God are absorbed in his regard to utility, we should still utterly deny, that creatures with powers so limited, and understanding so darkened as ours, would be able from this principle, to infer their duty, or deduce any thing resembling a correct series of moral actions. "Even men of the soundest and most penetrating understanding," says an elegant metaphysician, "might frequently be led to the perpetration of enormities, if they had no other light to guide them, but what they derived from their own uncertain anticipations of futurity. And when we consider how small the number of such men is, in comparison of those, whose judgments are perverted by the prejudices of education, or their own selfish passions, it is easy to see what a scene of anarchy the world would become." There is, indeed, something palpably absurd in the very thought of our being called upon, many times perhaps in the course of a single day, to decide upon the interests of the universe ;-to determine whether it will be most conducive to the happiness of all orders of beings, who now exist, or may exist hereafter, that we should observe our promises or violate them,— that we should indulge our passions or restrain them. Our Creator has not placed us under the necessity of entering into such hopeless calculations. He has rendered us capable of perceiving that fraud, cruelty, oppression, and impiety, are essentially wrong; and that the opposite qualities are, independently of consequences, entitled to the approbation and eager pursuit of all rational beings. We are not, as has been believed by most pagans, whether ancient or modern, scintillations, struck off from the mass of Infinite Intelligence, hereafter to be reabsorbed, and thus to lose our individual existence. We exist as individuals. And though we sustain, indeed, the most important relation to other beings, virtue and vice, reward and punishment, must still be personal. We can never be identified with the universe, as the falling drops of rain are absorbed in the ocean. The great principles of rectitude, so deeply inscribed on the human understanding, so universally acknowledged to be just, however practically disregarded, these great principles I would represent to you as the massy pillars, on which is supported that moral government, to which all intelligent beings owe subjection. "This law," it has been observed, " is not the creature of will, but necessary and immutable; not local or temporary, but of equal extent and antiquity with the divine mind; not dependent on power, but the guide of all power." It is, indeed, that same law, which Jesus Christ came into the world "to magnify and to make honorable." - The worth, young gentlemen, not only of your characters but of your existence, depends on your attention to this law. No possible reverses of condition, no transitions, whether in the present, or any future state, can render you dishonorable, if you are sincerely attached to it. Nor, while negligent of it, can present affluence, or success, or popularity make you truly respectable, nor long esteemed so. By loving and regarding this, will be formed that virtue of character, which will endure through height and depth. Not like those sickly plants, which can flourish only, while there is nothing to annoy them, it resembles the oak, which braves the tempest on the mountain's top. Permit me, on this occasion, to impress on your minds, the universality of this law. It is binding on a man because he occupies a conspicuous place in society,—not because he has chosen one profession rather than another, nor because he has lived in the world sixty years rather than sixteen; it is binding upon him because he is a rational being. It is binding on you, because you are such. Neither can any change in your circumstances exempt you from its obligations. It consents to no compromise. It yields nothing to the selfishness or the passions of men. Do not imagine, therefore, that in consequence of forming new connexions, or of meeting new occurrences, the rules of virtue will be either annihilated or altered.. Whatever may be the opinion of others, do not readily acknowledge that as innocent, which you have been in the habit of contemplating, as base or vicious. It will now be in your power to make more apparent than heretofore, the side which you take in the great conflict between virtue and vice-between regularity and misrule; and you will, I confidently hope, use whatever influence you may acquire, not only to suppress the grosser vices, but to honor and support religious institutions, and to render effectual every ordinance of man, which has for its object to give permanence, ornament, and perfection to the social state. That you may be stimulated to attach yourselves to the side of order, good morals, and piety, contemplate the nature of vice. "It is," says an author already referred to, "the only real object of censure and blame, and the source of all evils. Other evils, such as diseases, poverty, losses, and calumny, affect only what is external; but they need not disturb our minds, or do the least injury to what is truly ourselves. But vice pierces, and wounds, and lays waste ourselves. It hurts not merely the body, the reputation, or the fortune, but the man; and plants anguish, uproar, and death in the soul itself. Other evils may, in the end, prove benefits to us, but this is eternally, and unchangeably evil; the bane of every heart, into which it enters; the ruin of all, who do not in time rescue themselves from its dominion; and the sting and misery in whatever else afflicts us. "It is impossible to conceive what it is to set up our own wills against reason and the divine will-to violate the order of the world, and depart from that law which governs all things, and by which the Deity acts. There is no object in nature so monstrous, as a reasonable being defiled with guilt, living in contradiction to the remonstrances of his understanding, trampling on the authority of God, and opposing himself to the obligations of truth and righteousness." To repress this disorder, to reclaim the guilty wanderings of men, to reconcile them to the principles of eternal justice, and to unite in one vast community all virtuous beings, whether of human or angelic nature, is the great object of the Christian religion: It hath pleased the Father, that in Christ all fulness should dwell, and by him to reconcile all things unto himself, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. Unite your interests to those of this honorable and vast fraternity. Unless you possess the spirit of Christianity, that principle of moral life, by which this community is animated, you are this day, going unshielded into a world which is unfriendly to virtue. Without the spirit of Christianity, you are now embarking on the ocean of life, without a line, or chart, or compass—an ocean where you are liable to be allured by Sirens, or agitated by boisterous winds. But possessing this, you shall pass in safety the enchanted shores, and survive every storm, cheered and directed by the star of Bethlehem. Of the class, which, three years ago, I addressed, on an occasion similar to the present, part of whom participate the honors and exercises of this day, two,* alas, will return no more. The fresh earth on their graves has now been moistened by the tears of friendship. Nothing remains for me, but to suggest to you that rational and pious use, to which events of this nature ought to be improved. Let me not be accused of throwing a gloom on the cheerful aspect of this day, by reminding you that you are mortal. This is forced upon your recollection, less by any remarks of mine, than be the Providence of God, and by the anniversary itself. We wish you, indeed, if such be your Creator's good pleasure, many years of joyous prosperity. But even one is more than we can promise you; so is a month, when we reflect, that of those who immediately preceded you, onet almost literally descended from this stage to the grave! Whatever claims religion has upon you, they are imperious, and demand to be immediately satisfied. "To man's false optics, (from his folly, false,) * George Freeman and William Pilsbury. ADDRESS, DELIVERED AT THE COMMENCEMENT IN 1816. Young Gentlemen, In these remarks, which are doubtless the last in which it will ever be in my power to address you, I should hardly be excused, were my object any other, than your improvement, either moral or intellectual. Human powers are given first to be cultivated, and then to be used for the great purpose of individual and public happiness.. In pursuing the former of these objects, you have already made some advancement; while the latter has scarcely yet been presented to you in its full dimensions. In regard to both, it is important to possess a knowledge of the human mind an acquaintance with intellectual philosophy. To operate successfully on matter, the qualities of matter must be known. For a similar reason, if we are endeavoring to strengthen, polish, and direct the mind, in relation either to ourselves or others, it is necessary to be acquainted with its nature and powers, and with the manner in which application is to be made to it, in order to effect the change or improvement desired. No man studies, or adopts a course of intellectual discipline with so much certainty of advantage, as he who knows most of mind in general, and the particular structure of his own. But my object, at present, is not so much to illustrate and enforce this idea, as to show the value of intellectual philosophy to persons in public life. By public life, I mean the condition |