not fill our land with barbarous cruelty, with horrible licentiousness? And would they not render it more fit to be the land of any other set of men, than the land of the devout, puritanical founders of New England. As long as you live, I beg you, Young Gentlemen, to remember, that a primary reason both for the first settlement of this country, and for its subsequent growth and prosperity must be found in an ardent attachment to the Christian religion. Both your filial, and your patriotic affections might, therefore, induce you to respect and befriend the religion of Jesus.

This religion, moreover, is the religion of God himself, the Father of lights, the great Father of you all; and in your belief and practice of it He has suspended your everlasting welfare.` Ought you to doubt a moment whether you will revere or obey a religion like this? a religion revered and obeyed by the first and the best men in the land, and fitted to render it forever a land of justice, order, freedom and safety; of truth, peace, love and joy? a religion sanctioned by the supreme Jehovah, flowing from the spring of all perfection, and rendering benevolent and happy all its followers? and a religion too, which, should you all possess it, would bind you all indissolubly together, though scattered among the remotest nations, would finally bring you all, glorified class-mates, immortal, blessed brothers, into a land of perfect, unchanging friendship and pleasure? No, my young friends, God forbid; and I exhort you, now in the last words of this address, to measure your progress in moral worth only by your progress in Christian love.

A DISCOURSE.

As this is the last time, my friends, young men of the Senior Class, in which I shall publicly address you as members of this institution; and probably the last time, indeed, in which I shall ever address you all publicly and in a body, while I have power to speak, or you to hear; it has been my earnest wish to address you on a subject of the greatest importance, and the most befitting your present circumstances. Hence, though among the great variety of interesting and pertinent subjects which have readily occurred, I have had great anxiety in fixing my choice; still, after diligent meditation, I have at length fixed it on the subject suggested in the second chapter of St. Paul's epistle to Titus, and sixth verse." Young men exhort to be sober-minded."

By turning to your Greek testaments, you will at once discover that the original verb, here translated "sober-minded," is compounded of two Greek words, which conjointly signify a soundness of mind, or a sound, healthy, reasonable mind. Hence Titus is directed, in the text, to exhort young men to possess and cultivate a sound, healthy, reasonable mind; and I can think, young men, of no exhortation more important in itself, or more befitting your present circumstances, whether I consider you as candidates for promotion and happiness in this life, or in the next. In discoursing on the subject of this exhortation, I

intend to bring into view only a few of the many particulars, which are essential to a soundness of mind, and to draw from them some practical inferences and reflections.

I. It is essential to a sound mind to believe the eternal existence, and the infinite perfections of God. No man in the exercise of reason can make himself believe that nothing is the author of something; or that he himself has never had a beginning; or that the world and its component parts have no existence. Hence every such man must allow that there must be some eternal being. For, if there is no eternal being, it is manifest that there was once a time, when there was nothing in existence; and consequently, that whatever is now in existence, had its origin in nothing. But an eternal being must be self-existent; and a self-existent Being must be necessary; and a necessary being must be unchangeable; and an unchangeable being must be all-perfect and glorious; and such a being is the very God we are seeking.-Let it be only granted that the world and its component parts are existent, and not eternal, that is, not unchangeable, and that something cannot originate from nothing, which certainly none but a distempered mind will refuse to grant, and then none but such a mind can deny what the apostle asserts, that "The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." There is no way, indeed, of avoiding the conclusion, that there is a God of infinite, underived perfections, but by denying the most plain suggestions of common sense, and by asserting tenets, which nothing but downright madness can induce a man to believe; that the world, that we ourselves, have no creator; that the sun, planets and stars, are upheld without any upholder, and governed without any governor; that all the phenomena of the heavens are the offspring of chance, or nothing; that all the beauty, order and contrivance on this earth, are accidental, and without design; that the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms, are expressive of no wisdom, direction or control; and that even the curious and wonderful mechanism of man is the effect of no cause, the token of no contrivance. These, and numberless