dreadful loss of property and life by a lawless mob, by conflagration, or by shipwrecks, and many hearts are bleeding this day over the memory of the ill-fated Arctic. Ours is the attitude of a favored people who forget God, and whom God seems endeavoring to scourge into submission and obedience.

And abroad we hear the battle of the warrior with confused. noise. We see the Danube, and the Alma, and the waves of Crimea's coast crimsoned with human slaughter. The artillery of the Allied Powers thunders around Sebastopol, and is answered from the forts of the Russians. And every volley is a death-knell. Sebastopol is reeking with blood. Russia, and France, and England, all are calling for more men to be sacrificed on that field of the dead. In Russia and Turkey, in France and England, sisters, and mothers, and wives, look anxiously over the lists of the wounded and killed. In these countries many a habitation is clothed in sackcloth.

Hungary, and Italy, and Poland, groan and heave under their oppressions. There is embarrassment and bewilderment in the cabinets of Austria and Prussia. Religious persecution closes the place of worship. Disciples of Jesus pine away in imprisonment. Souls under the altar cry, "O God, how long?" There is distress of nations with perplexity, and a fearful looking for of the things which are coming upon the earth.

We propose now to specify certain further considerations which limit and modify the rejoicing of a thoughtful Christian

mind.

And such a consideration is the fact that the world generally continues in apostasy from God. The Gospel has long been revealed to our race, but multitudes have never yet heard its cheering sound. Among those to whom the Gospel has been published and among whom the influences of grace have been enjoyed, many, oh! how many, are rejecting its provisions and persisting in the way of ruin. We are aware that this is a Christian view, one which makes little impression upon the worldly. We can imagine the man of mere sense, the man destitute of faith, careless about the soul and eternity, to ask the Christian the cause of his sadness. He responds, in grief, that the world is not evangelized, that the Redeemer's love is despised and His salvation neglected. We can see the sneer which settles upon the countenance of the worldling. "Is that all?" It is enough it is enough to make the heart of a believer sad; for he credits what the Eternal hath spoken, that all who do not repent must perish; that those who neglect the great salvation, the terms of amnesty and reconciliation offered by the King of kings, must bewail it forever. The inhabitants of a rebellious

province are wont to fear the wrath of even an earthly monarch. Their fellow-men too are wont to be anxious for them. Shall there be no solicitude then in a world which has revolted from the Great Supreme? He who has any conception what it is for a race to throw off subjection to their Maker, to introduce disorder into the harmony of worlds and the movements of eternity-he who considers what it is to be exposed to the displeasure of the Almighty, to die in sin and in a controversy with Jehovah, feels that our world is in a deplorable state, and that crowds untold are hourly passing away to a wretched destiny. The map of the world presents a melancholy aspect to the Christian. How large a portion of the earth is shrouded with the dark pall of Heathenism! How large a part overspread with the errors of Mohammedanism! How large a part given over to the superstitions of the man of sin! Where nominal Christianity exists, how extensively and how grievously has it been corrupted! How few the missionary stations, compared with the destitution, and how few the laborers-only as a star twinkling here and there while the face of the heavens is almost wholly overcast! And in Christian lands, where the pure Gospel is proclaimed, few are turning to the Lord and seeking the salvation of their souls. With how little devotion and efficiency is the church operating, compared with the resources at its command! Surely, here is matter for lamentation and alarm; the unfaithfulness of God's people, together with the fact that the offer of salvation is generally refused, the Holy Spirit resisted, and souls innumerable are pressing down to eternal death.

Again, it is a reason for apprehension that the laws of God are so openly and shamefully violated. We refer now to overt acts, flagrant outrages upon the divine law. We refer to vice abounding in various forms and degrees. God commands man to love his neighbor as himself. In opposition to this command he makes war upon his neighbor, invades his rights, oppresses him, enslaves him, and makes him his drudge. He strips his brother of the prerogatives of manhood, and regards him as a piece of property, a thing to be bought and sold, a profitable live machine. Intemperance yet stalks abroad over the land, glutting itself with the wrecks of body and soul, at war with all the commands of God, as well as with the duty and interests of men. Numerous are the houses where vice is made a trade and a business, and innumerable are the victims of the traffic. God's command is express that the Sabbath be remembered and observed as holy. Yet in how many parts of Christendom is this day made a festival of indolence, and parade, and pleasure,

and gayety! In how many places of merchandise and exchange is the hum of business as loud as ever! How many of our rivers are on this hallowed day furrowed by the keel of the steamboat and trading vessel! Ålong how many of our inland thoroughfares is the sabbath's stillness broken by the rattling of the stage-coach or the scream of the steam-whistle! A little obser vation of such trampling upon divine laws forces from us the question, Have these men no fear of God before their eyes?

Turning away from these forms of ungodliness, from vicious indulgence, inhuman wrong, forbidden enterprises, we look at our halls of legislation and our tribunals of justice. In framing laws, seldom is a statute advocated or enacted because it is thought to accord with the will of God. Seldom is a measure opposed and rejected because it would be an offence in the sight of heaven. Far from uncommon is it to frame iniquity by a law, to perpetrate an outrage upon the divine will and human rights to subserve some temporizing views of expediency, or some selfish sectional interest. Yea, in our high places it has even been denied that the law of God is paramount authority to political constitutions, and that there is any law above the law of social compact.

In the administration of law likewise, how little regard is there for truth, justice and equity! How often are legal tribunals awed and swayed by consideratious of wealth, influence and power-by motives of policy and self-interest! How few there are that honestly devote themselves to the cause of the poor and the innocent, of the oppressed, and him that hath no helper! How many that hold their consciences at a price, and sell themselves to pervert righteousness and truth! One who believes there is a God that judgeth in the earth, and who observes the outrages practiced upon justice and right in the name of law, is constrained to ask, will not the Judge of all the earth visit for iniquity like this?

Furthermore, we have occasion to fear the spread of insubordination, of disregard for human laws and the ordinances of human government. It is absolutely essential to the welfare of any people, that their laws be respected. When, therefore, any law is enacted which fails to commend itself to the public conscience and to command the public respect, there is occasion to fear the inroad of disorder and trouble. There is reason to expect that a law, condemned by the public reason and conscience, will be disregarded. And when, contempt and opposition are felt towards a single law, or towards the law-making power,when it is supposed that any regular enactment may be resisted, then there is danger that government will cease to be

deemed a sacred thing, and that order will cease to be the stability of the times. If one may pronounce upon the validity and obligation of a law, another may. While the good man abhors the iniquitous law, the bad man will abhor the righteous law which restrains himself. The great principle that we are to obey God rather than man, where divine and human law plainly comes into conflict, is never, for a moment, to be surrendered. But here is a principle which is liable to abuse and is to be applied with caution. The tendency to insubordination, to fret against the restraint of law, to think lightly of the authority of government, to decry all penalties-the tendency to licentiousness, increased by the immigrant multitudes who flock hither to what they call a land of liberty, meaning a land of no law and no restraint-this tendency is exposing us to imminent peril.

It is to be considered, moreover, that God has punished other nations. He is patient. Men are allowed to go great lengths in wickedness, but at last the measure of their iniquity is full, the reckoning comes, and the vials of wrath are poured upon them. Thus it was with the Canaanites, with Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome, and even with chosen Israel. Such will be the history of all the nations that forget God. They say of the Almighty, "who is the Lord that we should fear him? Let us break his bands asunder and cast his cords from us." "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh, he shall have them in derision. He knoweth that their day is coming."

In like manner God may punish us. It would be infinitely easy to him. Let him simply withdraw, leaving us to the devices of the natural heart, let him cease to restrain, let him cease to pour out his spirit upon us, let him cease to uphold the means of grace, let him bereave our land of his church, and every thing fair and precious would go to speedy ruin. No doubt of it. Our constitution, our patriotism, our commerce, our army, our navy, our schools, none of them would save us. For one simple reason; the heart of man is desperately wicked. It is selfish and it will be cruel to promote selfish ends. Our country, if abandoned of God to the workings of the nat ural heart, would soon be, what every ungodly nation has been, a land of darkness, full of the habitations of cruelty, a land of degradation, of moral and social ruin.

How easy too for the Almighty to give the pestilence a charge to consume us; how easy to sweep us off with the besom of destruction! Remember the ante-diluvian world and the cities of the plain. Remember how paleness gathers upon all faces, when the Cholera or Malignant Fever commences its deadly march and strews its path with the slain.

How easy for the Almighty to bring upon us the invading army. God might use some foreign nation as his battle-axe and weapon of war, and before the breath of the Omnipotent our vaunted forts, and fleets, and armies, would disappear like the hosts of Sennacherib.

How easy for the Almighty to use the vast influx of foreigners who are crowding upon us, as elements of discord and commotion, and mischief!

How easy for him to permit the factions and feuds already existing among our own people, to rankle and grow, till our union of states is dissolved, till different sections of our country are arrayed for civil war, and at last dashed in pieces one against another, like a potter's vessel!

We do not believe such a doom awaits us. But we should expect it speedily, were the Lord to cease watching over us for good. We have within ourselves abundant elements for our destruction; just as our globe has pent up within itself the fires and forces adequate for its own dissolution. There is no power but God, and no influence but religion, which can govern these moral and social elements and keep them from rushing together in ruinous collision. We have then abundant reason for gratitude that God has in our land thus far caused the wrath of man to praise him, and upon the remainder laid the hand of restraint.

We have cause for gratitude and joy, notwithstanding these qualifying considerations which have been adduced. It becomes us to rejoice that peace prevails throughout our borders, that we and our sons are not called away to serve on the field of battle, that war has not exhausted our resources and paralyzed our commerce, and loaded us with a national debt and oppressed us with taxes. Our increase in population and wealth is without a parallel. Industry in our land is well rewarded. Moral light is extensively enjoyed. We are at liberty to train our children in the fear of God and the knowledge of his word, and to give them the blessings of education. If we had resided with our families a little season in such a country as Spain, or Austria, or Tuscany, we should prize more highly than we do the institutions, political, social, moral, and educational, under which we live these common but inestimably precious advantages with which we are favored.

We should rejoice that the means of intelligence and the excellence of these means are increasing. Common schools, academies, colleges, seminaries-the various institutions of learning are multiplying, and countless minds are employed on the question how greater efficiency and success may be se