January Eighteenth.
HELL, THE STATE OF THE WICKED.
"The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God."—Psalm ix. 17.
WHO are the wicked? Strike out the word and in the motto and you have a correct answer—"all the nations that forget God." How serious, yet how profitable, is it for us sometimes to turn our thoughts even to that state of the wicked which in Scripture is called hell! The contemplation of this scene of woe—this place and state of those who forget God, will operate as a solemn caution to the humble Christian; for having his affections fixed upon God, whom he feels and perceives to be his Heavenly Father, and to whom he looks up every moment for a continuance of his being, as also for that sustenance both for soul and body, which gives charms to life and blessedness to existence, he cannot forget God, but on the contrary must always remember him as an all-merciful and omnipresent Benefactor, to whom is due the everlasting gratitude and praise both of angels and men. Those who forget God, close their eyes against the light of Divine Truth, and remove their hearts, their best affections, from that love of God which is the spring and source of all that is comprehended in the word Life.
When man removes himself by sin and iniquity from the love and wisdom of his Creator, he is then, in Scripture, said to forget God; and when God is forgotten, nothing in the mind is present or remem-
