But if the case of such as were last spoken of is affecting, what shall be said of those aged persons whom it still remains for us to describe?  Some there are—­but, alas, it is to be feared, that it is the case of very few—­who even at seventy, or more than seventy years old, repent, and become the servants of Christ When scarcely an hour of life remains, when the evening is closing in, and the “night cometh in which no man can work,” then it pleases God to send his grace possibly to a few of these also, and they go for the short hour that remains into the same vineyard of Christ.

How mournful is the view which we have now to take of such an aged sinner’s condition.  Here is a person, the whole term of whose earthly existence, one poor uncertain hour excepted, has been spent in a sinful course.  How plain is it in his case, that there can be no such thing as merit, and that if ever he is saved, it must be through the mere mercy of God—­a doctrine, indeed, which is equally true in the case of all.  Let us run over the woful tale of his wicked life, and as before we thought fit to describe an eminent and distinguished Christian, so now, by way of making the difference more particularly striking, let us draw the picture of one who, though no thief or murderer, and therefore not accounted one of the most abandoned of mankind, yet is lying under a load of much more than ordinary guilt.  Those persons who feel themselves guilty of any part of the crimes we shall enumerate, should take their share of the reproof, and if they have not repented, so as to enter into the vineyard of Christ, they should remember, that though they may be criminals of a smaller size, yet they are still remaining under condemnation.

To a perverse and disobedient childhood has succeeded, as we will suppose, a wild and vicious youth, and then a proud and ambitious manhood, and after this a fretful or covetous old age.  In the course of his long life many temptations have broken in upon him, and by turns he has yielded to them all.  Many different situations have been filled by him, and in each, as he now sees, he has either neglected or betrayed his trust.  He has been a negligent and bad father, an unreasonable, nay, secretly an unfaithful husband, a careless inattentive brother, a hollow, flattering, and designing friend; perhaps, also, a mean time-serving politician, and even a mischievous common acquaintance.  Do you ask what has been the turn of his common conversation?  Instead of being pious, useful, benevolent, candid, and sincere, it has at one time been proud and passionate, at another vain and flourishing, at another slanderous and revengeful; now again, it has been selfish, crafty, and dissembling, often also daringly impious and profane, and not seldom exceedingly polluting and impure.  Do you ask what have been the sinful deeds he has done?  O what a dreadful variety has there been in them!  At one time he has been trying to overreach his fellow-trader;