derous deed against nature's instincts, when the angel of heaven pointed to a fountain for her refreshment, and cheered her despair with the promise of a holier kingdom. Thus they, too, having been early seduced or banished from their Father's home, have wandered since through a dark and dreary desert, without any light to cheer or a fountain to refresh them; and with feet torn with the thorns on which they were doomed to tread through their sinful way, are now fainting under the twofold affliction of wounds and weakness, and ready to expire unless you assist in recruiting the one and healing the other. O yes! in the language of Scripture, they are covered "with wounds and bruises, which are not bound up, nor dressed, nor fomented with oil." To you, then, this day is consigned the merciful task of dressing and binding up the wounds, with the pain of which they so long smarted, and mitigating with oil these sores and bruises which were rendered sharper by being exposed to the wind of heaven. On you devolves the Christian duty of reassuring their fainting spirits by directing them, like the angel I have just alluded to, to those running fountains that traverse this wilderness of life, and are continually gushing forth from the hearts of the merciful. Yes; the hearts of the generous are never-failing fountains, and riches in the hands of such individuals partake of the qualities of living wells that are always fed by inexhaustible resources. Open, then, those sources of mercy, and give joy to those who were long strangers to such a feeling. Should, however, there be any still callous to the calls of charity, and insensible to the obligations which mercy imposes, let him, at all events, look to himself, and guard his own home from the demons that might destroy its purity and happiness. Though he should cast

1 Isai, i. 6.

away, through avarice, the bowels of compassion for more distant objects, he cannot divest himself of a parent's solicitude for the virtue of his child, so well painted by the Wise Man, who represents the "father waking for the daughter when no man knoweth, and the care for her taketh away his sleep, when she is young lest she should be corrupted in her virginity." No; though he should be steeled against every other feeling, he cannot be insensible to the dread of having shame and dishonour brought upon his own house, and being made, in the language of the inspired writer I have already quoted, "a laughing-stock to his enemies, and a by-word in the city, ashamed before the multitude, and a reproach among the people." It is incumbent upon you all to raise the broken fences, and to protect the sanctuaries of your own homes against the tide of vice and immorality which is threatening to overflow the most sacred recesses of society. Yes; the contagion is fast spreading; the rude and insolent clamour of profligacy is heard in the streets; virtue is abashed and forced into secrecy by its violence. It is, then, your duty as men and as Christians, when vice becomes fearless, to display a corresponding heroism in the cause of virtue; and to rush, if necessity demands it, into the flames to rescue the struggling victims from the ruin with which they are menaced, nor to pause in the pious work until you place them in peace and safety on the summit of the holy mountain. Amen.

LAYING THE FOUNDATION-STONE OF A

CHURCH.

"How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord."-Ps. lxxxiii. 1.

It is not of any ordinary building your venerable Bishop has been just now laying and blessing the foundation. The intense interest which the undertaking has inspired is attested by the solemnity of the rites by which it has been ushered in, as well as by the ardent devotion with which such multitudes have thronged together to witness the sacred ceremony. It would seem as if you had even now felt the mysterious change which this spot had already undergone. Like the neighbouring grounds, it was hitherto trodden without emotion, but now it is approached with awe and reverence. The mearings for the courts of the Lord have been fixed; the vast area of His lovely tabernacle is viewed by every eye with rapture and delight; its foundations have been dug and sprinkled with the mystic waters, impregnated with salt, on which, like the salt cast by the Prophet into the barren fountains of the gardens, the benediction of heaven has descended, removing from its precincts. every noxious and corrupting influence. Its cornerstone has been fixed, ready to connect the dependent portions of the edifice, and in it has been deposited a variety of emblems significant of the time and the object of its erection-old coins, with their respective inscriptions referring to the past, and parchments of which the transcripts will guide the future annalist of this diocese to the year in which it was founded, of the episcopal administration of your distinguished Bishop,

of the monarch's reign who holds the sceptre of those realms, and of the present Pontiff who sways the hearts of millions of his spiritual subjects. Yes; all these mute symbols, so full of meaning and instruction, convey to the pious Christian impressive lessons, which no tongue could impart, of the mysterious majesty of the place which the Almighty has chosen for His future dwelling. But, above all, that cross, pronounced in the sacred Scriptures a badge of malediction and of shame until it was converted by our Redeemer's death into the banner of His triumph and glory, shows that Christ is now the exclusive owner of this place, and the planting of His standard proclaims aloud that He has ratified, through His authorised minister on earth, the covenant by which this place is now consecrated to the erection of a temple-one of the many mansions found in the kingdom of His Church, manifesting the magnificence of its Founder, and the profusion of the blessings with which He gladdens His faithful people.

Taking the ritual of the Church for my guide, I could not select a more appropriate text on this occasion than the very first verse of the sublime canticles you have heard now entoned, re-echoed from afar, by which every heart has been so sensibly affected. Long, however, before it was recited and sung by the Royal Psalmist, it was uttered on a most solemn occasion by a prophet, or rather a soothsayer, of a quite different character. When the Israelites were on their way to the promised land, they caused much uneasiness and annoyance to the nations of Chanaan, one of whose kings sought to purchase the services of Balaam, the famous seer, in order to curse this obnoxious people. Having ascended to the summit of a lofty mountain, and turning his face to the desert, he lifted up his eyes, and beheld the vast hosts of Israel spread over the wilderness, through their

different stations, with their leaders, of tens, and of hundreds, and of thousands, under their respective ensigns and standards, in an unbroken circle of tents, from east to south, and from west to north, surrounding the tabernacle, with a precision of order such as the military camp of the most skilful of ancient or modern camps never surpassed, and probably never equalled. Struck at once with the amazing spectacle, which combined so much of strength and order, we are told that the Spirit of God came rushing upon him, seizing his entire soul and subduing every mercenary feeling; and then, forgetful or unmindful of his false and hostile mission, his tongue gave expression to the dictates of his heart, breaking forth into the rapturous language of my text: "How beautiful are thy tabernacles, O Jacob! and thy tents, O Israel! As woody valleys, as watered gardens near the rivers, as tabernacles which the Lord hath pitched, as cedars by the water-side." He then follows up his prophetic vision of the triumphs of the Christian Church, with its widespread dominion and continuous duration, in a strain of inspired imagery as just as it is beautiful, all illustrating the harmonious gradation of its hierarchy, as well as the inexhaustible riches of those hallowed temples around which they are arrayed. It is no wonder that the Church should be thus represented under the figure of a camp, being the kingdom of Christ, to whom the nations were given as an inheritance, having no limits but the boundaries of the earth. "Who is she," asks the writer in the Canticles, "that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array?" exhibiting another striking illustration of the compact discipline by which the spiritual authority of

2