the union of all who ask from God what they have not, or thank him for what they have; they are the solemn expression of the faith of nations, the overt proof that earth is obedientto heaven; the only public evidence that man is occupied with other things than the brief disquietudes of this perishable globe.

The gospel loves not a luke-warm heart; it is a religion of feeling, and ardour; when it has penetrated into a man's thoughts, as it ought to penetrate, it will produce outward respect, rigid observance, a promptness, and a zeal, in worship; it is better in fact to wash off the stain of baptism, to shake the dust of our feet upon the altar, than to revere that which we desert, and deny, by our lives, the God whom we believe in our hearts.

There are men who, without pretending to be so occupied on the Sabbath, allege that it is their only day of relaxation from business, and that it is reasonable enough they should consider it in that point of view.Such an open preference. of pleasure to religion, or the fatal notion that they are so completely opposed to each other, proceeds from an apathy upon these sacred subjects,

which hardly admits of any cure,-If every exercise which disposes the mind to the contemplation of an hereafter is burthensome, it is impossible religion can exist at all under such a system of thinking. If it is a privilege to be exempt from the duties of religion, of course no one will resort to the temple of God, who has the slightest worldly inducement to avert him from it.-The ministers of the gospel invite men here, because they consider salvation to be the first and greatest care; they presume, that an occasional recourse to the christian worship, and the improvement consequent upon that worship, will diffuse over the mind a feeling of calmness and content; and, by strengthening the habit of self command, render pleasure itself more productive, by rendering it compatible with innocence, and with religion. But the style of thinking against which I am contending, inverts the whole order of human duties, supposing that the first command of the gospel is to grow rich, or to enjoy the greatest quantity of pleasure which can be procured, and then,

if any little residue of leisure remain, that it is to be given to religion;-but, tole

rating, for a moment, this fatal, and I must say, this very irreligious style of thinking, and acting; and allowing that a religious institution can, with any colour of reason, be objected to, because it does not furnish its immediate tribute of gratification, it is fair to remind such objectors, of those numbers who, in the pursuit of all common trades, and professions, do submit every day to a much more painful, and more considerable, sacrifice of their time and attention: who rejects the most loathsome disease? who shrinks from the driest forms of law? who turns away in disgust from the dullest calculations? The mammon of unrighteousness can infuse into us all a meekness, and a patience, which we are so slow to feel in the service of our God. These feelings are not the feelings of a man, who, in his religion, exhibits the marks of health, and life;—a just and good man, when he quits the church, feels that he has performed a duty which he owes to man, and which he owes to his Creator; he has set an example to those who are inferior to him in age, and situation; instead of talking about religion, he has practically contributed his share of

effort to preserve religion in the world; he has

done good to himself also; for a few hours he has put the world out of sight; he has covered his heart in mourning, and in ashes, and given to himself a chance of living better; he has heard those who have told him things, not, perhaps, that he did not know before, but things which would not have occurred to him again if he had not quitted the world, and come here to hear them; he has been honestly and affectionately warned, to remember the shortness of human life, and to repent in Christ, before the hand of death is upon him. It is not true, that the duties of religion are unpleasant; many men feel a solid, and rational comfort from having performed them; they encounter business with greater pleasure; they enjoy amusement with greater satisfaction; they discover that they gain, by public worship, the charming feeling of duty well performed, and, therefore, they come back here again at the stated interval to resuscitate that feeling, and to quicken with it the days, and hours, of common life..

The conclusion, that public worship is

VOL. I.

not essentially necessary to religion, is a conclusion rather of indolence than reason; a conclusion, (as is commonly the case in the logic of convenience,) born before the premises; first admitted to be true, because it is agreeable; and then proved to be true by the best arguments that can be found: it will, in general, be found in practice, that those, who contend for the possibility of being very religious, without frequenting the service of the church, confine themselves to the mere possibility, without going so far as to convert that possibility into a fact.-Simple indolence, and downright impiety, we comprehend, and are not ignorant by what species of argument they are to be attacked; but when a man, careless about religion, happens to possess a lively imagination, or to affect it, he speaks as if his feeling spirit could not wing its flights, and pour forth its effusions in a temple built by men's hands; and having drawn fine pictures of an elevated mind, pouring forth the eloquence of pious wonder among rocks, and clouds, he remains quietly at home, with no mean sense of his own refinement, and with no ordinary contempt for our narrow conformity. The truth is, if the ordinary sea