the faith of the Gospel, let your youth be nursed; -in its charity, let your maturity be passed ;-in its hopes, let your gray hairs repose. It is in this course, that the greatest honours of humanity have been won;-the greatest duties of humanity performed; the greatest exaltation of humanity attained. It is in this course, that that love of God can be shewn, which glorifies him by the light which it displays, and the good works which it performs. It is in this course, that that love of Man can be shewn, which makes religion the benefactor of the human kind; which makes the humblest Christian, beneath the thatch of his cottage, not only the blessing of all who surround him, but the fellow worker with the system of Heaven itself, and the instrument of conveying the blessings of salvation to all the future nations of the world.

Such are the reflections which become every new year. Amid the passions and the infirmities of men, we see nothing at present but "thick dark-"ness," and national distress. In the council of God, it is our blessing to foresee a steady system, and an invincible career. Through all the clouds of former ages, the "Sun of Righteousness" has risen upon his path; and through all the darkness of the present day, the same sun will pursue his glorious course, until it terminates in the "light and the "liberty of the children of God."

Many thousand years have passed since the mighty prophecy was given unto Abraham,--and that prophecy has been fulfilled. Many hundred years

66

have passed since the voice of the angels announced to an infant Saviour, that, in his birth, "glory was given to God, to earth peace, to mankind divine "good will;"-and this prophecy has been accomplished, and is now accomplishing. It is in this middle point of the divine system, that we, my brethren, in our short hour, stand. The years that are passed shew us the progress of this system. The shades of all the good and all the pious who have gone before us, rise in this moment to our imaginations, and point to the course which we ought to pursue. The infant forms of posterity seem to bend before us, and to solicit from us that instruction and that example, which may make them associates in the same service, and the messengers of salvation to the utmost limits of the moral world.

The year which has passed, left us, my brethren, in calling to mind the remembrance of our own ways. Of that remembrance, what now remains that can give peace or joy to our hearts, but the remembrance of Christian piety, and of Christian virtue?—It is the sacred presage, not only of years, but of life: Extend it to what length you please, still the same account will be presented; and whenever the human spirit "returns to him that made it,” the choir of angels who announced that religion into which all of us have been baptized, can convey only those spirits into happiness, who have given "glory "to God in the highest upon earth,-who have "spread peace, and who have taught good will human-kind."

"among

In the opening, therefore, of a new year,-in the opening of a year awful by "the judgments of God," which are now so visibly "upon the earth," and hopeful only if " the nations of the world shall learn "righteousness,”-dark in its beginning, and awful perhaps in its progress, for what shall the voice of this place pray for you, or for our country?-Oh!

not for conquest or dominion,-not for riches which may deceive, or for glories which may betray,-but for that "spirit" which can "overcome the world;" -for that elevation of thought which makes "things "temporal" instrumental only for " things eternal;" that the same mind may be in you, and in all the people of this land, which was in Christ your Saviour, and which, whether in acting or in suffering, acknowledged no other motive than that "of doing

"the will of his Father."

These are the lofty and the eternal things for which I kneel before the throne of the Almighty for you, and for all our brethren of mankind in this solemn hour. In the awful circumstances of the present world, there is something which is unhappily fitted to dim the radiance of youthful piety, and to shake the first foundations of moral belief. It is on this account that I have wished to lead the minds of the young around me to higher meditations; to shew them, from the uniform history of the world, that there is a system in nature, which all the guilt of nations or of man has never been able to overthrow; that all the prospects of social happiness rest upon the dissemination of Christianity;—and

that, whatever may be their rank or condition, the noblest part which life offers them to perform, is that of being faithful to the vows and the promises of their baptism. And in now concluding, my young brethren, these humble illustrations, I conclude, with the solemn assurance,-that, if the beneficence of Heaven were to grant to me the accomplishment of all my prayers for you, and for those who are most dear to me, I would ask for you no other blessing, than that of a steadfast and unshaken faith in the Gospel of him who ought to come, and who has come, "to make you wise here, and wise unto "salvation."

SERMON XI.

ON THE LOVE OF EXCELLENCE.

PHILIPPIANS i. 10.

"That ye may approve things that are excellent.'

THESE words are part of the warm and beautiful prayer of the Apostle for his church in Philippi : "And this I pray for you (says he) that your love "may abound yet more and more unto knowledge, "and in all judgment,-that ye may approve things "that are excellent,-that ye may be sincere, and "without offence till the day of Christ; being filled "with the fruits of righteousness, which are, by "Jesus Christ, unto the glory and the praise of "God."

It is a passage which it would be well for us to keep perpetually in our remembrance, as it expresses, in a very striking manner, the nature of that religion which the Apostle taught, and the consequences which he expected it to have upon the minds of mankind;—not in subduing their understandings, and making them the slaves of any dark or illiberal superstition, but in blending religion with every common business of their lives,-in rendering it the means of leading them to "all knowledge, and all "judgment," of elevating their minds to the ap