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Book of Common Prayer.

With these spirit

ual stores she provides, no less, for the wants of our brave defenders in the field, or on the ocean; with these in her hand she visits the sick, and the prisoners. By translating them into other tongues, she is enabled, likewise, materially to widen their influence both throughout those interesting portions of our home-population, which have retained their primitive languages, and through the extensive field of our foreign colonies and dominions. Nor has she been deaf to the call of the stranger or the enemy. She has also selected from the works of the most able and pious of the English Divines, such passages, (and many of these, too, have been translated,) as are best adapted to the instruction of the young or the ignorant, from which they may acquire a knowledge of the doctrines of the Gospel in their simplest and most intelligible form, and have the obligations and the practice of duty at all times connected in their minds with the principles of Faith. The Society was originally formed by those who were most eminent for zeal, charity, and intelligence among the clergy and the laity of that age, and it has since numbered, among its mem

bers, the names of all that England has produced of greatest worth, piety, and distinction. It is impossible, then, my brethren, that we can err, in adding our names to the lists of so wisely conducted, and so useful a society; and if, amidst the multiplicity of objects presented in the present times to the zeal of the faithful, a man of a pious and honest mind may sometimes be in perplexity where to turn, lest he should either be neglecting his Christian duty, or should be unawares giving an undue countenance to some dangerous or unprofitable scheme; he cannot be at any hesitation here, especially if he is a member of our Communion, or doubt, but that his charity will be applied both to the most extensive, and to the most certainly productive sources of the progress of the Gospel.

The Branch of the Society which has been established in this place, calls more especially for your support. It was the natural result of the union which the Episcopal Church here so happily formed with the Church of England, that we should likewise court an alliance with the Venerable Society which has long been one of the most distinguished ornaments of that Church. We are thus supplied,

at a moderate rate, with the excellent books of Christian instruction printed by the Society, and besides the benefit thence arising to the young of our own congregations, there are antidotes in these books of the greatest utility in times like the present,-when infidel opinions have been so fatally scattered among the lower orders, which we may distribute with the happiest effects, and without interfering with the peculiar tenets or discipline of the Established Church of this part of the island.-There is, too, an interesting and numerous class of our poorer Episcopalian brethren to whom, by means of our connection with this Society, we may convey the highest benefits; those who are dispersed over the Highland districts, who, from long predilection, are devoted to the principles and the forms of our Church, but whose poverty renders it necessary that we should supply them with instruction, and whose ignorance of our language requires that we should go to them in theirs. This has long been an object of pious interest with the Parent Society, insomuch, that many years ago it afforded a liberal contribution in aid of the translation of the Holy Scriptures into the Gaelic language printed un

der the direction of the similar Society connected with the Established Church of Scotland, and it has likewise procured a translation into the same tongue of the Liturgy of the English Church. But it now rests with us to carry on these, and other connected objects, more directly, and with more concentrated zeal.

I need not, I am sure, add any farther words of persuasion. You see the progress of the great and continually increasing tree of the Gospel, as it is advancing to overshadow the most remote climes and nations. The poor and scattered inhabitants of our own mountainous regions are, in the present moments, looking to us to find a more secure lodgement under its branches. Let us prove, by our charity this day, that we have not ourselves received the seed of life among thorns; and that the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, have not choked the word in our hearts, and rendered us unfruitful and indifferent to good works; -let us not cease to remember, that "he that receiveth seed into the good ground, is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it, which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth some an hundred fold, some sixty, some thirty!" D d

SERMON XXXIII.

ON THE DUTIES AND DANGERS OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY.*

B

ROMANS, i. 1.

2

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an Apostle, separated unto the Gospel of God.

IT is in these words that the Apostle Paul first >>presents himself to our view; and if we permit the full impression of them to rest on our minds, we can scarcely imagine an aspect, in which a human Being can stand, more elevated and commanding. He appears to us, first of all, as "a Servant of Jesus Christ," a servant of that Master whose service consists in going about

* Preached on Monday, June 24, 1816, at an Ordination held by the Right Reverend Daniel Sandford, D.D.

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