thou lovedst on earth, shall be opened on all thou dreadest in heaven.

No, my brethren, there is not a moment's safety but in peace with God; there is not a moment's solid comfort but in friendship with our Maker. In every season, and in every state of life, his favour is absolutely necessary to us. What infatuation, then, has seized the sons of reason and of foresight, that you seek first what you fondly wish for, whatever it is that your hearts desire; and propose, if you propose at all, afterwards to seek for that favour which can alone fulfil the desires of your hearts, and without which their wishes never can be gratified!

Cappe.

The melancholy Effects of early Licentiousness (in a Sermon preached for the Female Orphan House). Perhaps of all sources of corruption in human society, there is none greater than that lamentable degradation of the female sex, which this institution, from the extensive scale on which it is conducted, must go extensively to diminish. In the consideration of this point, I place the misfortune of fallen woman, as far as it involves her own fate temporal and eternal, totally out of the question. To this I shall speak in the sequel; I would here only consider the effect which her depravity is known to produce on the morals of every rank of the community; and I do say, when we deliberately look to the variously desperate complexion of that effect, there is no principle, Christian or social, that must not give superior importance to the preventive before us. How many parents, even in the highest order of life, can bear woful testimony to the total perversion of youth, by the seductions of the vicious part of the female sex! The fondest hopes of rising excellence disappointed; fortune opprobriously dissipated; constitution radically broke down; living spectres of early decrepitude! Every ingrafted virtue, every sacred principle of education effaced, every vice that can dishonour human nature and religion springing from this one impure root. Objects to whom they tenderly looked up for the pride and consolation of

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their age, often presenting nothing to their eyes but the premature compound of the demon and the brute. This may appear to be strong language on the subject; but to know the world at all, is to know that it is more than justified. When youth is once allured into the mysteries of libertinism, there is no excess or enormity that is not swallowed like water. It is the property of this fatal evil even to mar the finest qualities of nature. Often are talents and spirits, fitted for the greatest purposes of society, entombed for ever in this sepulchre of the soul; nothing that belongs to mind can have power to charm where mind would appear no more. If youths who might have pressed forward to the most honourable distinction, are daily to be seen without a spark of virtuous emulation; insensible even to that love of fame which, in default of purer motives, gives birth to such diversified objects of human ability, roaming through the capital with stupid and licentious gaze, dead to the respect of character, and equally lost to their country and the world; impute it to no other cause than that unhappy corruption of morals which extinguishes the nobler aspirings of man, to substitute the pursuits of a vile instinct. Would you vindicate, my brethren, the honour of religion and nature; would you behold in youth, the ambition of pre-eminence in virtue and usefulness? establish purity and severity of morals, by cutting off the foul source of their depravation; do this, I say, and instead of swarms of walking and ignominious nuisances, you will have men-you will have citizens-more-instead of the contempt of Christian practice, private and public; instead of the affected and blasphemous language of infidelity-for the libertine is invariably profane-you will have youth glorying in submission to the sacred principles of their religion, and affording the happy and edifying spectacle of its influence on their conduct.

Religion the distinguishing Quality of our Nature. Religion is the distinguishing quality of our nature, and is one of the strongest features that marks the

human character. As it is our distinguishing quality, so it possesses such extensive influence, that, however overlooked by superficial inquirers, it has given rise to more revolutions in human society, and to more changes in human manners, than any one cause whatever. View mankind in every situation, from the earliest state of barbarity, down through all the successive periods of civilization, till they degenerate to barbarity again, and you will find them influenced strongly by the awe of superior spirits, or the dread of infernal fiends. In the heathen world, where mankind had no divine revelation, but followed the impulse of nature alone, religion was often the basis of the civil government. Among all classes of men, the sacrifices, the ceremonies, and the worship of the gods were held in the highest reverence. Judge what a strong hold religion must have taken of the human heart, when, instigated by horror of conscience, the blinded wretch has submitted to torture his own flesh before the shrine of the incensed deity, and the fond father has been driven to offer up with his own hands his first-born for his transgression,-the fruit of his body for the sin of his soul. It is possible to shake off the reverence, but not the dread of a Deity. Amid the gay circle of his companions, in the hour of riot and dissipation, the fool may say in his heart that there is no God; but his conscience will meet him when he is alone, and tell him that he is a liar. Heaven will avenge its quarrel on his head. Judge, then, my brethren, how miserable it must be for a being made after the image of God, thus to have his glory turned into shame. How dismal must the situation be for a subject of the divine government to consider himself as acting upon a plan to counteract the decrees of God, to defeat the designs of eternal Providence, to deface in himself the image and the lineaments of heaven, to maintain a state of enmity and war with his Creator, and to associate with the infernal spirits, whose abode is darkness, and whose portion is despair!

Reflections upon such a state will give its full measure to the cup of trembling. Was not Belshazzar, the

impious king of Babylon; a striking instance of what I am now saying? This monarch made a feast to a thousand of his lords, and assembled his princes, his concubines and his wives. In order to increase the festivity, he sent for the consecrated vessels, which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple of Jerusalem; and, in these vessels which were holy to the Lord, he made libations to his vain idols, and, in his heart, bade defiance to the God of Israel. But, whilst thus he defied the living God, forth came the fingers of a man's hand, and, on the wall, which had lately resounded with joy, wrote the sentence of his fate! In a moment his countenance was changed, his whole frame shook, and his knees smote one against another, whilst the prophet in awful accents denounced his doom; "O man, thy kingdom is departed from thee!" Logan.

ANCIENT AND MODERN

ORATORY.

Hannibal to his Soldiers.

I know not, soldiers, whether you or your prisoners be encompassed by fortune with the stricter bonds and necessities. Two seas enclose you on the right and left;-not a ship to flee to for escaping. Before you is the Po, a river broader and more rapid than the Rhone; behind you are the Alps, over which, even when your numbers were undiminished, you were hardly able to force a passage. Here then, soldiers, you must either conquer or die, the very first hour you meet the enemy. But the same fortune which has laid you under the necessity of fighting, has set before your eyes those rewards of victory, than which no men are ever wont to wish for greater from the immortal gods. Should we by our valour recover only Sicily and Sardinia, which were ravished from our fathers, those would be no inconsiderable prizes. Yet, what are these? The wealth of Rome, whatever riches she has heaped together in the spoils of nations, all these, with the masters of them, will be yours. You have been long enough employed in driving the cattle upon the vast mountains of Lusitania and Celtiberia; you have hitherto met with no reward worthy of the labours and dangers you have undergone. The time is now come to reap the full recompence of your toilsome marches over so many mountains and rivers, and through so many nations, all of them in arms. This is the place, which fortune has appointed to be