poured their inspiration into your minds. Prize that praise, my friends. It is the richest gem which can adorn you. Seek to add nothing more to it, than that as you are more distinguished for your care, you are also more qualified to bestow it. Let it be said of you, that you prefer the virtues of the female character for your children, before its accomplishments, their minds before their bodies, and above all, that it is your chief care, to pour into their hearts and understandings the pure illuminations of the gospel of Christ, in all its simplicity, loveliness, and power.

But in the interesting little group, which your humanity has brought together, I see a striking proof that you feel your duties as christians. I hail it as a pledge that you have that enlarged benevolence of the gospel which interests you, not only in your own offspring, but in all the children of want and sorrow. You will continue, I doubt not, in the good work of mercy and love which you have begun; and grow even more zealous in it. You will feel towards these little ones the responsibility of parents, and seek to bring them up in those habits of industry, sobriety, prudence, foresight, virtue and religion, which will make them hereafter useful to society. Go on then, my friends, to fulfil your high and honourable vocation. Your children, and these children of your pity too, shall rise up and call you blessed-blessed as the instruments of heaven's bounty, blessed as the

guardians and ministers of human virtue and happiness; blest even in this life-how eternally, how unspeakably blest in another!

I turn now to ask all who have assembled on this occasion, and to ask you with confidence, my friends, to lend your aid to the exertions of these pious and benevolent females. If you acknowledge with me the importance of the character of the female sex to mankind, you will need no other argument to convince you of the value of this charity. It is its noble object to rescue these tender orphans, not merely from suffering, but from neglect and degradation; to make their future influence on society the influence of virtue and innocence and intelligence, instead of the influence of ignorance and perhaps of depravity. Think not lightly of their importance, because their future condition in society will probably be humble. In our country it is absurd to talk of any other distinction of ranks than is given by distinction of character. We are all so necessarily connected together by our political institutions, that each class of society acts and reacts on all the rest; and it is not possible that one part should be degraded and corrupt, without extending its malignant influence to the rest. You are not less interested, therefore, in the character of those whom these little ones are hereafter to influence, than in that of those, whom you regard as your companions in life. As then the peace and happiness of society depend on the vir

if

you

tue and intelligence of its members; and as, make woman enlightened and pure, you make man virtuous and good, I might call on your self-love as well as your benevolence, to impart your aid to this institution.

But if all this were otherwise, still I could not endure to hear that these children had a light claim upon you, because born to obscure and humble life. Have they not souls as worthy of cultivation, as immortal as your own? Can you abandon them to misery, perhaps to ruin, because they are not born to the comforts with which you and your children are blessed? Was it their crime to be so early deprived of a parent's tenderness and care; or to find their parents, if spared to them, unable to save them from suffering and want? Are you sure that by no conceivable revolution of this changing life, some whom you so tenderly love, may be reduced to need a similar compassion, with no other claim upon it than these little ones now advance?" To the poor the gospel is preached." The Son of God disdained not to utter the glad sounds of salvation and hope to souls like these, And shall we find nothing to move us in such an example?

I beseech you, in the name of that affectionate Saviour, who died for us all; of him, who carries the lambs in his arms and folds them in his bosom; of him, who if he were now on earth would say, "Suffer these little children to come unto me, and

forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven;"-I beseech you in the name of him who commanded us to be "merciful as our Father in heaven is merciful," now to prove yourselves worthy to be his disciples. Then will the recollection of this evening's bounty come over your memory with a sweet and consolatory influence. These children, and the widowed sufferers who will share your bounty, will rise up, and call you blessed. Their prayers will ascend for will ascend for you to the throne where mercy dwells; and after a course of piety and benevolence on earth, their voices will join the acclamations of angels, and hail you among the eternally blessed in the happiness of heaven and with the presence of your God.

SERMON XXI.

ON LEAVING THE OLD CHURCH.

PSALM XXVI. 8.

Lord, I have loved the habitation of thine house, and the place where thine honour dwelleth.

To any man, with whom devotion is a sentiment of the heart as well as a dictate of the understanding, and who has therefore the idea of pleasure as well as that of duty connected with social worship, these words of the Psalmist will need no explanation. By a well known and universal law of our nature, our attachment to whatever gives us pleasure embraces all its accidental concomitants; and the truly devout worshipper not only takes delight in the act of adoration itself, but extends some degree of his complacency to those who ha bitually unite with him in it; to the voice which leads his devotions, and even to the place which is wont to be the scene of them. With the idea of the house of worship is associated the recollection of the purposes to which it is devoted, the bless