To lead your minds, my brethren, to this great and important truth, suffer me to present to you some of the beneficent purposes which visitations, such as we have lately experienced, serve, both with regard to nations and individuals. - They are, in the first view, the great causes, in every country, of national improvement; of improvement in that first and fundamental art, the cultivation of the earth, upon which all others ultimately. depend. If seasons were uniformly prosperous, if the harvest every year returned whatever was necessary for man and for beast,every motive to human industry, and even to human thought, would be taken away.-Nature herself would do the whole; man would be left only to enjoy; and, freed from the necessity of thought, would soon sink into animal indulgence, and all the powers of his mind stagnate in stationary corruption. The visitations of scarcity serve greater ends, and call nobler powers into action. By a wholesome but limited severity, they awaken all the force and ingenuity of his mind, to correct or to mitigate the severity of nature. Invention is exercised in new methods of improvement; observation is extended to other soils, and more perfect systems of cultivation; the laws of nature are more carefully studied, and the fruits of other countries are introduced to aid the poverty, or to increase the production of our own. Such are the acquisitions which are gained to national knowledge and science, by these temporary severities of the seasons. But there is one additional reflection, very deserving of our notice, that they are not lost with the cause that produced them. The years of scarcity pass; but the knowledge which has been acquired, the discoveries which have been made, remain to every future generation; they remain to swell the sum of human science,-to multiply, in happier years, the productions of nature and the number of the people,-to constitute, by these means, new sources of national wealth,-and to form new foundations of national splendour. I hasten, however, from this wide and comprehensive subject, and from other reflections which it suggests, to state to you the effects which such severities of nature are fitted to have upon the character of the Individual, and to shew you, that here, as every where, we may discern the marks of that Paternal Hand, "who ruleth in the Heav"ens," and yet dwelleth " among the children of "men." 1. The first effect of such visitations, is to awaken and exalt our sentiments of devotion. If the feelings of religion are necessary, as God knows they are, to the happiness of human nature;-if they are necessary, as we all know, to the final happiness of his Being,-no other constitution but that which we see, could be suited to this sub lime purpose. If life were always prosperous,— if every season showered down its plenty, and the years of men were passed in secure enjoyment,every thing teaches us to think, that the great truths of religion would soon pass from his mind, that futurity would be forgot ;-and that this uniformity of beneficence would be referred, not to the will of Supreme Design, but to the unthanked direction of Fate or Destiny. If, on the other hand, it were only to an uniformity of hardship that men were born, consequences not less fatal would ensue. The benevolence of the Almighty would be unknown; the dark character of imagination would form only deities of vengeance and of power; and the miserable worshipper would have recourse to every base and sanguinary rite by which he could appease the tyrants that seemed to oppress him. It is to provide against these mutual dangers; to retain at once our sense of the greatness or of the goodness of the Almighty; to keep alive in our hearts those hopes of religion, which are the noblest prerogative of our being,that this instability in nature takes place. It is to direct our eyes constantly to some greater being;at one time, to shew us how feeble are all the powers of man ;-at another, to open to us all the beneficence of Heaven; and thus, amid those varying appearances, to lead our minds continually to Him "in whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning," and to that future state, "where there is final rest for the people of God.” Such are the views of religion; and such also, as we may all see, amid the severities as well as amid the bounty of nature, are the great ends which He that made us is pursuing, and by which he wishes to make perfect the immortal soul. 2. The next effect, my brethren, which visitations of scarcity have, is upon the moral conduct of men. History and experience tell us all, what have been the fatal consequences of continued prosperity, both with respect to nations and individuals; our own experience also, and the least knowledge of the history of nations, may tell us, on the other hand, what have been the important effects of temporary suffering. In the present hour, no former examples are necessary. We have all, I trust, wherever we have been, seen many instances of the improvement of human character, both of the poor and the rich, both of the low and the high, by the visitation we have lately suffered. 1st. It has confirmed, if not created, many virtues among the poor. From the prosperity of former years, which then, alas! had too often been wasted in intemperance and profligacy, it has produced sobriety and recollection. The father has been brought back to his family,the wife to her children. The domestick virtues, far more important to human happiness than all others, have been cultivated and understood; and many an unfortunate being, who was advancing in the road of guilt and infamy, has returned to the sense of virtue, and the consciousness of its rewards. The value of industry and economy have been known, and by many that knowledge and those habits have been acquired, which may provide for the prosperity of future days. But, above all, my brethren, by these means "their hearts "have been turned unto righteousness ;" and, I doubt not, that there are many, who, when they come to the bed of death, will acknowledge, that it is to these severities they have owed their conversion; and that, had seasons of prosperity continued, they would have died as well as "lived, "without the sense of God in the world." 2dly. If such have been the consequences to the poor, I am glad to think, that such also have been the effects upon the opulent and the great. However much we may declaim against the weakness or sinfulness of human nature, it is pleasing to reflect, that, in the hours of distress, we have seen the actual proofs of Christian charity. In no age, surely, that has elapsed in the Christian kalendar, -in no country which boasts the name of Christian,-have such exertions of charity been made, as in this island, during the preceding years.— While it is pleasing to remember this truly Christian fact, it is pleasing also to remember the words of the wise man, "that the merciful man doeth good unto his own soul." I doubt not but there |