power is in the hands of our Elder Brother, the incarnate God. Therefore is he sure, that God rules in mercy as well as justice, that he will listen to the prayer of his people, and that, however mysterious his methods, all things are working together by the Holy Spirit for the universal triumph of truth, and righteousness, and peace.

With such convictions, how cheering to him must be the study of Providence! With what confidence, remembering the faithfulness of God in the past, will he confide in him amidst the difficulties of the present, and for the developements of the future! and how steadfastly reject for himself and for his country, any policy which crosses the unchangeable laws of God, the everliving Lord!

How strong would this nation be in hope and virtue, did our people thus remember the works of God! for never, since the world began, has the providence of God been more remarkable, kind, and instructive, than towards us. Jehovah did not lead Israel forth from Egypt to the inheritance of Canaan with a more mighty hand or manifest care, than has been seen in our history since the first prayer of the pilgrim from the tyranny of the old world to this better country, rose through its virgin forests, until our present day of unexampled prosperity.

They "keep his commandments." The believer's obedience to the directions of God is the necessary result of such trust and study. Gratitude will make him loyal to a sovereign so kind and faithful: a sense of his own weakness and short-sightedness will incline him to follow landmarks so certain, and the approbation of an honest conscience reward and incite him to persevere.

"Happy is the people that are in such a case! Yea, happy, is that people whose God is the Lord!"

SECONDLY: THE MEANS WHICH GOD HAS APPOINTED FOR CULTIVATING SUCH A CHARACTER.

"He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel:" or, as an admirable critic translates it, "He established an oracle in Jacob, and deposited a revelation with Israel.”

The Psalmist, doubtless, here refers not only to the law given on the Mount, in which God defined human duties and prescribed religious worship, but to all the communications which he had made or might yet make to man.

The value of the word of God is seen in the fact, that it is the word of God. What almighty mercy and wisdom saw fit to reveal, must be of the last importance. We are sure of nothing but that which God has made known. Never could we have discovered his will concerning us, or known how to walk in safety, had he not said, "This is the way." Never could we have been assured of a Providence over us, or looked within the tremendous realities of eternity, had not he manifested himself by his own de

clarations, and brought immortality to light by Jesus Christ, the man whom he has ordained as saviour and judge. Without the word of God, we should be without God, ignorant, hopeless, lost in perplexity, the sport of conjecture, of passion, appetite, and dread. Truth would have no definition, oaths no confirmation, laws no sanction, and the grave no promise; the past would teach us nothing but our ruin, and the future would be black with despair. When we have that word, how glorious is the reverse to the pious believer! We stand by the side of God when he laid the foundation of the earth, and we look beyond the catastrophe of created things to the fixed results of justice and love. We trace back our lineage to a brotherhood with every human soul; and we learn the will of our common Father concerning the relations which bind us to him and his family on earth. We see the path of righteousness marked for our feet, and one walking by our side, "whose form is like to that of the Son of God," sustaining our weakness and assuring our faithful obedience of eternal reward, after the shadows and the labours of time shall have passed away and ceased for ever. Nay, in the rest of the Sabbath, the worship of the sanctuary, the communion of saints, and the witnessing sacraments, we have the foretaste, sign, and confirmation of an eternal rest, love, and satisfaction in the house of God, eternal and undefiled.

Need I ask you to consider the blessedness, here and hereafter, of a nation who know and obey that word, and who cultivate and delight in that worship! Where is the suicidal, traitor hand, that would dare pluck this corner-stone from the foundation of our hopes, and, extinguishing the light which heaven has kindled, give our country back to the gloom, the licentiousness, and cruelties of those nations which have forgotten God!

THIRDLY: THE OBLIGATIONS UPON THE CHRISTIAN PATRIOT ARISING FROM THIS PROVIDENCE OF GOD.

"He commanded our fathers to make them known to their children; that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them unto their children."

The first duty laid upon us is, to study and practise the word of God ourselves. It is by the light of Christian example, that the saving power of the gospel is made manifest to the world. The believer of the word of God, therefore, owes a profession and practice of Christianity not only to God, to himself, and the church, but to his country, because its welfare can be secured only by religion.

Then, it is our duty, to the utmost of our means, to give the advantage of the same religion to those who neglect, or cannot, of themselves, obtain the means of grace, especially in the new settlements of that immense valley, the power of which already over

balances the older states. Wherever a fellow-citizen is without the knowledge of God, there is an element of danger mingling with the aggregate of the national will. We can never control crime, nor refute error, but by truth; and in withholding the truth of God, we consent to all the mischief that may be done by those, to whom we might teach the right, but do not.

But, especially, are we to strive that the Bible should be in the hands, and by the blessing of God upon our labours, in the hearts of the rising generation. Upon their shoulders the burthens of society, our country, and the cause of God, are soon to rest. From them their children are to learn good or evil. Neglect a child, and you have neglected the man, the woman, the father, the mother, generations yet unborn. The truth of God in our hands belongs to them, as much as to ourselves. It is deposited with us for their benefit. By omitting to give it, we rob them of God's best gift, and our land, in future years, of its best defence and glory. The means of education, so far as the arts of reading and writing go, are not enough. Educate with all your energies. Do nothing that may by any possibility interfere with, and everything to increase such instruc tion; but let us ever be ready to set the Bible before the opened eye and the craving mind. Better that a child should learn to read without the Bible, than to know not how to read the Bible. Thank God! Christians need not contend for debateable ground in this mat

ter.

With our Bible, and Tract, and Sunday School Societies, if we be only faithful in supporting them, we are more than a match, by God's help, for all the infidelity and superstition among us. We lose time and waste our strength, by petty squabblings with evil on its own dunghill. Let us rather devote all our power and zeal to those ready and open methods of disseminating truth, which no force in this land can forbid us to use. When the true church of God consecrates the talents she has from Him, to the spread of the gospel through our country, every wall that the enmity or idolatry of men can build against it shall fall like those of Jericho at the trumpeting of the Levites; when she walks forth, the light of her presence shall dissipate every shadow, and, "terrible as an army with banners," her peaceful triumphs will crown our whole people with the glory of the Lord, a joy and a defence.

Blessed be God, there are those who have felt the necessity of these religious efforts for the good of our country, and the immortal well-being of our countrymen. They are, indeed, but too few, and their zeal has not always been equal to their opportunities and responsibility. Yet in them, their examples of Christian conduct, their testimony to the power of religion, and their benevolent labours for the illumination of the ignorant, we see the providence of God blessing our nation with moral life, and confirming our government, founded upon the will of the people, by the only suf

ficient buttresses, knowledge, virtue, and the fear of God. The faithful Christian is the only faithful patriot, and he is not a faithful Christian who serves not his country in the name of Christ, and in the spirit of his gospel.

These thoughts, as you know, have been suggested by the recent anniversary of our national independence, a day which should be dear and sacred to us all, though often miserably polluted by intemperance, and profaned by party assemblages. Surely, we might devote one day of the year to the charities of patriotic brotherhood, and lose all minor distinctions in our common citizenship; nor should we forget before the altar of our father's God, the Author of all mercies, his mighty doings for us in the past; the good, the great, the wise, the valiant, whom he has raised up to serve, guide, and defend us; and the blessing which he has caused to rest upon their counsels, their arms, their zeal, and their sacrifices. Such recollections are due to Him, to our country, and to humanity. Children should hear the story, and the best genius contribute to its illustration. Fresh laurels should be plucked and wreathed upon the graves of the beloved for their country's sake, and eloquence pay its richest tribute to their heaven-sent worth, that the living may hear and follow their example.

While I thus speak, the spell of a great name comes upon our hearts, compelling us to utter their thoughts and emotions. When the sun of that morning rose, it gilded the fresh tomb of one whose ear, for the first time since the 4th of July, 1776, failed to vibrate with the thunderings of his country's birth-day joy; and a voice, for the first time, answered not its cheers, which, since its boyish shout was heard through the Revolutionary strife, had never been wanting in the annual conclamation. The iron will, whose upright strength never quivered amidst the lightning storms that crashed around it in battle or controversy; the adamantine judgment, against which adverse opinions dashed themselves to break into scattered foam; the far-reaching faith, that flashed light upon dangers hidden from the prudence of all beside; the earnest affection, that yearned in a child's simplicity, the purpose of a sage, a parent's tenderness, and the humble fidelity of a sworn servant over the people who gave it rule and elevation, have ceased among us: Andrew Jackson is with God. He, who confessed no authority on earth but the welfare of his country and his own convictions of right; who never turned to rest while a duty remained to be done, and who never asked the support of any human arm in his hour of utmost difficulty; bowed his head meekly to the command of the Highest, and walked calmly down into the grave, leaning upon the strength of Jesus; paused on the threshold of immortality to forgive his enemies, to pray for our liberties, to bless his weeping ousehold, and to leave the testimony of his trust in the gospel of

the Crucified; and then, at the fall of a Sabbath evening, passed into the rest which is eternal. His last enemy to be destroyed was death. Thanks be to God, who gave him the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

To say that he had faults, is to say that he was human; the errors of a mind so energetic, in a career so eventful, must have been striking; nor could a character be subjected to censure more merciless, than he provoked by a policy original and unhesitating, at open war with long-established usages, and dogmas that had grown into unquestioned axioms. Bereft in his early youth of parental guidance and restraint, educated in the camp and the forest bivouac, and forced to push his own fortunes through the rough trials of a border life, we can scarcely wonder that, until age had schooled his spirit and tempered his blood, he was impetuous, sensitive to insult, and prone to use the strong hand. Warm in his attachments, he was slow to discover frailty in those he loved, or to accord confidence where once he had doubted. Grasping, by his untutored genius, conclusions which other men reach by philosophical detail, he made, while sure of just ends, some mistakes in his methods, for the time disastrous. Called to act at a crisis when the good and evil in our national growth had become vigorous enough for conflict, and wealth and labour, like the twins of Rebecca, were struggling for the right of the elder born, his decisions in great but sudden emergencies were denounced by that after criticism, which can look back to condemn, but is blind to lead. Compelled to resolve stupendous, unprecedented questions of government and political economy, he roused the hostility of opposite schools in those difficult sciences. Never shrinking from any responsibility, personal or official, he sternly fulfilled his interpretations of duty as a coordinate branch of the national legislature, leaving his course to the verdict of his constituents; nor did he hesitate to avail himself of all the means he could extract from the letter of the constitution, to achieve what he thought was the intent of its spirit. His was a stern, prompt, and energetic surgery, and though the body politic writhed under the operation, none can tell, though some may conjecture, the more fatal consequences his severity averted. If he were wrong, public opinion has, since adopted the chief of his heresies, and there is no hand strong enough or daring enough to lay one stone upon another of that which he threw down into ruins. But in all this, his heart was with the people, his faith firm in the sufficiency of free principles; and regardless alike of deprecating friends and denouncing opponents, he held on throughout to one only purpose, the permanent good of the whole, unchecked by particular privileges, and unfettered by artificial restrictions. To use his own lofty language, "In vain did he bear upon his person enduring memorials of that contest in which American liberty was