thoughts still to our immediate duties, those of diligently labouring, so far as we have opportunity, and patiently suffering where we have not. A peaceful, meek, respectable sufferer is always the first to be pitied and relieved; whilst noise, and clamour, and discontent make all real troubles worse, and invent a great many imaginary ones. To covet the stations of others, and to wish to seize them through the medium of public uproar and confusion, is not only wickedness but folly; it is to increase all our difficulties; it is not only to venture out to sea in a storm, but to venture for nothing 5. It is God's blessing which alone can relieve us, and God's blessing is to be waited for in a spirit of obedience and resignation. He has promised never to leave us nor forsake us. He has said that the lions shall lack and suffer hunger, but they that fear the Lord shall want no manner of thing that is good. And therefore we may rely on his watchful providence in our utmost straits; and without meddling with the duties or faults of others, and least of all those of our governors, may occupy ourselves with

our own.

9. Finally, if any line of conduct is likely to bring down God's blessing on ourselves and our country, and to remove from us his present chas

tisements, it is that which I am now recommending, and which flows from the principles I have laid down throughout this discourse. When God contends, he will overcome. We shall gain nothing by a spirit of rebellion and discontent. We shall obtain no relief by following our own proud and hasty spirit. We shall find no alleviation by listening to desperate and ungodly men, and by unjustly blaming our rulers, which is in fact to contemn the authority and ordinance of God. Like the wild bull in a net, we shall by these means only increase and aggravate our misery. But if we take another course, and turn to Him that smiteth us, and seek the Lord of Hosts; if by true repentance and amendment of life we each reform ourselves; if by humble confession of sin we admit the justness of the divine punishments, and by a hearty forsaking of it take away the occasion of them; if by piety and contentment under comparative misfortunes, and by patience and submission under greater ones, we wait for God's deliverance; if by prayer and supplication for kings and all that are in authority over us, we bind the several orders of the state together in mutual affection and subordination; if by a loyal and Christian spirit and conduct we propose a good example to others, and diffuse sound principles of religion and morals to all about us; and if, finally, by a cordial reception

of the Gospel of Jesus Christ we obtain the favour of God and a hope of future felicitythen may we trust that God will interfere for us as a nation; that he will restore our trade and commerce to their ordinary prosperity; that he will grant us favourable weather for the ensuing harvest (of which indeed we have had, as we hope, the foretaste in the blessing of an unusually mild winter) that he will give wisdom to our senators, and to all in authority, in their conduct of public affairs; that he will bestow on us such a measure of success as may be for our real benefit; and that, above all, he will continue to employ us as a nation, not only as the protector and deliverer of the desolated liberties of Europe, and the object of admiration to mankind for our chivalrous fidelity and unexampled prowess in war, but as the instructor and guide of the world, as the instrument of disseminating our religion and our civilization to the furthest quarters of the globe, and as the means of holding up, as it were, a pillar of fire to mark out to the benighted nations the path to happiness and heaven; that so our piety may be as celebrated as our valour, and the beneficence of our religion as widely acknowledged, as the disinterestedness of our policy and the justice and splendour of our arms.

THE NATIONAL SCHOOLS A NATIONAL

BLESSING.

A

SERMON,

PREACHED AT

CHRIST CHURCH, MIDDLESEX,

On Sunday Evening, March 28, 1819,

IN AID OF THE

Spitalfields Schools

For the Education of One Thousand Children,

IN CONNEXION WITH THE

NATIONAL SOCIETY.

Published at the Request of the Committee of the Schools.

SECOND EDITION.