Page images
PDF
EPUB

through our neglect, be left to pine in sickness; will not the knowledge of the fact meet us at another day, when we come to stand before Christ in judgment, and be reminded that-inasmuch as we did it not to one of the least of his disciples, we did it not to Him?

If we would avert the awful doom which awaits the unprofitable servant, let us contribute liberally this evening, to this most excellent, most interesting, most unexceptionable charity. I put it to every man's conscience-Will you give of your abundance, or your competence, or even your poverty?—or will you suffer the widow to weep on? Will you permit the fatherless to remain in rags, and to beg his daily bread from door to door, when by your timely aid this evening, you might cause the widow's heart to sing for joy, and put a song of gratitude into the mouths of her fatherless children? I know you will not. I am persuaded that you will not allow this interesting charity to languish for want of funds. The only reason why its active and indefatigable managers were not able to relieve, during the past winter, every case of distress that pressed upon them was, because you did not know their embarrassment. Had you anticipated it, you would have provided against its recurrence.

An

audience in this city, like the present, needs not the power of eloquence, nor the fascinations of oratory, to exact their contributions. All they require is the eloquence of facts—the oratory of distress.

attention.

We have endeavored to lay before you this evening, a plain, unvarnished tale. We have stated facts, and we leave it for you to judge how far they are deserving your regard and immediate Had we supposed that any adventitious circumstances-the voice of a stranger, or the charm of novelty, had been necessary to draw your attention to this blessed charity, we would have resigned the services of the evening into other hands; but we have too much confidence in the intrinsic merits of this charity, and too high an opinion of the good sense and sound judgment of the inhabitants of this city, to suppose, for a moment, that their charities would be effected by any circumstances independent of the just, the honorable, the benevolent, the pressing claims of the society itself. Nor do we forget that the claims of this society are identified with that high, and elevated, and distinguished character, which this revered and beloved metropolis has sustained for two centuries. Nor shall we soon cease to remember, when listening to our

civic history, from lips of almost unrivalled eloquence, that among the bright and glorious deeds for which this city of the Pilgrims had been so long distinguished, brightest shone-the amount of their charitable contributions.

My hearers, before another centennial era returns, this great assembly-all the inhabitants of this populous city, will be numbered with the dead. But other generations will be here to fill our places-other orators and other poets to commemorate the century in which we have lived. And when they come to search for materials for our future history, and to gather up the amount of the deeds of charity that filled the records of our city during the third century, may they find on one of its early pages, the generous and liberal amount of this evening's contribution, in aid of The Fatherless and Widow's Society.'

209

SERMON IX.

IMPORTANCE OF SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE.

PROVERBS xix. 2.

That the soul be without knowledge, it is not good.

EVERY thing that relates to the human soul is deeply interesting to an immortal being. The body, for which we are so anxious to provide, must soon moulder in the grave. In a few years it will be incorporated with the great mass of matter, and the pains which we have taken to beautify and adorn it will be lost forever. But the care, bestowed on the soul during its residence in clay, will be felt in the world of spirits the bias, given to its operations here, will fix its state hereafter and the stamp, impressed upon it in

time, will determine its happiness or misery in eternity.

[ocr errors]

That this spark of immortality is an emanation of Deity, reason as well as revelation assures us, that it is corrupt, impure, and unlike the source from which it sprung, is the dictate of experience as well as of scripture,—that purity cannot subsist with impurity, that holiness is inconsistent with sin, is evident to the unprejudiced understanding of every man, and that heaven, the habitation of holiness, cannot be the abode of pollution and guilt, is a conclusion that will not be resisted by a reflecting mind. How important, then, is that method, by which the human soul may be restored to the image of its Maker, by which its natural prospects of eternal wrath may be changed to the certain hopes of the full and endless enjoyment of God! Blessed be God, that there is such a method. The salvation of the soul is the great object in the economy of redemption. To obtain this, the Father parted with the Son of his love-to secure this, the Lord of glory bled on the crossand to accomplish this, the Holy Spirit, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined into the hearts of his people, to give them the light of the knowledge of the glory of

« PreviousContinue »