how vast a portion of its surface is, in the moral sense, an immense field of death; a place of graves; a catacomb, where souls are buried, to wake no more. Look narrowly. Not a limb moves; not a bosom heaves. Listen. Not a sound trembles on the ear. Life has vanished: and solitude, and silence, brood over this receptacle of departed men. Who would not obey the voice, which commands, "Take ye away the stone from this cave;" while the Son of God stands before the entrance, ready to call to each of its slumbering inhabitants, "Lazarus, come forth?" The gate, which in Asia, and Africa, was once opened wide at the head of the way to eternal life, bas long since been barred; the path to Heaven forgotten; and the communication with that happy world finally cut off. Ignorance has benighted, sin bewildered, and misery broken down, their wretched inhabitants, Not an effort are they either disposed, or able, to make for themselves. Shall we, when we behold them wounded, and helpless, pass by, with the frozen hearted priest and Levite, on the other side? Shall we not infinitely rather, with the good Samaritan, pour oil and wine into their wounds; and provide effectually for their restoration to life and health? Convey yourselves in thought, my brethren, to the regions of Hindostan. Behold there 20,000 wretched females annually offered up, as burnt-offerings, on the funeral piles of their deceased husbands; and thrice 20,000 orphans, in this manner bereaved, each of its surviving parent, thrown upon the world without a friend to protect, a hand to feed, or an eye to weep. over them. Advance to the wild and desolate domain of Juggernaut. See a region, more than one hundred miles in diameter, white with the bones of men, who have perished in their devotion to this orien tal Moloch. Mark the companies of dogs, jackals, and vultures, fattening themselves, throughout this wilderness of death, upon the flesh of men. See the wretched victims crushed beneath the chariot wheels of this gigantic idol, rolling over a path, paved with corpses. Enter the caverns of Goa; where a living Moloch sits on the tribunal of the Inquisition. Hear the chains clank; the groans murmur; and the shrieks burst the bosoms of the wretched prisoners, confined in this outer chamber of hell. Follow the barefooted victims, in their funeral habits, to the stakes, to which they are bound, and the flames, by which they are consumed to ashes. To rescue man, poor, suffering, persecuted man, from these tremendous evils is one bright and glorious purpose of the work before you. The hearts, which wi'l not feel these objects; the hands, which will not labor to sweep them from the earth; are the hearts and hands of fiends. I will not insult my country with a suggestion, that such can be found here. But we are not to be confined in our researches to Hindostan, to Asia, or to the Eastern Continent. We are to range the World. Whithersoever we go, wẹ shall see ignorance, errour, and sin, sown every where; and every where producing misery, thirty, sixty, and an hundred fold. This rank and baneful crop is every where to be weeded out. Truth and righteousness are every where to be sown, and to produce their golden harvest of comfort, peace, and joy. But, my brethren, all this is comparatively of small moment. The great duty before us is to rescue men from sin, and perdition. All numbers halt; all comprehension, beside that which is infinite, sits down in despair; when the worth of the soul, and the import of its eternal happiness or eternal woe, are to be estimated. Ascend on the wing of thought to the world of life. Station yourselves before the throne of infinite Greatness. Behold there an immortal mind, no longer a rebel against its Maker, no longer an outcast from his kingdom; but a child, an heir of GOD; a joint heir with Jesus Christ to the heavenly inheritance: its sins washed away in the blood of the Lamb: its conflicts ended: its victory achieved: its crown of glory won: and its career of transport commenced, to improve and brighten forever. Weigh this mind, and the blessings treasured up for its enjoyment, with the silver and the gold, the pains and the labours, which you, and all others, may be supposed to contribute for the accomplishment of its salvation: and you will pronounce them all nothing, less than nothing, and vanity. Weigh against such a mind, the world, which we inhabit. Weigh against it the universe, with all its worlds, and suns, and systems: and you will pronounce them the drop of the bucket, and the small dust of the balance. But, my brethren, you are summoned, not to effectuate the salvation of one such mind; but of thousands, and millions. The whole earth waits, with ardent hope for this manifestation of the sons of GOD; this great jubilee of man; in which crimes and sufferings shall cease; in which the bondage of corruption shall terminate; and in which from the uttermost parts of the earth are to be heard songs of exultation and rapture; even "Glory to the righteous!" The everlasting Gospel is every where to be preached. Temples are every where to rise. Churches are every where to be gathered: and minds are every where to be born of God. Nay the world is to become one temple, and the race of man to form one church, of the Redeemer. All these millions are destined to endless life; and will one day stretch their wings for the regions of immortality. The day, in which these blessings are to be ushered in, has arrived. The day, in which the mighty work will be seen in its full completion, is at hand. We must labour; that those, who come after us, may enter into our labours. We must sow: and in due time, both we and our successors, if we sow bountifully, shall reap a divine harvest. With every faithful endeavour of ours the Spirit of Grace will co-operate. As the earth bringeth forth her bud; and as the garden causeth the things, that are sown in it, to spring forth; so the Lord God will speedily cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations. Into the divine kingdom sanctified minds will fly as a cloud, and as doves to their windows. Forget, then, the little period, which intervenes between us, and this glorious day. Convey yourselves on the wings of anticipation to the dawn of this great Sabbath of time. Survey what the prophet beheld with exultation, at the distance of three thousand years. The way to eternal life is no longer narrow, and solitary. It has become a galaxy; ascending from the East, and from the West, and centering in midheaven. Up the broad and luminous path stars in endless multitudes rise from both skirts of the horizon: stars, differing from each other in glory; but all destined to shine with pure and eternal splendour. But your interest in these things, my brethren, is not to terminate even here. You are not to rejoice merely in beholding the renovation, virtue, and happiness, of a world. You are not merely to follow in thought a single sanctified spirit, or millions of such spirits, to the realms of glory. The day is on the wing in which we, and they, shall hear the voice of the Archangel, and the trump of GOD, summoning all, who are in their graves to come forth. What thoughts will it then awake in the soul; with what emotions will the bosom heave; when the eye looks round upon the divine assembly of perfect minds, re-united to bodies, raised in incorruption, power, and glory; to be conscious, that even one immortal being has been rescued from the second death, and placed in the possession of endless life. How will the heart labour; how will the soul expand with vast conceptions; when it beholds, not one, but hundreds, thousands, millions, led by the efforts of ourselves, and our contemporaries, from the east and the west, from the north and the south, to the right hand of the Judge; and acknowledged before the universe as his friends and followers. And O, my brethren, with what ecstasy shall we accompany them to Heaven; seat ourselves by their side; learn from them the story of their salvation; and hear, pronounced by their own lips with a gratitude, which will increase forever, "The glory of this delightful world, the blessings of this immortal life, we owe first to GOD, and next to you?" Unto Him, that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood; and hatı made us kings, and priests, unto God, even his Father: to him be glory, and dominion, forever and ever! AMEN. |