he had put away religion by a sneer, he would engage his readers, by all his powers of ridicule and sarcasm, to reduce all men to one common level of baseness-to shew that they are all low, selfish, and sordid? His writings would tarnish all that is pure, and degrade all that is elevated in man; and assuredly no nation that could relish works like these needs any judgment from the hands of God!

They carry with them into all its homes a breath that taints the very air, and, robbing domestic intercourse both of its purity and its confidence, they teach man to look with contempt upon his brother, and with suspicion on all that should be unsuspected; they are a curse in every house on which they shed their influence, of bitterness and woe for the life that now is, and of hopelessness for that which is to come! Better, therefore, far better and wiser is it for man to take the judgments of God as warnings against sin; as warnings which teach him to look within, and where he sees corruption, there to turn in humble prayer for grace to change his heart and his thoughts, lest his sins should bring the land he loves into condemnation-lest they should assist in filling up the measure of a nation's iniquities, and the judgment of God fall upon her borders!

It is this day our duty to offer up to Almighty God the homage of grateful hearts for his mercy

in removing from our shores the disease which his wisdom saw fit to inflict. There is in the visitation of disease something which naturally leads men to ascribe its appearance to God. Wherever man can trace the operation of a physical cause, acting according to certain laws which he knows in part, he is but too apt to forget that even every general law is but the expression of an antecedent will in the Divine Being; and thus the appointed course of nature sometimes fails in directing his thoughts to its Creator and Ruler.

But in the visitations of disease he is unable to refer to any general laws. In them, 'the wind bloweth where it listeth, and we hear the sound thereof, but we know not whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth!' and therefore are we content to see in them the chastening hand of God! But while we look upon the dark black cloud which gathers around and warns us that impending storms are nigh, as an urgent motive to repentance, to prayer, and to holiness, let us not forget that it is the same Almighty Being alone, by whom the storm is ruled, who restores to man the clear blue dome of sky-that if judgment descends from the throne of heaven, every mercy, every gift of life descends from the same divine source of love; and therefore for all his mercy let us be thankful and rejoice. In this

place, of all others, are we bound to be grateful. To us it has been granted to be warned and admonished, not by our own sufferings, but by those around us. We have been spared-not assuredly for our own righteousness, but in the mercy with which the measure of God's justice has been tempered; and let us who are here assembled turn the judgments of God to the real purpose for which they are availing, the purpose that comes home to every Christian-the duty of purifying his heart, and of rekindling the spark of devotion within him, if its light has been dimmed! It is thus, indeed, if we love the bright land of our inheritance, we shall best serve her interest! The Christian is the truest patriot: he that would give all his earnest prayers, all his warmest efforts that holiness to the Lord might be inscribed, as it were, upon the nation, the land of his birth, is winning for that land, as far as human efforts can win it, the blessing of Him without whom nothing is strong, and at the breath of whose displeasure nations decay and powers depart! He that lives in forgetfulness of God is adding daily to the sins by which the Lord is constantly aggrieved, and is calling down, and tempting the hand of Providence to inflict, a severer penalty on all that dwell around him! If any therefore would claim to love their country, let them shew their love by purity, by

holiness, and by all the graces of a Christian life. Let them on this day join their voices in the song of gratitude and praise which ascends from the altars of our Church; and may our prayers be set forth as incense, and the lifting up of our hands like the evening sacrifice! May they bring down a fuller effusion of the Holy Spirit, and pour into the hearts of all a deeper reverence, a holier love to God, and a more perfect obedience to his will, that hereafter they who have sown in tears may reap in joy! and that with the Psalmist, we may say from the depths of the heart, 'It is good for us that we have been afflicted.'

APPENDIX (A).

THE times at which the PENTATEUCH and the HISTORICAL Books of the Old Testament are stated, by the chief Continental authorities of recent celebrity, to have been written or compiled.

1. GENESIS.
Gesenius1.

Geschichte der
Hebr. Sprache and
Schrift. Leipz.,

1815.

De Wette.

Lehrbuch der Historisch Kritisch. Einleitung in die

I. THE PENTATEUCH.

In its present form, not older than the time of David, p. 19. 23.

Between the time of David and Jehoram. Vol. 1. §. 158. p. 228.

The subsequent references are to the same works and same editions, unless it is otherwise expressed. By Ibid, I refer back to the last citation of the Author under some other Book of the Bible. The same is true, if no reference is given.