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constitution, have given to the people of this land a corresponding character of religious principle, and of civil energy, which neither prosperity can corrupt, nor adversity subdue. I trust, that the breath of freedom, which the lowest among us inhales with his birth, while it has poured prosperity through every vein and artery of the state, has poured along with it the spirit of loyalty, the vigour of patriotism, and the energy of independence. Amid the waves of the ocean, I trust we shall still present to mankind the beacon which may enlighten and direct them and that, among the millions of our population, there is not one heart so base, or one arm so coward, as to shrink from sacrificing life itself, in defence of the majestick fabrick of our laws, and the grey hairs of our anointed Sovereign. Yet, whatever may be our hopes, and whatever may be our prayers, let it never be forgotten what are our dangers. They are not the dangers of a day, or of a season. The clouds which so long have hung around us, seem now to be gathering into the final storm. From one end almost of Europe to the other, we see the various nations which inhabit it marshalled against us. We see their mingled forces wielded by that powerful arm which victory has strung with new vigour; and their march directed by that penetrating eye, which marks, with cool decision, wherever nature, or policy, or vice, has made us vulnerable, and which permits no slumber of peace to quench its malignant ambition.

If such be the signs of the times, they are to us the summons to duty. Amid the sunshine of prosperity, there is a character of national gayety and levity, which suits, in some degree, with the character of the times, and which may be forgiven at least, if it is not approved. But the hours of danger demand another character; and the voice of Heaven calls then for loftier purposes, and sublimer energies. In such hours, it calls upon vice to pause, and folly to think, and party to be silent. It calls upon the citizen of every rank to prepare his mind for the scenes that may follow; to remember what are the blessings which are included in the name of his country; and to supplicate from Heaven that strength which may enable him, in its hour of peril, to defend and to save it. It calls upon the great and the affluent to lay their wealth at the feet of their country; to vindicate their distinction, by the distinction of their patriotism; and to scorn every calculation of private interest, when the interest of their native land is in danger. It calls upon the poor man to harden his mind against the conflict in which he must act or suffer; to brave those additions to penury, which the struggle for national existence must produce; and to prepare himself, in the last rank, to defend the humble cottage, which is yet the abode of liberty and of religion.

But chiefly you, my young friends! It is you, chiefly, whom the voice of religion now summons to duty. You are entering upon the stage of time!

and upon that stage great interests are depending, and great events are to be transacted. In your day, the fate of your country will, to all human appearance, be determined: and whether it is to exist or to fall, will depend upon the wisdom of your councils, and the vigour of your arms. It is a time, therefore, for you to encourage in your bosoms all the native generosity of youth; to scorn every vice that can debase, and every folly that can enervate; to train your minds for scenes of firm enterprise and high achievement; to clothe yourselves in the armour of that faith in which you were baptized; and, with the lofty devotion of freemen, to swear to Heaven and to mankind, never to surrender to a tyrant the inheritance you have received from your fathers.

Do you want motives, my brethren, to animate you to duty? They are around you,—they are in every scene of that country, which is now "like "the garden of Eden before you," and which the sword of a conqueror would convert into a "deso"late wilderness." The names you bear are the names of patriots and of heroes; the ground on which you tread has been often wet with the blood of the invader; the mountains of your country rise around you, to remind you that on their summits no hostile banner was ever reared; and that from them the eye of your ancestors saw the tide even of Roman invasion roll back.

Do you want examples, my young friends! to direct your patriotism? Go not to the records of other countries or of other climes. Go to the annals of your own country; to the examples which every page of them presents to you, and which teach you how the patriot can live, and how the freeman can die.-Go to that recent page which is yet wet with your tears; to the example of that illustrious man, whose uncoffined remains repose, alas, far from the sepulchre of his fathers; but whose ascending Spirit now lets fall the mantle of its glory, to cover the land which gave him birth ; and who has left to mankind a name at the sound of which, in every succeeding age, the heart of the patriot will throb,—when tyrants shall have ceased to reign, and when the world shall have awakened to truth, to victory, and to freedom.

* Sir John Moore.

SERMON XVI.

ON AUTUMN.

GENESIS Xxiv. 63.

"And Isaac went out to meditate in the field, at the even-tide."

HOWEVER much the necessities and the duties of life call upon us for activity, there are other principles of our being which lead us to meditation. The same divine inspiration which hath given us understanding, hath provided also the scenes in which it ought to be employed; and the perfection of our nature consists, not in the separation, but in the union of contemplation and of action. "To "every thing," says the wise man, "there is a 66 season ;" and, if there are times when the Dayspring summons us to activity, there are times also, when, like the patriarch in the text, we are invited to "meditate in the field, at the even-tide."

In the generality of men, however, there is some secret unwillingness to be employed in the labour of meditation;-there is a kind of gloom that is