of the now almost forgotten 
 struggle before the Presbytery, the Synod, and 
 the church at large, the entire congregation 
 stood by me until the great result was reached 
 which gave us peace. 
 
 I found the church at large prepared to sus- 
 tain me. In the opposition which sprang up 
 around us, I committed the cause — submitting 
 for six painful months, for the sake of order, 
 and because I believed the constitution of the 
 church required it — to what I then regarded, 
 and still regard, as a most unrighteous decision, 
 to the judgment of the church at large. The 
 highest body known in our church — the General 
 Assembly — the ultimate resort in determining 
 
34 • Life at Three- Score. 
 
 the views of our church , reversed what had 
 been done in the inferior tribunals; gave its 
 sanction to the views of doctrine for which we 
 had struggled; and confirmed, by its high 
 authority, the principles which my predecessor 
 had maintained, and which I had endeavoured, 
 as well as I was able, to defend. I have seen 
 evidence in this, I think, certainly in my own 
 case, that the world is kindlj^ disposed towards 
 young men, and that in times of conflict and 
 struggle, when a man needs a friend, he will 
 find one. 
 
 And I have found, also, that the world is not 
 unwilling to listen to the truth; and, unless 
 my views greatly change in the little time that 
 remains to me of life, I shall leave it with the 
 firm conviction that truth may be made to 
 commend itself to men so as to secure the 
 assent of the understanding and the heart. I 
 know the natural opposition of the human 
 heart to the gospel, and I am not ignorant that 
 men, under the influence of sinful passions 
 and pursuits, turn away from that truth which 
 would lead them to God. But I have found 
 
Life at Three-Score. 35 
 
 in man that which, under God, may be relied 
 on in the attempt to convince the world of 
 truth. I have aimed, in my ministry — not 
 now a short one — to declare the whole counsel 
 of God. I have embraced the Trinitarian sys- 
 tem of religion, and the Calvinistic system, and 
 have not concealed the features of these sys- 
 tems from the world. I have endeavoured to 
 set forth the doctrines of human depravity, and 
 of the atonement, and of the necessity of re- 
 generation by the Holy Ghost. I have de- 
 fended the doctrine of decrees, of election, of 
 justification by faith, and of future retribution. 
 I have endeavoured to show to men that they 
 can be saved by no merit of their own, and 
 that their own works wall avail them nothing 
 in the matter of justification before God. I 
 have spoken, as I was able, against all forms 
 of vice, against all oppression and wrong, 
 against sinful amusements; I have spoken 
 freely of the theatre, and the gay assembly, 
 and of the influence of the world on the mem- 
 bers of the church. That I may have never 
 given ofience, is more than a man could havG 
 
36 Life at TJiree-Score. 
 
 a right to hope ; nor do I mean to say that I 
 have always carried the hearts of my hearers 
 with me. But I have never doubted that I 
 could carry with me in the cause of truth, if 
 properly presented, the understandings and the 
 consciences of my hearers ; nor do I now doubt 
 that the great doctrines of religion may be so 
 presented to mankind as to secure ultimately 
 a universal conviction of their truth, and so as 
 to bring all hearts under their control. I am 
 hopeful, therefore, as to the result of my obser- 
 vation and experience, in regard to the power 
 of the truth, and I expect to leave the world 
 with the full conviction that it may be, and 
 that it yet will be, so presented to the mind of 
 man as to secure a universal assent to its claims ; 
 so that all men shall receive it, and retain it, 
 with as much firmness as its comparatively few 
 friends do now. 
 
 In the THIRD place, I have seen the value of 
 temperance. I began life when the use of in- 
 toxicating drinks prevailed generally in our 
 country. I was never intemperate ; but I was 
 
Life at Three- Score. 37 
 
 exposed to the temptations to which those who 
 enter on life when such habits prevail, are ex- 
 posed, and I have seen many of the companions 
 of my early years sink to the grave as the 
 result of habits formed under those customs. 
 
 The great work of the temperance reforma- 
 tion, in this country, commenced about the 
 time that I entered on my ministry. I early 
 embraced, in the most rigid form, personally, 
 and with respect to my preaching, the great 
 principle of the temperance reformation — that 
 of entire abstinence from all intoxicating 
 beverages. I have preached, in former years, 
 much on the subject; perhaps, as some may 
 have thought, giving to it a disproportionate 
 importance ; and, personally, I have adhered 
 rigidly to the strict principles which I early 
 adopted. 
 
 I am now at a time of life favourable, I 
 think, for forming a candid opinion of the 
 principles which I have held^ and I have no 
 motive for any bias in regard to the matter. 
 After more than thirty years have passed away 
 in practising on those principles, and after 
 
38 Life at Three- Score. 
 
 having made so many efforts in my ministry to 
 persuade my fellow-men^ and especially the 
 young, to embrace them, I think I am in a 
 favourable situation for expressing an opinion 
 as to their correctness and value. 
 
 I naturally now look at the subject j^erson- 
 alhj^ and with reference to my iniblic ministry. 
 
 I have mentioned that I adopted the most 
 rigid views on the subject. I embraced the 
 principle of entire abstinence from all that c^jn 
 intoxicate. I have adhered to that principle. 
 For thirty years I have rigidly abstained from 
 even wine, except as prescribed by a physician, 
 and then most rarely. I have never kept it in 
 my family ; I have never provided it for my 
 friends ; I have declined it when it has been 
 placed before me, and when I have been present 
 where others, even clergymen, have indulged 
 in its use. I have never concealed my senti- 
 ments on the subject; and in thus abstaining, 
 in all the circles where I have been, whether 
 of religious men, or worldly men, at home, at 
 sea, abroad, I have seen only a marked respect 
 for my sentiments. However much I may 
 
Life at Three-Score. 39 
 
 have differed in practice from those with whom 
 I have been, I have never known one thing 
 done or said to give me pain, nor have I found 
 that men, whatever might be their own prac- 
 tice, have been any the less disposed to show 
 me respect on account of my views. I now 
 approve the course, and if I were to live my 
 life over again, I see nothing in this matter 
 which I would wish to change. I am per- 
 suaded that the principle has all the import- 
 ance which I have ever attached to it. I have 
 lost nothing by it; I have gained much. 
 
 I have lost nothing on the score of health ; 
 I have gained much. I have had a clearer 
 intellect than I should otherwise have had; I 
 have had more bodily vigour; I have had a 
 calmer mind, and I have had more cheerful 
 spirits. I have had more ability to labour, 
 and I have had a more uniform inclination to 
 labour. 
 
 I have lost nothing in public estimation. I 
 have no reason to believe that it has ever 
 occurred that any one has been inclined to 
 regard or treat me with less respect and confi- 
 
40 Life at Three- Score. 
 
 dence because of the principles which I have 
 cherished on this subject, and which I have 
 endeavoured to carry out in my daily life. No 
 one has, to my knowledge, ever questioned the 
 propriety of my course, in this respect ) no one 
 has ever suggested that it was inconsistent with 
 my profession as a Christian man, or with my 
 duty as a minister of the gospel. 
 
 I have lost nothing on the score of useful- 
 ness. In looking back now over my course, I 
 cannot believe that I should have been more 
 useful to any class of men by adopting a differ- 
 ent course ; I am certain that I should have 
 been less useful to many — that many to whom 
 I would be glad to be useful, would have been 
 pained if I had pursued a different course, and 
 would have made it an objection against the 
 gospel which I could not readily have met. 
 
 I have lost nothing on the score of happi- 
 ness. I am certain that I should have added 
 nothing to the real happiness of my life if I 
 had followed the usages which I found in so- 
 ciety in early life, or if I had comjDlied w^ith 
 the customs on this subject which formerly 
 
JJfe at Three-Score. 41 
 
 prevailed; and which, to some extent, still pre- 
 vail, among professing Christians and ministers 
 of the gospel. I do not see now — I cannot 
 see — that a different course, in this respect, 
 would have made me a more happy man. 
 
 And I cannot forget that by this course of 
 life, whatever may liaA^e occurred in other 
 respects, I have escaped dangers to which I 
 should have been exposed, and which might 
 have proved my ruin. I have not lived so 
 long upon the earth without seeing painful 
 evidence that no profession, not even the min- 
 istry of the gospel, of itself secures a man from 
 the dangers of intemperance; and I have seen 
 most sad and humiliating illustrations of the 
 effect of indulging in intoxicating drinks even 
 among ministers of the gospel ; and, whatever 
 else may have occurred in my life, it is a source 
 of grateful reflection to me now that I have 
 not fallen as they have done ; that I have been 
 permitted to feel the confident assurance that 
 as long as I adhered to this fixed purpose I 
 was absolutely certain that one of the direst 
 curses that can come upon men would never 
 
42 Life at Three-Score. 
 
 come upon me, that of disgracing my profes- 
 sion, and crushing the hearts of my friends, and 
 covering my own name with infamy, by intem- 
 perance. 
 
 I adhere now, therefore, most firmly to the 
 resolution which I adopted early in my life, 
 and I intend, by the grace of God, to maintain 
 it steadfastly till my death. I see no reason 
 for changing it now; I am certain that I shall 
 see no reason hereafter for doing it. I can 
 conceive of nothing that could be gained by 
 my departing from it; and I do not intend to 
 depart from it. My principles on this point 
 are well understood by all who know me, and 
 I intend that they shall always be thus under- 
 stood. I commend the same rule to others, 
 especially to those who are in the morning of 
 life, as a safe and a wise rule of life. It can 
 injure no one to abstain wholly from that 
 which is not needful for vigour of mind or 
 body; it would certainly save from that which 
 is at all times most dangerous, and w^iich may 
 be ruinous to the body and to the soul. It 
 would be much for any man to secure at the 
 
Life at Three- Score. 43 
 
 beginning of life, to be able to make it abso- 
 lutely certain that, whatever of calamity, trou- 
 ble, misfortune, or change might occur, one 
 thing was fixed, — that he would never die a 
 drunkard. The rule which I have adopted for 
 myself, and which I have acted on, would 
 make ilds absolutely certain in any case. 
 
 I look with equal satisfaction and approba- 
 tion over my public efforts in the cause of 
 temperance. It was my lot to begin my minis- 
 try in a region of country where the usual 
 customs on this subject prevailed, and where 
 alcoholic drinks were extensively manufactured 
 and sold. Within the limits of my pastoral 
 charge, embracing an extent not far from ten 
 miles in diameter, there were nineteen places 
 where the article was manufactured, and twenty 
 where it was sold. I considered it my duty 
 early to call the attention of my people to the 
 subject. I presented my views, in successive 
 discourses, plainly and earnestly. I appealed 
 to their reason, to their conscience, to their re- 
 ligion. I showed what I understood to be the 
 doctrine of the Bible on the subject, and I 
 
44 Life at Tlirce-Scoi^e. 
 
 stated the influence of the joractice on the hap- 
 piness of familieSj and on the peace, the order, 
 and the morals of the community, and its in- 
 fluence in producing pauperism, wretchedness, 
 crime, and death. The appeal was not in vain. 
 I found early in my ministry, even where 
 habits had been long established, where pro- 
 perty was involved, and where sacrifices would 
 be required on their part in adopting my views, 
 that men would listen to the voice of reason 
 and the voice of God. I had the happiness to 
 know that, in eighteen out of the twenty places 
 where intoxicating drinks were sold, the traffic 
 was soon abandoned ; and I saw, in seventeen 
 out of nineteen of those places where the poison 
 was manufactured, the fires go out to be re- 
 kindled no more. I had a proof thus early in 
 my ministry, which has been of great value to 
 me since, of the fact that truth may be pre- 
 sented to the minds of men so as to secure 
 their approbation even when great pecuniary 
 sacrifices must be made, and when it would 
 lead to important changes in the customs and 
 habits of society. 
 
Hfe at Tlivee-Score. 45 
 
 I have maintained publicly the same princi- 
 ples since. I have defended the cause of tem- 
 perance in every way in my power. I have 
 advocated the principle of total abstinence from 
 all that can intoxicate ; I have vindicated the 
 use of "the pledge;" I have argued against 
 those laws which contemplate the licensing of 
 that which is admitted to be an evil; I have 
 exhorted the church to set an example of total 
 abstinence; I have endeavoured to show that 
 the manufacture and sale of ardent s]3irits for 
 drinking-purposes can be reconciled neither 
 with the principles of sound morality nor reli- 
 gion ; I have defended the propriety of a law 
 which would wholly prohibit the sale of alco- 
 holic drinks except for purposes of medicine 
 and manufactures. I have endeavoured to 
 show you, that as you would not suffer a pow- 
 der-manufactory to be set up in Washington 
 Square; as you would not allow a cargo of 
 damaged hides to be landed at your wharves ; 
 as you would not permit a vessel from an in- 
 fected region to come into port, so the true and 
 the safe principle would be to exclude and pro- 
 
46 Life at Three- Score, 
 
 Libit forever that which spreads woe, poverty, 
 disease, crime, pollution, and death : — that a 
 community is bound to protect itself, and that 
 no class of men, for private gain, can have a 
 
 riaiit to scatter death and ruin around the 
 
 <^ 
 
 land. 
 
 The cause of temperance, as a cause, has met 
 with a Waterloo defeat. The advocates of the 
 use of intoxicating liquors have triumphed. 
 The barriers against intemperance have been 
 broken down. The temperance-societies have 
 been disbanded. The restraints on the manu- 
 facture and sale of that which poisons and ruins 
 have been withdrawn. The utmost liberty in 
 the manufacture and sale has been conceded 
 by the laws; and the voice of persuasion, of 
 entreaty, and of warning has almost died away. 
 The community has determined that there 
 shall be no restraint, and that all men may 
 manufacture, and sell, and drink as they 
 please. The floodgates are thrown wide open, 
 and the experiment is to be again made, on the 
 largest scale, to determine what will be the 
 effect of unlimited indulgence in intoxicating 
 
Life at Three- Score. 4:7 
 
 drinks. The community has expressed its 
 willingness to tax itself to support paupers, 
 ninety-nine out of every hundred of whom are 
 made paupers by the direct or indirect influence 
 of intoxication ; to pay the expenses of building 
 prisons, and conducting the business of courts, 
 and supporting convicts for burglary, arson, 
 brawls, and manslaughter, nine cases out of 
 every ten of which are produced by intemper- 
 ance, — to bear this enormous burden because 
 there is a* small portion of the community 
 which demands the privilege of supporting 
 itself by scattering wretchedness and crime 
 over the land ; by breaking the hearts of wives, 
 mothers, and sisters ; and by consigning hus- 
 bands, fathers, and sons to the wa^etched grave 
 of the drunkard. Meantime the press is silent. 
 The pulpit is dumb. The voice of w^arning 
 and entreaty has died away. A most fearful 
 experiment is made in the land; an experiment 
 whose result God alone can see. 
 
 I adhere now, and shall till I die, to the 
 principles on this subject which I have pub- 
 licly advocated, and I believe that they wall 
 
48 Life at Three- Score. 
 
 ultimately be found to be true principles, and 
 that the world will adopt them. I believe 
 that the manufacture and sale of ardent spirits 
 for the purpose of a beverage is an immoral 
 employment, and a ruinous waste of capital; 
 that the only safe and correct principle for an 
 individual, if he would promote his health, his 
 prosperity, his reputation, his usefulness here, 
 and his salvation in the world to come, is that 
 of total abstinence ; that the practice of licens- 
 ing an evil in any form and for any purposes — 
 of throwing the protection of the law, for a 
 miserable revenue, over that which spreads 
 woe, and poverty, and crime in the land — is as 
 erroneous in principle as it is pernicious in its 
 consequences ; and that the true principle in 
 the matter is that of entire prohibition of that 
 which is ^^evil, and only evil, and evil con- 
 tinually." I believe that a community would 
 be better and happier, more prosperous in 
 worldly matters, and more religious towards 
 God, where this should be done; and that in 
 doing this, no just principle in legislation 
 
Life at Three- Score. 49 
 
 would be violated. I expect to die holding 
 that opinion. 
 
 In the FOURTH place, I have seen the value 
 of industry ; and as I owe to this, under God, 
 whatever success I have obtained, it seems to 
 me not improper to speak of it here, and to 
 recommend the habit to those who are just 
 entering on life. 
 
 I had nothing else to depend on but this. 
 I had no capital when I began life ; I had no 
 powerful patronage to help me; I had no 
 natural endowments, as I believe that no man 
 has, that could supply the place of industry; 
 and it is not improper here to say that all that 
 I have been able to do in this world has been 
 the result of habits of industry which began 
 early in life ; which were commended to me by 
 the example of a venerated father; and which 
 have been, and are, an abiding source of enjoy- 
 ment. 
 
 And here — and it was with a view to this 
 in part that I have introduced this subject at 
 all — it seems to me to be proper to allude to 
 
50 Life at Threes Score, 
 
 what I have never before referred to in the 
 pulpit; — the use which I have made of the 
 press. It may have appeared strange that a 
 man with such a pastoral charge as I have had, 
 and under such responsibilities as have been 
 on me J — a salaried man, employed to do a spe- 
 cific work, and that not the work of book- 
 making, — should have felt himself at liberty to 
 devote so much time as I have done to an em- 
 ployment that seems to be so connected with a 
 private end, and so remote from the duties of 
 a pastor. I admit that the point is one which 
 demands some explanation, and though I have 
 never learned that any complaint has been 
 made in any quarter on the subject, yet it 
 seems proper that once for all — and no better 
 time to do it is likely to occur — I should state 
 w^hy it has been done. 
 
 Dr. Doddridge, in reference to his own work, 
 the " Paraphrase on the New Testament," — a 
 work which, in my judgment, better expresses 
 the true sense of the New Testament, and is a 
 more finished and elegant commentary on 
 that portion of the Bible than any other in 
 
Life at Three- Score. 61 
 
 the English language, — said that its being 
 written at all was owing to the difference 
 between rising at five and at seven o'clock in 
 the morning. A remark similar to this will 
 explain all that I have done. Whatever I 
 have accomplished in the way of commentary 
 on the Scriptures is to be traced to the fact of 
 rising at four in the morning, and to the time 
 thus secured which I thought might properly 
 be employed in a work not immediately con- 
 nected with my pastoral labours. That habit I 
 have pursued now for many years ; rather, as 
 far as my conscience advises me on the sub- 
 ject, because I loved the work itself, than 
 from any idea of gain or of reputation, or, 
 indeed, from any definite plan as to the work 
 itself. 
 
 And here, as my publications on the Scrip- 
 tures have had a circulation which I never 
 anticipated, and which I have always found 
 it difficult to account for, it may be proper to 
 state, in few words, the manner in which my 
 attention was first directed to it, and the prin- 
 ciples on which the work has been conducted. 
 
52 Life at Three-Score. 
 
 until a result has been reached which so as- 
 tonishes me, and which overwhelms me now 
 with the responsibility of what I have done. 
 
 My attention was first directed to the sub- 
 ject by what seemed to me to be a want in 
 Sabbath-schools^ the want of a plain and sim- 
 ple commentary on the Gospels, which could 
 be put into the hands of teachers, and which 
 would furnish an easy explanation of the 
 meaning of the sacred writers. I began the 
 work, and prepared brief notes on a portion 
 of the Gospel of Matthew, when I incidentally 
 learned that the Rev. James W. Alexander, 
 D.D., then of Trenton, now of New York, was 
 engaged in preparing a similar work. Not 
 deeming it desirable that two books of the 
 same kind should be prepared, I wrote to him 
 on the subject. He replied that he had been 
 employed by the American Sunday-School 
 Union to prepare such a work; that he had 
 made about the same amount of manuscript 
 preparation which I had done; that he re- 
 garded it as undesirable that two works of 
 the same character should be issued; that 
 
Life at Three-Score. 63 
 
 his health was delicate, and that he would 
 gladly relinquish the undertaking. He aban- 
 doned it, as I have always felt, with a gene- 
 rous spirit, manifesting at that early time of 
 life, alike in the act itself and in his letter to 
 me on the subject, the same high trait of cha- 
 racter as a Christian gentleman which has 
 always so eminently distinguished him. I 
 have prosecuted the work until a result has 
 been reached which I by no means contem- 
 plated at the outset. 
 
 All my commentaries on the Scriptures 
 have been written before nine o'clock in the 
 morning. At the very beginning, now more 
 than thirty years ago, I adopted a resolution 
 to stop writing on these Notes when the clock 
 struck nine. This resolution I have invaria- 
 bly adhered to, not unfrequently finishing my 
 morning task in the midst of a paragraph, and 
 sometimes even in the midst of a sentence. 
 
 In preparing so many books for the public, 
 while under obligation to perform the duties 
 of a pastor in a large congregation, seemingly 
 abstracting time for a private end which might 
 
54 Life at Three-Score, 
 
 have been devoted directly to my duties as a 
 Christian minister, I have justified my course 
 to my mind by two considerations : — 
 
 One was, that I thought that no one could rear 
 sonably complain, if I took that time for what 
 seemed to be a side-worJc before men usually 
 entered on the duties of the day, and that if 
 I devoted the time afte?' nine in the morning 
 to the work of preparation for the pulpit, and 
 to my pastoral labours, I should devote as much 
 each day to my professional duties as other 
 men ordinarily do to the callings of life ; and, 
 
 The other was, that I could in no way bet- 
 ter prepare myself for my public ministerial 
 labours, than by devoting a portion of each 
 morning to the careful study of the word of 
 God — the volume which it has been the duty 
 of my life to explain and defend. The best 
 method of studying any subject is by writing 
 on it ; and, apart from all idea of publication, 
 and even supposing that accumulated manu- 
 scripts were committed to the flames, I know 
 now of no way in which a minister of the 
 gospel could better prepare himself for his 
 
Life at Three- Score. 55 
 
 public ministrations, than by spending two 
 hours each morning in a careful and critical 
 study of the Bible. I know of no part of my 
 studies from which I have derived more real 
 aid in my public ministrations, than from the 
 habit thus early formed, and so long perse- 
 vered in, of beginning each day with the 
 study of the w^ord of God. At the same 
 time, it is not improper to refer here to the 
 happiness which I have found in these studies. 
 In the recollection now of the past portions 
 of my life, I refer to these morning hours — to 
 the stillness and quiet of my room in this 
 house of God when I have been permitted to 
 '^ prevent the dawning of the morning" in the 
 study of the Bible, Avhile the inhabitants of 
 this great city w^ere slumbering round about 
 me, and before the cares of the day and its 
 direct responsibilities came on me — to the 
 hours which I have thus spent in a close 
 contemplation of divine truth, endeavouring 
 to understand its import, to remove the diffi- 
 culties that might pertain to it, and to ascer- 
 tain its practical bearing on the Christian 
 
56 Life at Tliree-Score. 
 
 life, — I refer, I say, to these scenes as among 
 the happiest portions of my life. If I have 
 had any true communion with God in my life ; 
 if I have made any progress in Christian 
 piety; if I am, in any respect, a better man, 
 and a more confirmed Christian, than I Avas 
 when I entered the ministry ; if I have made 
 any progress in my preparation for that w^orld 
 on which I must, at no distant period, enter ; 
 and if I have been enabled to do you any 
 good in explaining to you the word of God, 
 it has been closely connected with those calm 
 and quiet scenes when I felt that I was alone 
 with God, and when my mind was thus 
 brought into close contact with those truths 
 which the Holy Ghost has inspired. I look 
 back to those periods of my life with gratitude 
 to God ; and I could not do a better thing in 
 reference to my younger brethren in the mi- 
 nistry, than to commend this habit to them as 
 one closely connected with their own personal 
 piety, and their usefulness in the world. 
 
 Manuscripts, when a man writes every day, 
 even though he w^rites but little, accumulate. 
 
Life at Three- Score. 57 
 
 Dr. Johnson was once asked how it was that 
 the Christian Fathers, and the men of other 
 times, could find leisure to fill so many folios 
 with the productions of their 23ens. " Nothing 
 is easier/' said he ; and he at once began a cal- 
 culation to show what would be the effect in 
 the ordinary term of a man's life if he wrote 
 only one octavo page in a day ; and the ques- 
 tion was solved. The result in thirty or forty 
 years would account for all that Jerome, or 
 Chrysostom, or Augustine, that Luther, Cal- 
 vin, or Baxter, have done. In this manner 
 manuscripts accumulated on my hands until I 
 have been surprised to find that by this slow 
 and steady process I have been enabled to 
 prepare eleven volumes of commentary on 
 the New Testament, and five on portions of 
 the Old Testament, and that the aggregate 
 number of volumes of commentary on the 
 New Testament which I have thus sent abroad, 
 is more than four hundred thousand in our 
 own country, and I suppose a larger number 
 abroad. 
 
 I cannot but feel now most deeply the re- 
 
58 Life at Three- Score, 
 
 sponsibility of the work which I have done, 
 and which is so foreign to any 2:>urpose or ex- 
 pectation of my early years. I cannot now 
 recall those books. I cannot control any im- 
 pression which they may make. It affects 
 me also deeply to reflect that the sentiments 
 in those books are most likely to come in 
 contact with minds through which they will 
 exert an influence when I am dead, — the 
 minds of the young. And yet I would not 
 recall them if I could. With all my con- 
 sciousness of their imperfection, and with my 
 firm expectation that some man will yet pre- 
 pare a commentary on the New Testament 
 far better fitted to accomplish the end which 
 I have sought than my own writings are, and 
 with the feeling that, at my time of life, I 
 cannot hope to revise them, and to make them 
 conformable to what I would desire them to 
 be, I still believe that they contain the sys- 
 tem of eternal truth ; that they defend what 
 is right ; that their influence will be to illus- 
 trate, in some measure, a great system of doc- 
 trines, which is closely connected with the 
 
Life at Three- Score. 59 
 
 salvation of men; and that, with all their 
 imperfections, they give utterance to just sen- 
 timents on the nature of true piety, and the 
 duties of practical religion. They will dis- 
 appear from the world as other books have 
 done, and as their author will, — alike forgotten. 
 Yet the truths which they are designed to 
 illustrate will live on to the end of time; 
 truths, I hope, to be better illustrated, and 
 more earnestly enforced, by those who are to 
 come after us. 
 
 I shall depart from the world, when my 
 allotted time comes, with an impression con- 
 stantly increasing, of the value of the press, 
 and especially of its value as an auxiliary in 
 spreading abroad the truths of the gospel of 
 Christ. Its importance as an aid in diffusing 
 truth is not yet fully known, and is not appre- 
 ciated as it should be, even by ministers of 
 religion. Without departing in any manner 
 from the proper work of the ministry ; with- 
 out leading them in any way to neglect the 
 preaching of the gospel, or their proper pas- 
 toral duties; and with no purpose on their 
 
60 Ufe at Three-Score. 
 
 part to make it a source of fame or emolu- 
 ment, it seems to me now that much may be 
 expected by the church at large from the 
 large body of educated men in the ministry, 
 who, by their training, their talents, and their 
 position, have so much power to influence the 
 minds of men through the press. 
 
 In the FIFTH place, I have seen the value of 
 religion, and have become more and more 
 convinced, as I have passed along on the jour- 
 ney of life, that the Bible is a revelation from 
 God. 
 
 T began life a skeptic in religion, and I early 
 fortified and poisoned my mind by reading all 
 the books to which I could find access, that 
 were adapted to foster and sustain my native 
 skepticism. Up to the age of nineteen, though 
 outwardly moral, and though, in the main, 
 respectful in my treatment of religion, I had 
 no belief in the Bible as a revelation from 
 God, nor was I willing to be convinced that 
 it is such a revelation. 
 
 Circumstances which need not now be ad- 
 
Life at Three- Score. 61 
 
 verted to, but which related rather to the 
 choice of a profession than to any question 
 about the truth of religion, led me to some 
 reflection on the general subject of the future, 
 and to the course which I should pursue in the 
 world. I should have shrunk at that time 
 from its being understood that I read the 
 Bible, and I should equally have avoided any 
 book that would be understood by my asso- 
 ciates to suggest the thought that I was a 
 serious inquirer in regard to my salvation. 
 Among them, however, I was not ashamed to 
 be seen reading a book which was in all our 
 hands, — the Edinhurgh Encyclopedia, then in 
 a course of publication. One of the numbers 
 of that work had an article by Dr. Chalmers, 
 entitled Christianity. I read it. The argu- 
 ment to me was new. It fi5:ed my attention. 
 It commanded my assent. It convinced me, 
 intellectually, of the divine origin of the Chris- 
 tian religion. At this day, that article seems 
 to me to be among the most able of the pro- 
 ductions of that great man, and to be the best 
 
62 Life at Three- Score. 
 
 defence of the truth of Christianity which has 
 been published. 
 
 But with this intellectual conviction I 
 paused. I formed a purpose on the subject 
 of religion which I then intended should regu- 
 late my future course in this world. It was 
 to lead henceforward a strictly moral life; to 
 say nothing against religion \ not to be found 
 on any occasion among its opposers ; but to 
 yield to its claims no farther. I resolved, to 
 express my purpose at that time in one word, 
 to frame my life, in this respect, on what I 
 understood to be the character and views of 
 Dr. Franklin. 
 
 A year afterwards, a revival of religion com- 
 menced in the college of which I was then a 
 member, and affected particularly the class 
 with which I was connected. I resolved to 
 carry out at this time, and in reference to 
 the existing religious movement, the resolution 
 which I had previously formed. I determined 
 to say nothing agahist the revival, but to stand 
 aloof from it, and in no respect to yield to its 
 influence. I supposed that I was sufficiently 
 
Life at Tltree-Score. 63 
 
 guarded in reference to this, and that no appeal 
 which could be made to me would affect me. 
 A classmate, recently converted, stated to me 
 in simple words, and with no appeal to me per- 
 sonally, his own feelings on the subject of reli- 
 gion, described the change which had occurred 
 in his mind, and left me. His words went to 
 my heart -, led me to reflect on my own condi- 
 tion, and were the means, under God, of that 
 great change which has so materially affected 
 all my plans in this life, and which I antici- 
 pate and hope will affect my condition forever. 
 I advert to this here, not only because it 
 was an important event in my own life, but 
 because it has taught me some great truths in 
 regard to religion. My own experience thus 
 referred to has shown me that conversion from 
 infidelity to Christianity, so as to secure an 
 intellectual assent to it as a system, is not 
 necessarily conversion to true religion ; that a 
 man may be convinced of the truth of the 
 Bible, and pause there, making no progress 
 ever afterwards ; that much more than such a 
 conviction is necessary to save the soul ; and 
 
64 Life at Three-Score. 
 
 that tliey who yield the understanding to God 
 and to his truth, and withhold the heart from 
 the claims of the gospel, as I had done, are not 
 safe in regard to another world. Had I paused 
 there, as I purposed to do, my whole course in 
 this world would have been different; my ever- 
 lasting condition in another world, I cannot 
 but believe, would have been essentially unlike 
 what I trust now that it will be. I have 
 always, therefore, looked with deep interest and 
 concern on that class of men, so numerous and 
 so respectable, who yield an intellectual assent 
 to the Christian religion, and who go no far- 
 ther ; who admit that the Bible is from God, 
 but who form a purpose, secret or avowed, that 
 it shall have no ascendency over the heart. 
 My own experience has taught me that their 
 feet stand on slippery rocks; and, urged by that 
 experience, and by the recollection of my own 
 danger, it has been one great aim of my minis- 
 try to lead that class of men to a better foun- 
 dation of hope. 
 
 This change in my views and feelings oc- 
 curred nearly forty years ago. It led to an 
 
Life at Three-Scare. 65 
 
 entire change in my plans of life, and in my 
 choice of a profession. The time of my con- 
 version to Christj if I was truly converted, and 
 of my change in my plans of life, was simulta- 
 neous. I had intended to enter the legal pro- 
 fession, and had looked forward to it with the 
 ardour of an ambitious mind, nor have I ever 
 ceased to feel a deep personal interest in it. 
 As I view the matter now, it would be to me 
 among the most attractive callings of life, and 
 would be next in my choice to the one in 
 which I have spent my days. But the ques- 
 tion, in my case, between the law and the 
 ministry, seemed to me to be one involving no 
 doubt and admitting of no hesitation. 
 
 I have never had occasion to regret the 
 change. To that change alike in regard to 
 my feelings, and to my purposes in life, I now 
 look back with more satisfaction than to any 
 other change which has occurred, or to any 
 other purpose which I have formed. If I were 
 to live my life over again, I should desire that 
 the same change should occur again, as most 
 closely identified with my happiness and my 
 
66 Life at Three^Score. 
 
 usefulness in this world, and with my hopes in 
 the future life. 
 
 I am now more firmly, and I trust more in- 
 telligently, impressed with the truth of Chris- 
 tianity, and with the belief that the Bible is 
 a revelation from God, than I was when that 
 change occurred. That I saw difficulties in the 
 scheme of Christianity, and in the Bible, then ; 
 that I have seen them since ; that I see them 
 now, I do not deny; nor do I expect to reach 
 a position in this world where objections could 
 not be suggested on the whole subject of reli- 
 gion which I should not be able to solve. But 
 I have spent more than thirty years in a close 
 study of the Sacred Scriptures, and no small 
 part of my inquiries has had reference to the 
 difficulties which were suggested to my mind 
 by my early skepticism, and to those which to 
 a mind naturally inclined to unbelief have been 
 suggested since. I do not mean to say that all 
 those difficulties have been removed. But I 
 have found that, on a close examination, not a 
 few of those which at first perplexed me have 
 silently disappeared ; that a large part of those 
 
Life at Three- Score. 67 
 
 which have been since suggested have vanished 
 also ; and that, in the mean time, the evidences 
 of the truth of the Bible have, in my appre- 
 hension, become stronger and stronger. Thus 
 a large part of the difficulties which once per- 
 plexed me have vanished entirely; a portion 
 of them have taken their place by the side of 
 undisputed facts actually existing in the world, 
 in reference to which there are the same diffi- 
 cult questions to be answered as in regard to 
 the difficulties in the Bible, and which do not 
 pertain, therefore, peculiarly to revelation, and 
 about which, as a believer in revelation, I give 
 myself no special perplexity or trouble. My 
 experience in the matter has led me to hope 
 and believe that a longer and more patient 
 study would in a similar manner remove all 
 the difficulties which I now see in the Christian 
 system, and make what now appears to be in- 
 consistent harmonious, and what is now dark 
 clear. I come, therefore, in this respect, with 
 the language of encouragement to those who 
 are now just entering on their Christian way, 
 and who find their minds poisoned by skep- 
 
68 L}fe at Three- ^core. 
 
 ticism, and their course impeded by difficulties. 
 Time, patience, study, reflection, prayer, sug- 
 gestions from within and from without, accom- 
 panied by the influences of the Divine Spirit, 
 will remove most of those difficulties, and will 
 leave at last only those which belong, not pe- 
 culiarly to the Bible, but to the mysterious 
 order of things around us; to those which lie 
 wholly beyond the reach of our present powers, 
 and which must be left for solution to an eter- 
 nal world. It should never be forgotten that 
 these great subjects are to engross our thoughts 
 forever, and that it was needful that the uni- 
 verse should be so made as to give eternal occu- 
 pation to the intellect and the heart. We are 
 in the very infancy of our being now, and it 
 would make the heaven before us a blank if 
 there were no subjects demanding our thoughts, 
 and fitted to give occupation to mind, which 
 we could not grasp and explain now. I have 
 never intended to turn away from any difficulty 
 w^hich has come in my path on the subject of 
 religion; I have never designed to evade an 
 objection, come from what quarter it might; I 
 
Life at Three-Score. 69 
 
 have never refused as a personal matter to 
 listen to any suggestion which would seem to 
 militate against the truth of religion, and to 
 examine it. I can have no object in being de- 
 ceived, or in deceiving others ; I have as much 
 personal interest as any other man can have in 
 the question whether Christianity is true or 
 false. I say now, therefore, that I am more 
 firmly and more intelligently convinced of the 
 truth of the Bible than I was at twenty-one 
 years of age; that the difficulties which I then 
 saw have been silently and gradually melting 
 away; and that I now perceive scarcely any 
 which I do not see existing with equal force 
 in the analogy of nature, or which are not such 
 as lie beyond the powers of man as yet de- 
 veloped, and which properly pertain to another 
 world. 
 
 The language of the late Professor Stuart, 
 of Andover, well describes my own experience 
 on this subject : — " In the early part of my 
 Biblical studies, some thirty to thirty-five 
 years ago," says he, " when I first began the 
 critical investigation of the Scriptures, doubts 
 
70 Ufe at Three-Score. 
 
 and difficulties started up on every side, like 
 the armed men whom Cadmus is fabled to 
 have raised up. Time, patience, continued 
 study, a better acquaintance with the original 
 scriptural languages, and the countries where 
 the sacred books were written, have scattered 
 to the winds nearly all those doubts. I meet, 
 indeed," says he, " with difficulties still, which 
 I cannot solve at once ; with some where even 
 repeated effiDrts have not solved them. But I 
 quiet myself by calling to mind that hosts of 
 other difficulties, once apparently to me as 
 formidable as these, have been removed, and 
 have disappeared from the circle of my trou- 
 bled vision. Why may I not hope, then, as 
 to the difficulties that remain ?"'^' 
 
 I now declare to you solemnly, in this public 
 manner, that I have no hope of the immor- 
 tality of the soul, or of future happiness, ex- 
 cept that which is found in the gospel of 
 Christ. I have seen no evidence — I now see 
 none — of the immortality of the soul as de- 
 rived from human reasoning which would be 
 
 * Canon of the Old Testament, p. 18. 
 
Life at TlireeScore. 71 
 
 satisfactory to my mind ; and my belief that 
 the soul will exist forever is founded on the 
 fact that " life and immortality are brought to 
 light through the gospel." The reasoning of 
 Plato on the subject, in the Phaedo, has done 
 nothing to convince me on that point; nor 
 have I met with any reasoning, apart from 
 the statements of the Bible, which would con- 
 vince me, or which would give support and 
 consolation to my anxious mind when I think 
 on this great subject. And, in the same man- 
 ner, I declare to you that I have no hope of 
 heaven except that which is derived from 
 what the Saviour has done for lost sinners, — a 
 hope founded solely on his atonement; his 
 merit ; his intercession. I can adopt now, as 
 expressing the whole of my belief and my 
 hope, the sentiment which my venerable pre- 
 ceptor, Dr. Alexander, is understood to have 
 expressed in his last moments, as constituting 
 the "whole of his theology :"—" This is a 
 faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, 
 that Christ Jesus came into the world to save 
 sinners;" and though I fear that in death I 
 
72 lAfe at Three-Score. 
 
 should be compelled, much more than he 
 needed to do, to mingle with this expression 
 of my faith the language which our great 
 statesman* is said to have uttered in his 
 dying moments, "Lord, I believe, help thou 
 mine unbelief," yet still this is my faith, and 
 this is my hope. I have no other. I desire 
 no other. 
 
 I have thus submitted to you what I wished 
 to express on an occasion that is to me of so 
 much interest. I could turn the table — I 
 could give you the obverse of this — I could 
 recount errors and short-comings and imper- 
 fections in my life, of which I am now deeply 
 conscious, and which will be to me a source of 
 regret to the end of my days ; but these do 
 not pertain to an occasion like this. They 
 belong to the "closet," — the place where a 
 man is alone with God, and where he seeks 
 for pardon through the blood of the atonement. 
 
 I enter now on what I must regard as the 
 last stage of my existence on earth. I have 
 
 * Daniel Webster. 
 
Life at Tltree'Score. 73 
 
 reached the summit of hfe. I cannot expect 
 or hope to rise higher. I have come to the 
 top of the hill, and I have found there, as 
 one sometimes does when he ascends a moun- 
 tain, a httle spot which seems to me to be 
 level ground — a small area of table-land — a 
 plateau — that spreads out a little distance 
 around me. If I am permitted to walk for a 
 few years on that plateau — that table-land — 
 that level spot — it is all that I can now hope 
 for. I can look for no greater degree of vigour 
 of body or of mind ; for no greater ability to 
 labour. That little spot of level ground which 
 I seem to have found on the summit, spreads 
 out before me with much that is inviting. I 
 cannot deny that I would, on many accounts, 
 love to linger there, and extend my walk 
 further than I can reasonably hope that I 
 shall be permitted to do. But I desire not to 
 forget that though this little spot seems to me 
 to be level, yet if I continue to walk over it 
 for a little time I must find it soon begin to 
 slope in the other direction, or that I may 
 soon come to a precipice down which I shall 
 
 7 
 
74 Life at Three-Score. 
 
 suddenly flill to rise no more. At all events, 
 I know that I shall — that I must — soon come 
 to a place where it will begin to descend ; nor 
 would I forget that the descent must be much 
 more steep than the rise has been, and that 
 the hill which has been of so easy a grade on 
 the one side may be on the other a most steep 
 declivity, or that from the top of the hill 
 which it has required so many years to climb, 
 the descent to the bottom may occur in a 
 moment. 
 
 Permit me to say that I am, at this period of 
 my life, hojyeful in regard to the world, to truth, 
 to religion, to liberty, to the advancement of 
 the race. The world is growing better; not 
 worse. It is better now than it was sixty years 
 ago; it is becoming better every year, every 
 month, every day. In its progress society 
 takes hold of all that is valuable, or that con- 
 stitutes real improvement, and will not let it 
 die. That which is worthless is superseded by 
 that which is useful ; that which is injurious 
 and wrong is drojDped by the way; that which 
 goes permanently into the good order of the 
 
Life at Three- Score. 75 
 
 world alone is retained. There is more love 
 of truth than there was sixty years ago; there 
 is more science ; there are more of the comforts 
 of life; there is more freedom; there is more 
 religion. There will be more in the next age 
 than there is now; and so on to the end of 
 time. Christianity never had so firm a hold 
 on the intelligent faith of mankind as it has 
 now. It will have a firmer hold on the next 
 age, and will extend its triumphs until the 
 world — the whole world — shall be converted 
 to the Saviour. Old men often feel that the 
 world is growing worse. I have not that feel- 
 ing now; by the grace of God, I shall never 
 have it. I intend to hold on to the conviction 
 which I now have at this mature period of my 
 life, that the world is becoming better; I design 
 to cherish this conviction when I die. I do 
 not despond or despair in regard to men ; to the 
 church; to my country; to the cause of hu- 
 manity; to the cause of freedom. I believe 
 that the whole world will be converted to truth 
 and righteousness; and if I should be spared to 
 that period when I should be willing to fill up 
 
76 Life at Three-Score. 
 
 that part of the text which I have omitted 
 now, and to speak of myself as ''old and gray- 
 lieaded,'' I intend that there shall be at least 
 one aged man who will take a cheerful and 
 hopeful view of the world as he leaves it. 
 Happy will he be who shall live in those times 
 that are coming upon the world, and who shall 
 see the full development of the things now 
 sj^ringing up on the earth which tend to the 
 recovery and redemption of the race ! It is 
 much to have lived sixty years in a period of 
 the world like that which is now past ; it will 
 be a much greater thing to live in those brighter 
 and happier years which are soon to follow. 
 With my views of heaven, I can indeed envy — 
 even if envy were ever proper — no one who is 
 to remain on the earth ; and yet there are scenes 
 to occur here below which one who cherishes 
 such views as I do, and who is about to leave 
 the world even with the hope of heaven, could 
 not but desire to witness. I would be glad if 
 these remarks might show you that as men 
 advance in life it is not necessary, though it is 
 so common, to feel that the world is becoming 
 
Life at Three^Score. 'J'J 
 
 worse ; and that a man who is soon to leave the 
 earth himself may take such a view of human 
 aftliirs as to enable him to utter a cheering 
 word to those who are entering on the struggles 
 of life, and show them that there is much for 
 the church to hope for, much to live and 
 labour for. 
 
 Finally. I am personally liopeftd in regard 
 to the future world. I cherish the hope that I 
 may reach heaven; and that, having been so 
 long a professor of religion, I may be "kept 
 from falling," and be preserved unto the eternal 
 kingdom of the Kedeemer. On this point, per- 
 taining so much to a man's private feelings, 
 and to his personal relations to God, it is not 
 proper that I should in a public manner say 
 more than this. But I know how a man ouijlit 
 to feel who has reached the sixtieth year of his 
 life ; I know how a Christian minister ought to 
 preach, — what such a man should live for; what 
 he should aim to do; what spirit he should be 
 of. I know how a man ouglit to live who feels 
 that he is rapidly approaching heaven — how 
 he ought to labour; to pray; to wait; to hope; 
 
78 Life at Three-Score. 
 
 to be patient; how he ought to be found at the 
 post of duty, and to gird himself for the last 
 conflict. I shall accomplish what I ought to 
 accomplish; shall live as I ought to live; shall 
 be faithful as a pastor as I ought to be faithful; 
 shall preach as I ought to preach ; and shall 
 die with the bright anticipations which a Chris- 
 tian man ought to possess, and which I most 
 earnestly desire maj' be mine when I die, very 
 much as I am sustained by your prayers. Is 
 it improper, then, to ask your 23rayers, that " 1 
 may finish my course with joy, and the minis- 
 try which I have received of the Lord Jesus, 
 to testify the gospel of the grace of God !" 
 
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 The Atonement, in its Relations to Law and 
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 By Rev. Albert Barnes. 1 vol. 12mo. Cloth, $1. 
 Contents :— Chapter I. Presumptive Objections to the Doctrine of 
 the Atonement. II. Difficulties on the Subject of Pardon. III. 
 Embarrassments in a Human Government from the Want of an 
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 Life at Three-Score. 
 
 A Sermon (Autobiographical) delivered in the First Presbyterian 
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