cepts of the Gospel. In spite of numberless violations of those precepts, you perceive how many evils have been spared to the world, what an incalculable sum of happiness has been showered upon it, by means of the Religion of Christ: the civilization of which it has been the source; the numberless cruelties to which it has put an end; the profligacy which it has extinguished; the vices that degraded human nature, which it has proscribed; the rights it has determined; the education it has provided; the knowledge it has collected and revived; the establishments it has raised for the prevention of crime, and the relief of misery; the universal improvement it has diffused:-in these wonders of wisdom and love, you behold a portion of the benefits of Christ's religion. Confirm and extend its influence-you promote universal good. Strive, on the other hand, to break the tables of the Christian law you will diffuse evil around with a lavish hand. Can we, indeed, have already forgotten that solemn homage which the enemies of the Gospel rendered to it, when they determined on its annihilation

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as necessary to the success of their destructive projects? Can we have forgotten what disasters we have ourselves seen coming down upon society, like devouring vultures on their victim, when, in a period of frenzy, it was resolved to overthrow the temples of God, and with sacrilegious hands to blot out his Gospel, and dethrone his Anointed Son? Like a swollen torrent, bursting from its bed, bearing along over the devastated land all that formed its wealth and ornament, and leaving behind in its course pollution, ruin, and death,—the passions of the multitude, set free from the salutary restraints of the Christian law, rushed frantickly through society, and everywhere brought forth misery and crime. The check of faith being removed, every other barrier gave way; confusion followed; and social order existed no longer. Those who ought to have remained in the lowest ranks, signalized by crime their infamous exaltation, and spread round them terror and alarm; the good were proscribed-the axe fell upon the worthiest heads-the purest blood reeked upon the scaffold-the executioner

was amazed to find himself employed to punish riches, virtue, talent, reputation: Religion, chased by the maniac fury which had broken loose, fled, and carried away her blessings in her train; while society, shaken to its foundations, threatened to give way on every side, and the authors of these horrors proclaimed, without intending it, this eternal truth: THE GOSPEL FOSTERS BENEATH ITS BENIGNANT SWAY, ORDER, PEACE, JUSTICE, HAPPINESS; WHEN IT IS TRAMPLED UNDER FOOT, THEN EXPECT NOTHING BUT OUTRAGE AND DESTRUCTION. Oh! that states and nations, wearied with disorder and tumultuous violence, may at last be content to find rest beneath the tutelary shelter of the Religion of Christ, and reap the fruits of that promise of the angels: 66 PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD-WILL TOWARDS MEN!"

II. While, however, Christianity is the safeguard and support of the social system-while it strengthens the relations, and promotes the duties, of every member of the communityit is also highly honourable to its professors.

Nothing in it is little, nothing trifling; but every thing worthy of man and of God.

Strange to say, it has nevertheless been seriously alleged, that although Christianity lays a salutary check upon the young and the ignorant, it is wrong to attempt to bring under its yoke men of mature age and instructed minds. Does Christianity, then, consist in multiplied superstitious observances, or puerile terrors? Is there any real connection between its laws and those extravagant ordinances which religious imposture would palm upon mankind, as the decrees of Heaven? No: it declares that "God is a Spirit," and requires that "they who worship him should worship in spirit and in truth;' and it is from meditating its precepts those precepts, so simple, so beautiful, and ennobling, that we are constrained to say of man, with the Psalmist: Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour; thou hast put all things under his feet. O Lord, how excellent is thy name!"

It is apparent, upon closer examination, that

Christianity seeks to exalt us, by nourishing our spirits with lofty thoughts, by surrounding us with majestic images, and by instilling into us a sense of our own dignity,-as men deal with those sons of kings, who are made familiar with the notions of a sceptre to be borne, and of majesty to be sustained. Now, we are told of a cloud of witnesses who surround us, and in whose eyes we ought to preserve ourselves irreproachable; now, that this world, which presents so many attractions to us, shall be dissolved, while, reserved for a higher destiny than it, we shall survive its destruction: now, are promised a spiritual life and angelic connections and pleasures hereafter, in opposition to the numerous wants to which our bodies are now subject, and the thousand weaknesses by which they are dishonoured: now, heaven, with its unfathomable depths of felicity, is partially laid open to our view, as contrasting our lot with that of those unhappy persons who identify themselves with this earth, and are ambitious only of the despicable triumphs of children of dust: now, we have presented to us the true

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