man enjoys, that of imploring the assistance of Heaven. Many are the promises which Scripture gives to earnest prayer; and much, we may all know, is the strength and consolation which it affords. It is then we best discover that we belong to a greater being; it is then that, escaping from the eye of the world which fascinates us, we feel ourselves in the presence of Him who inhabiteth eternity," and, removed from the voice of earthly passion, that we listen to the voice of "Him who "comes to seek, and suffers to save us." It is in such exercises that the religious mind finds all its rewards!-that, under the influence of the ever near, and assisting spirit, it throws off the stains and the impurities which it had acquired;-that it returns to the purity of all its original impressions ;-that higher sentiments awaken, and holier desires are felt; and that it goes back again into the world "not as "únto a continuing city," but with the lofty conviction, that it leads only "to one that "is to come."

3. Amid your necessary communion with the world, let me lastly recommend to you, my brethren, to accustom yourselves to regular communion with the faithful of your people, "in the temple of God." "Wherever

two or three are met together in my name, says the Saviour of the world, "there am I

"in the midst of them." It is a promise of which, I trust, every one of us have in some degree known the completion. Whenever a Christian congregation assembles,-whenever on the day dedicated to God, or upon those more solemn occasions which remind them of more special mercies, they come together, from all the various conditions of life, to hear the same precepts,-to kneel in the same faith, to receive the same consolations, and to look forward to the same hopes, it is a service in which no human soul can share, without being made wiser and better. For one solemn hour, the world is thrown behind them. The delusions of society cease, and the pulse of passion is still. In the wilderness of life, a resting place is afforded, where the traveller may take account of his progress; where the examples of all the wise and good around him, confirm him in the sentiments he feels, and the resolutions he adopts; where the song of thanksgiving renovates his feelings of piety, and the voice of prayer renews his purposes of obedience. From such a service, every Christian mind returns purified and strengthened; conscious, indeed, of its errours, but conscious of them for amendment; and fitted with that armour, which may enable it to overcome both the dangers and the temptations of the world on which it is to re-enter.

Suffer me to add, my brethren, only one farther reflection. While the season is opening which justifies the preparation I have suggested to you; while the scenes of business and of pleasure in this city are commencing, let me remind you, that there are scenes of another kind which at this time also are commencing;-that, while you are sharing in all the bounties of nature, there are many, alas! who are to know want and poverty; and that, if, among your assemblies, "the voice of joy and glad"ness" is to be heard, there are other scenes surrounding you, where no other voice will be heard than that of "mourning "and sorrow." In the beginning of such a season, it becomes us to accommodate the temper of our minds to the real condition of human life; to restrain the hand of profusion, that it may become the hand of charity; to begin that heroick economy which may be profuse at last in beneficence; and to be ready to surrender even the most innocent of our pleasures, whenever they interfere with the wants or with the claims of the wretched. It becomes us still more, my brethren, who are preparing ourselves to celebrate the nativity of Him who descended from heaven to save us,-to fashion the dispositions of our minds "that they may be like unto him,"-to prepare our

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selves, in our humbler spheres, to be also "saviours one to another,"-and to remember, that, in the decisive hour of nature, they only can plead for mercy, who, in the hours of trial, have shewn mercy to their brethren.

SERMON XIV.

UPON THE IMPORTANCE OF RELIGIOUS EXAMPLE*

ECCLESIASTES xii. 1.

"Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth; "while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, "when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them."

THE year opened upon us with scenes of disorder and of guilt very different from the usual character of this country.--A few weeks only have passed, my brethren, and we have seen the awful end of these

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things." Of the unhappy actors in these scenes of guilt, some have left the land which they had dishonoured, to seek, amid fields of danger, the reputation they had lost; some have been exiled to distant shores, to know no more the affections of kindred and of home, and to weep, amid ignominy and bondage, the loss of that liberty which they had abused. Three,-(three,

* This Sermon was preached on the Sunday after the inelancholy and unexampled occurrence of the execution of three young men, (all of them under the age of twenty,) for robbery and murder, on the night of the first of January, 1812.