boards, and tasting the rich pleasures that flow from social and domestic life, let us remember those who are destitute of the blessings we enjoy-let us not be unmindful to send portions to the poor and the needy-that while we taste so richly of the bounties of God's providence, we may cause the widow's heart to sing for joy, and the children of want to eat and be satisfied.

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SERMON XI.

THE FAITH OF THE PILGRIMS.

HEBREWS xi. 8.

By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he

went.

THE Occasion, upon which I have been invited to address you, is exceeded by none of our public anniversaries in deep and absorbing interest. It compares with none, indeed, but that, which recognizes our standing among the nations of the earth, as a free and independent empire; a day, rescued, as long as the sun and moon shall endure, from oblivion, alike by the great event which it commemorates, and the astonishing and providential coincidences by which it has since

been distinguished. But to that part of this great nation, who people the shores of New England, and whose descendants have planted themselves in almost every part of this western continent, no anniversary can be more interesting than that which we are this day called to celebrate. It is the anniversary, not, it is true, of our nation's manhood, when she sought and obtained deliverance from parentage, that had become unnatural, oppressive and tyrannical, and took her proper place among the nations of the earth, but it is the anniversary of her infancy, and its return will ever be hailed with emotions of holy gratitude and fervent praise by the sons of the Pilgrims in every part of the land.

That the occasion has ever been esteemed one of no ordinary interest, is evident from the respect that has attended its observance for a series of years. The ministers of the altar, and the most distinguished of our public orators, have successively employed their talents and their eloquence in perpetuating the memory of those devoted men, who left the land of their fathers, braved the boisterous deep, and encountered the dangers of a savage wilderness, for the sake of worshipping God according to the dictates of their consciences. While there is so much occasion for

all the descendants of the Pilgrims gratefully to observe the return of this anniversary, no one can doubt that there is a peculiar propriety for those of them, who profess to adhere to the same system of Christian faith, in which their fathers believed and on account of which they were exiled from their native land, to cherish the memory of those holy men, with whom, even at this distance of time, they feel a peculiar union, and an attachment, stronger than that which mere patriotism can inspire, springing from congeniality of thought and feeling on subjects of the most momentous interest ;-for it will not be denied by the faithful historian of New England, that the religious opinions of that little band of devoted Christian heroes, who first made a lodgment in this western world, were most decidedly orthodox or Calvinistic. /

It is not our design, at the present time, to enter into a controversial defence of their religious peculiarities, nor to condemn those who have departed from their faith and have embraced a more liberal theology. In this free and happy land, we would be the last to bind, by any other means than rational conviction, the descendants of the Puritans to the faith of their ancestors, much as we revere and cordially as we ourselves

embrace it, but, while we would allow to others the same right we claim ourselves of private judgment in matters of religious faith, we shall not be denied the satisfaction of feeling a peculiar interest in this memorable occasion, arising from our sympathies with our pilgrim fathers in religious principle. Nor do we esteem it a thing of small moment that we are permitted to claim lineage in our religious faith with such men as settled the colony at Plymouth. Though we would call no man Master, and would ever keep our minds open, in accordance with the parting counsel of the venerable pastor of the church at Leyden, to all the light which may break from the sacred volume of divine truth-yet we would esteem it a source of unfeigned gratitude to that Being, who alone can preserve us from error, that, after the lapse of two centuries, there are to be found among the descendants of the Pilgrims, those, who are not ashamed of their father's faith-who believe in the same cardinal doctrines of revelation-who worship the same triune Jehovah-and trust in the same atoning blood for the salvation of their souls. It is, therefore, most fit and proper that the adherents to the faith of the Pilgrims should cherish their memory, and observe, with devout gratitude, the return of this anniversary.