Nor will you be less useful to your Country. Rational Freedom cannot be preserved without the aid of Christianity. Not a proof is found in the experience, not a probability is presented to the judgment, of man, that Infidelity can support a free, and at the same time an efficient government. In this country, the freest, and the happiest, which the world has hitherto seen, the whole system of policy originated, has continued, and stands, on the single basis of Christianity. Good subjects have been formed here by forming good men; and none but good subjects can long be governed by persuasion. The learning, peace, mild intercourse, and universally happy state of society, enjoyed here, all own the same origin. Would you preserve these blessings during your own lives, would you hand them down to posterity, increasing multitudes of those who are not Christians, and all those who are, with one voice tell you, "Embrace Christianity."

It is by no means my intention, or my wish, to flatter you with hopes of unmingled happiness on this side of the grave. This world has ever been and still is, a vale of tears. Want, pain, sorrow, disease, and death, are constant tenants of this unhappy soil, and frequent inmates of every human dwelling. To aid the sufferer, to sustain, and to vanquish, these unfriendly visitors, Christianity furnishes the peace, the patience, and the fortitude of virtue, the consciousness of forgiven sin, and Infinite complacency, and the supporting hope of endless and evergrowing sanctity, happiness, and glory. In every throbbing bosom she sings, "This light affliction, which is but for a moment, is not worthy to be compared with the glory, that shall be revealed hereafter." The song is the song of Angels; the voice is the voice of God.

All these alleviations are, at a stroke, swept away by the besom of Philosophy. Like a rude, unfeeling nurse, she approaches the bed of pain and sickness, and tells the groaning sufferer, that he is indeed miserable; and that he may quietly resolve to bear his calamities, for they are irremediable and hopeless. To the despairing victims of want, infamy, and oppression, she extends her hand, empty of comfort, and passes by on the other side. The Parent, overwhelmed by woe for the loss of his only son, she coolly informs, that his tears and his sighs are useless, for his favourite has ceased from the light of the living, and vanished forever. To the failing eye of the poor, desponding, and expiring wretch she holds out her dark lantern, and as the only consolation which she can give, shows him the sullen region of annihilation, destined to receive and wrap him in eternal and oblivious night.

You, with the rest of men, must suffer woe. Poverty may betide, shame may arrest, pain may agonize, sorrow may sink, disease may waste, and death will befal you. In all these evils you will seek for consolation, support, and hope. From Philosophy you will find none. On that solemn day, which is fast approaching, when you will be extended upon the bed of death, when the physician has bidden you adieu, and your friends are watching for the parting gasp, your souls will cling to existence, will pant for relief, and will search the Universe for a glimmering of hope. Should Philosophy have been your bosom companion, and the arm on which you have finally rested, you will then know what it is to have renounced Religion, to look back on a life of sin with agony, and forward to a world of suspense with horror. Christianity, sighing her last farewell, and dropping her parting tear, will retire in silence and sorrow, and will mourn with deep compassion, that, forlorn and dreadful as was your lot, you would not suffer her to allay your misery, and with the lamp of hope light you through your melancholy path into the world of future being.

Religion, on the contrary, feels, and proves, a regard for the sorrows of man, infinitely more tender, soothing, and supporting. Like the fabled power of inchantment, she changes the thorny couch into a bed of down, closes with a touch the wounds of the soul, and converts a wilderness of woe into the borders of Paradise. Whenever you are forced to drink the cup of bitterness, Mercy, at her call, will stand by your side, and mingle sweetness with the draught; while with a voice of mildness and consolation she will whisper to you, that the potion, though unpleasant, is necessary and balsamic; that you have diseases to be removed, and morbid principles to be exterminated; and that the unpalatable administration will assuredly establish in you health immortal. The same sweetener of life will accompany you to the end, and, seating herself by your dying bed, will draw aside the curtains of eternity, will bid you lift your closing eyes on the end of sorrow, pain, and care, and in the opened gates of peace and glory will point to you, in full view, the friends of Christ, waiting to hail your arrival.

That Christianity gives all these blessings, and gives them certainly; that it produces no loss, and great gain, in the present world; that it makes nothing worse, and every thing better; is clearly evident from the nature of the Christian system. The doctrines, precepts, and promises, contain and secure all this, and much more. At the same time, every Christian is a witness to this truth. Every Christian has, by experience, known the pleasures of sin, and, by the same experience also, has known the pleasures of religion. To whatever degree, therefore, his experience has extended, he is a complete judge of both. Many, very many Christians have also fully enjoyed the highest pleasures of science and intellect, and are of course unexceptionable judges of these pleasures. But no Christian was ever found, who for a moment admitted, that any pleasures were to be compared with those of religion; not one, who would not say, that for the loss of religion worlds would be a poor compensation. In every other case this evidence would be acknowledged as complete. Nor is it balanced, or lessened, by any contrary evidence. Infidels have never tasted the pleasures of religion, and, in the decision of this question, are, therefore, without a voice.

With these blessings in view, you will, I trust without a sigh, leave to the Infidel his peculiar gratifications. In every innocent enjoyment you can partake at least as largely as he. You will not, therefore, repine, that you cannot shine, at a horserace, bet at a cockpit, win at a gaming-table, riot at the board of intemperance, drink deep at the midnight debauch, or steal to infamous enjoyments at the brothel.

But the most important consideration is yet to be suggested; a consideration infinitely awful and glorious. There may be an Hereafter. There may be a future Judgment, a future Retribution. The course of Sin, begun here, may continue forever. The seed of virtue, sown in the present world, and raised to a young and feeble stem, may be destined to growth immortal. The misery, produced here by Sin, may be unceasingly generated by the same wretched cause, through ages which cannot end. The peace

and joy, which virtue creates, during this transient life, the same illustrious power may expand, and prolong, through an ever-enlarging progress.

What the natural eye thus sees with dim and probable vision, Christianity, possessed of superior optics, discerns, and promises, with clear, prophetic certainty. Endless death and endless life are written in full and glowing characters in the book, sealed to unenlightened and unassisted man with seven seals. That book a hand infinite and supreme unrolls to every humble, penitent, believing mind, and discloses to the enraptured view the page of eternity, on which things divine and immortal are pencilled with sun-beams. A residence finished with infinite workmanship, employments pure and ravishing, a character completely dignified and lovely, companions the first and best in the universe. a system of Providence, composed wholly of good. refining, ascending, and brightening forever, and a God seen, known, and enjoyed, in all his combined perfection, are there drawn in colours of light and life.

In the same volume is disclosed by the same hand the immense woe, destined to reward the perpetration of iniquity, voluntary blindness, and immoveable impenitence. Allured and charmed by supreme endearments, on the one hand, the mind is, on the other, equally awakened and alarmed. Good and evil passing conception, passing limits, are offered to the choice; and by that choice alone the good may be secured, and evil avoided, forever.

With respect to these amazing things, Philosophy knows nothing, threatens nothing, promises nothing. To Philosophy the invisible world is an unknown vast, over which, like the raven sent out of the ark, she wanders with a wearied wing, seeking rest, and finding none. To her exploring eye, the universe is one immense, unfathomable ocean. Above, around, beneath, all is doubt, anxiety, and despair. Her accounts are, like her views, uncertain and conjectural only, the foundations of no assent, no satisfaction. If you adhere to them, you cannot lose, and you may infinitely gain. An infinite difference of possible good and evil, therefore, demands your adoption of Christianity. I need not

place the subject on higher ground. To every thinking man there is, here, a motive infinite to embrace Christianity, and reject Infidel Philosophy.

If there is a God, (and that there is, is more certain, and evident, than that there is any being beside one's self,) he is doubtless perfect in holiness, as well as in power and knowledge. With holy or virtuous creatures he must of course be pleased; because holiness is obedience to his will, and because it is a resemblance to his character. As he must be pleased with his own character, so he must be pleased with his creatures, whenever they possess a character similar to his own. That he should not be pleased to have his will obeyed is impossible. The very supposition, that the Ruler has a will, involves in it necessarily, that he must be pleased to be obeyed. All the doctrines of Revelation, all the precepts, are summed up in this memorable sentence, "Be ye holy, as I the Lord your God am holy." To accomplish holiness, or virtue, in man is the single end of the Christian system. Christianity therefore teaches, enjoins, and with infinite motives pursues, what reason dictates as the highest wisdom of man. But, in all this, Infidel Philosophy has no part, nor lot, nor memorial.

Thus, in every view, the state and the prospects of the Christian are full of comfort, peace, and hope, of medicines for grief, and seasonings for joy. The present state of the Infidel is destitute of both, and prospects he has none. Here, the religion of the Christian brings with it, in hand, worth, usefulness, and dignity; and hereafter, in bright reversion, and through an interminable progress, life, wisdom, virtue, happiness, and glory. Philosophy, on the contrary, adds to him, here, no enjoyment, and robs him of the chief support of suffering; and, beyond the grave, plunders him of heaven, and consigns him to annihilation and despair.*