them, not only the joys they knew, but many of the friends who gave them. You have entered npon the autumn of your being, and whatever may have been the profusion of your spring, or the warm intemperance of your summer, there is yet a season of stillness and of solitude which the beneficence of Heaven affords you, in which you may meditate upon the past and the future, and prepare yourselves for the mighty change which you are soon to undergo.

If it be thus, my elder brethren, you have the wisdom to use the decaying season of nature, it brings with it consolations more valuable than all the enjoyments of former days. In the long retrospect of your journey, you have seen every day the shades of the evening fall, and every year the clouds of winter gather. But you have seen also, every succeeding day, the morning arise in it's brightness, and in every succeeding year, the spring return to renovate the winter of nature. It is now you may understand the magnificent language of Heaven,-it mingles its voice with that of revelation,-it summons you, in these hours when the leaves fall, and the winter is gathering, to that evening study which the mercy of Heaven has provided in the book of salvation: And, while the shadowy valley opens which leads to the abode of death, it speaks of that hand which can comfort and can save, and which can conduct to those 66 green pastures, and those still waters," where there is an eternal spring for the children of God.

SERMON XVII.

ON THE JUBILEE, APPOINTED FOR THE 50th ANNIVERSARY OF THE KING'S ACCESSION, OCTOBER 25, 1809.

GENESIS xliii. 27, 28.

"And Joseph asked them of their welfare, and said, Is your father well? The old man of whom ye spake, is he yet alive? And they answered, Our father is yet alive. And they bowed down their heads, and made obeisance."

THESE were the words of the patriarch Joseph, one of the most distinguished personages whom we meet with in the early history of the world, and from whose pathetick story the infant mind receives its first impressions of genuine greatness. In the preceding part of the narrative, we feel all the interests which arise from adventure and success. We rejoice in that event by which the inhumanity of his brethren is leading to the punishment it deserves; and while we contemplate, with satisfaction, the hand of Providence which is conducting this interesting story, we yet tremble as we proceed, lest the conceptions we had formed of the character of Joseph, may be lost in

his accomplishment of the dread revenge which was then placed in his power. It is the simple, but pathetick question of the text, which resolves all our doubts. The words, "is your father yet "alive?" let us at once into his heart. We see a mind which neither injury could harden nor prosperity corrupt; which looks back with undi. minished affection to its first and its purest attachments;-which hails with thankfulness the intelligence, that that father now lives, who, amid all his distance, and all his greatness, has never been forgotten; and in these workings of nature in his uncorrupted bosom, we readily anticipate all the exquisite virtue which he is afterwards to display.

It is with a sentiment similar, I trust, to the grateful joy of the patriarch, that we, my brethren, and all the people of this land are now assembled. The beneficence of Heaven has permitted us to witness an event which it is rarely given to the brevity of human life to see; and it has been met with feelings which exalt patriotism into devotion.

Amid the calamities of war, and the sufferings of nations, the majestick multitude of the British people are, in this moment, prostrated in thankfulness before that God, by "whom Kings reign, "and Princes minister justice ;" and while coeval thrones are deserted of their possessors, or are trembling to their fall, the grateful spirit of this country approaches with firm step the throne of its

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sovereign, and places upon his grey hairs the crown of patriot glory.

Twice only, and that in the dark and distant. ages of our history, has the eye of the citizen opened upon a spectacle so sublime; and ere it can again return, the eye of every one that lives will long have been closed in the grave. In a moment of such deep and various sensibility, I feel that it becomes me to limit myself to a few simple observations, happy only in being permitted to unite my humble voice with that of my country, and in being able "to bow my head in obeisance before "the King of Kings," while I say, with the affectionate gratitude of the children of Israel, "our "father is yet alive."

It is in general, I fear, a very rude and unthinking estimate that men form of the character of sovereigns; and there are prejudices very common in the world, which induce it to demand, from those who govern mankind, qualities altogether incompatible with the welfare or the liberty of those who are governed.-The imagination of youth and of ignorance is dazzled with the splendours of the legislator and the hero;-the vanity of nations is gratified by the glory of conquest, and with the tale of extended dominion;-and the world, in general, judging from this high and romantick standard, are apt to conceive that no characters become a throne, but those which display these lofty or sanguinary features, They forget,

meanwhile, that such qualities are applicable only to scenes of turbulence or barbarity ;-they forget, that nature bleeds while the hero triumphs, and that the energies of the legislator involve also the powers of the despot ;-they forget, that while the individual thus raises himself in their estimation, he rises upon the degradation of every other rank in society; that virtue is not hereditary like the throne; and that the same unlimited powers which form at times the patriot and the hero, form, in far greater profusion, the oppressors and the tyrants of the world.

But whatever, in the infancy of nations, be the glory of the legislative mind which gives society its first foundation, or whatever, in subsequent times, be the dark utilities of the conqueror, whose exterminating sword is the instrument of divine justice in avenging its crimes, it is the lofty and unshared privilege of this country to say, that such is not the legitimate character of its sovereigns; and the citizen of Britain has little known to estimate the character that is worthy of its throne, when he assimilates it to any situation either of ancient or of modern greatness. Inheriting a constitutional throne, to which its former agitations have now lent almost the stability of nature, and wielding a sceptre which has been given, and not wrested from his people, the sovereign of this country is invested, not with the vulgar terrours of power, but with the majesty and sanctity of law;