heedless, base, and polluted must be the worshippers; and how senseless, gross, and brutal the worship. Such beings could never become the objects of rational views, elevated affections, or virtuous obedience. Nothing of a refined nature existed, or could exist, in the religion of the heathen. Their piety was a mere name; their morality, except where it was the result of a penal law, was, even at its highest elevation, a patriotism, exactly resembling the preference which an ox gives to his own pasture; a heroism employed only in butchery and plunder; a philosophy, pampering itself on the pride of talents, and evaporating in the utterance of paradoxes.

The views of these men never extended beyond the sensible horizon. A great part of them believed the soul to be material and mortal. Others conjectured, hoped, and dreamed, that it might survive the body; but it was only a conjecture, a hope, a dream. Beyond the dust of the tomb, and the ashes of the urn, they saw nothing remaining of man. They looked into the grave, and beheld it dark and cheerless; a prison with walls which permitted no escape; without a window to admit a solitary ray of light, or to give the eye a glimpse of the regions which lay beyond.

Concerning all these subjects the efforts of modern philosophy have been equally vain and useless. Hobbes taught that that which is not matter is nothing; Chubb, that God does not interpose in the affairs of this world at all; Hume, that there are no solid arguments to prove his existence, and no reason to believe that the universe proceeded from a cause; and Lord Bolingbroke, that God concerns not himself in the affairs of this world at all, and that it is more natural to believe many gods than one. Voltaire thought that God is finite; and Toland, that the world is God. A great part of these men believed the soul to be material and mortal. The morality which they have taught is of exactly the same general nature with that which was uttered by the ancients. But it has been taught with less sobriety, less sincerity, less conviction, and with an efficacy not a whit more desirable, either on their own minds or the minds of others.

Of the future world they knew and they have taught no more than their predecessors. The light of heaven has indeed shined into their darkness, but their darkness comprehended it not. After all their efforts, they have pronounced death to be an eternal sleep; and have quietly resigned themselves to the region of annihilation; that land of darkness, as darkness itself; where there is no order, and where the light is as darkness.

To feel the true import of this doctrine, go to the grave of a virtuous youth, a child of piety and hope, snatched from the embrace of parental tenderness, and address to the weeping parents, while they are committing the beloved remains to the dust, the consolations which it furnishes. Say to them, "Dry,

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my unhappy friends, dry up your tears. Lament no more. "Remember no more the fate of your beloved offspring. "Lovely and pleasant as he was in his life, you could not ex"pect him to escape the doom of all living. Death is the lot "of our race. Born of the dust, to the dust we return. Ori"ginated from nothing, we again travel back to nothing. Him, it is true, you will see no more. You yourselves, also, "will soon follow him to the same world of annihilation. How "fruitless, then, is your sorrow; and how unbecoming the "character of rational beings the sorrow which is thus fruit"less."

How would the heart of parental affection thrill with horror at the sound of this frosty consolation, at these earthborn sentiments, springing from the soul of an animal, and uttered with decency, only over the carcass of a dog. How would the eye of virtuous sorrow ultimately kindle with indignation, and brighten with the full assurance of evangelical hope? How would the voice of piety awake, and tremble with impassioned ardour and triumphant faith, while it replied, "Miserable "wretch! formed to the honour of an intelligent and immortal

being, but voluntarily become like the beasts which perish. "Can these sentiments have sprung up in a mind? these "doctrines dwell where reason dwells? these declarations pro"ceed from the mouth of a man? Can they have been ad"dressed to human beings? Can they, most of all, have "been addressed to parents, to parents mourning the death of

"a beloved child?

Can they have been pronounced over the "grave, and at the threshold of eternity? Away with these "benumbing, brutal consolations. Go utter them in the stall

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In

"or in the kennel, where only can be found a proper audience "to receive them. Know that the light of heaven has shined " even into the grave, and shown to desponding man a straight passage from this gloomy solitude to the world of glory. "Know, unhappy man, faith with an eye divinely enlighten❝ed, beholds in undeceiving vision this deceased child cleansed "from every stain of earth and sin, already a pure immortal 'spirit, acquitted, approved, and received to eternal joy. "the glorious mansions above we shall soon be reunited to "him, and find him wiser, better, more lovely, and more happy, than our minds have conceived or our wishes desir"ed. We shall be reunited to him, but we shall be separated The affection, wounded here, shall be healed beyond the grave. The hope cherished here shall there be "lost in enjoyments which flows for ever at the right hand of "God."

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no more.

Third, These observations forcibly urge you to be followers of God, as dear children.

It cannot, I trust it will not, be questioned by you, that to the glorious being who in all these things has acted the parent towards you, you are under the most delightful, as well the most absolute obligations to render every service in your

power.

To follow any being is, as you well know, a voluntary act. The duty here enjoined by the word includes both obedience and imitation,-kinds of conduct ultimately connected in their nature, and indispensable in practice. Be it, then, the first object of your remembrance, that God has formed you to become members of the divine family which I have described, and in all the endearing ways which I have mentioned, has provided you with the best means, and presented you the strongest motives for realizing this noble destination. He has taken you out of the mass even of your own countrymen; has led you from the outer to the inner court of his temple; brought you to the door of the holy place; and admitted you

to the foot of the mercy seat. There he has invited you to ask and to receive, to seek and to find. He has proffered to you the atonement of his Son, the sanctification of his Spirit, the forgiveness of your sins, an eternal union to his family, and an eternal interest in his unchangeable love. These are the richest blessings even in His gift; blessings greater than any tongue can express, or any mind but His conceive.

He has required you, by his commands, to assume the character of holiness, of evangelical virtue; and of this divine attribute has placed before your eyes, both in his word and in his providence, his own infinitely glorious example. This character, the supreme ornament of moral existence; the supreme beauty of mind; the only real loveliness, the only real excellence of an intelligent being, is itself the first of blessings, and the foundation of all other blessings. As its proper reward, he has annexed to it glory, honour, and immortality in the future world. Of him, who has done all these things, I beseech you to become followers as dear children.

To this end, you must not be merely decent, learned, polished, obliging, respected, and beloved in the present life. You must become holy; evangelical believers; evangelical penitents; followers of the Lamb, trusting in his righteousness for salvation, and consecrating yourselves humbly and faithfully to the service of God. The Bible must be the rule of all your conduct; the author and finisher of your faith your divine pattern; the glory of Jehovah your end, and heaven your final home.

The only employment of God is to do good. Let this be your only employment also. I urge you not to the vulgar, coarse beneficence of gross, worldly minds, employed supremely to display their wealth, flatter their pride, and pamper their desire of reputation. I urge you to the sound uprightness, the unwarping sincerity, the warm, ever active kindness of the Gospel; of a mind purified by the grace of God, following him as an affectionate child, esteeming it more blessed to give than to receive, and finding an exalted reward in the happiness of others, and a sublime enjoyment in making them happy.

The human soul was originally stamped with the image of God, a resemblance of the uncreated mind, inexpressibly beautiful and lovely, and illumined with the sunshine of hea

ven.

How melancholy, dark, and loathsome was the impression which succeeded it; the figure, Sin; the inscription beneath it, Death. Let it be your intense labour to efface, and your daily supplication that God would enable you to efface this impression of turpitude and deformity, and to resume that image of glory and beauty which you have lost,—a resemblance to your Maker, which will be known on earth, and acknowledged hereafter in heaven.

You are now going abroad into a world of danger and sin. Temptations will arrest you; wealth will invite, power will captivate, splendour will dazzle, and pleasure will enchant you. By enemies you will be assaulted, circumvented, and ensnared. Friends may endanger you still more by a pleasing, but seductive, correspondence, and by an alluring but mischievous example. You will be strongly solicited, both within and without, to settle down in a cold, heartless, self-deceiving decency of life; and will easily cheat yourselves into a belief, that this is religion. You will easily persuade yourselves, that God will regard you with mercy, because you are not so guilty as others; and will naturally believe, that the character, with which you are so well pleased, will not be displeasing to Him. Fly this precipice; at the foot of it lies perdition.

But while you resolve to be yourselves followers of God, as dear children, and to lay up, not dross, but gold seven times purified as your treasure in the heavens, resolve also to promote, as much as in you lies, the same happy character in your fellow-men. Their souls, like yours, are immortal, and of a price for which nothing can be weighed. In the cloudy sky, which at the present time envelops this unhappy world, there is one bright opening, through which the sunbeams play with inexpressible beauty. The eye of hope fastens upon this little spot of glory, and foresees with transport the speedy dispersion of the gloom, and the approaching arrival of a millennial day. Religion in many nations is cheerfully lifting up her head, and sees, with smiles of congratulation, her day of re