.wrath to come. The laws to be preserved are laws which have lent their congenial influence to the immortal work of saving sinners. The welfare of millions, through eternity, depends, under God, upon their preservation.

Ye parents, which of your children can you give up to the miseries of a profligate life, and the pangs of an impenitent death? Which, undone by your example, or negligence and folly, are you prepared to meet on the left hand of your Judge? Which, if by a miracle of mercy you should ascend to heaven, can you leave behind, to go away into everlasting punishment? Call around you the dear children whom God has given you, and look them o'er and o'er, and, if among them all you cannot find a victim to sacrifice, awake, and with all diligence uphold those institutions which the good shepherd has provided to protect and save them.

My fathers and brethren, who minister at the altar,— the time is short. We must soon meet our people at the bar of God. Should we meet any of them undone by our example, or sloth, or unbelief, dreadful will be the interview! Shall we not lift up our voice as a trumpet, and do quickly, and with all our might, what our hands find to do?

Ye magistrates of a Christian land, ye ministers of God for good, the people of this land, alarmed by the prevalence of crimes and by the judgments of God, look up to you for protection. By the glories and terrors of the judgment-day, by the joys of heaven and the miseries of hell, they beseech you, as the ministers of God, to save them and their children from the dangers of this untoward generation.

Ye men of wealth and influence, will ye not help in this great attempt to reform and save our land? Are not these distinctions talents, for the employment of which you must give an account to God? and can you employ them better

than to consecrate them to the service of your generation by the will of God?

Let me entreat those unhappy men who haste to be rich by unlawful means, who thrive by the vices and ruin of their fellow-men, to consider their end. How dreadful to you will be the day of death! How intolerable the day of judgment ! How many broken-hearted widows, and fatherless children, will then lift up their voices, to testify against you. How many of the lost spirits will ascend from the world of woe, to cry out against you, as the wretches who ministered to their lusts, and fitted them for destruction. In vain will you plead that, if you had not done the murderous deed, other men would have done it; or that, if you had not destroyed them, they had still destroyed themselves. If other men had done the deed, they, and not you, would answer for it; if they had destroyed themselves without your agency, their blood would be upon their own heads. But, as you contributed voluntarily to their destruction, you will be holden as partakers in their sin, and their blood will be required at your hands. Why, then, will you traffic in the souls and bodies of men, and barter away your souls for the gains of a momentary life?

To conclude. Let me entreat the unhappy men who are the special objects of legal restraint to cease from their evil ways, and, by voluntary reformation, supersede the necessity of coercion and punishment. Why will you die? What fearful thing is there in heaven, which makes you flee from that world? What fascinating object in hell, that excites such frenzied exertion to burst every band, and overleap every mound, and force your way downward to the chambers of death? Stop, I beseech you, and repent, and Jesus Christ shall blot out your sins, and remember your transgressions no more. Stop, and the host who follow your steps shall

turn, and take hold on the path of life. Stop, and the wide waste of sin shall cease, and the song of angels shall be heard again: "Glory to God in the highest; on earth peace, good will to men." Stop, and instead of wailing with the lost, you shall join the multitudes which no man can number, in the ascription of blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, to him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb, for ever and ever.

SERMON IV.

THE BUILDING OF WASTE PLACES.

"And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations." ISAIAH 61: 4.

THE text predicts the civil and religious order which should succeed the restoration of the tribes from Babylon. During that long exile, many fields lay untilled, and many cities without inhabitant, their walls broken down. The temple and the synagogues of the nation lay, also, in ruins. But "they shall build," saith the prophet, "the old wastes." The fields shall be tilled, the cities inhabited, the temple rebuilt, and the worship of God restored.

The prediction has unquestionably a reference also to the latter day, and announces that great spiritual change which awaits the nations made desolate by sin.. In all lands the wastes shall be builded, the wastes of Paganism, the wastes of Mahometanism, the wastes of Popery, the wastes of atheism and heresy. The accomplishment of this universal restoration will include the raising up of decayed churches, as well as the planting of new ones; and will be accomplished, doubtless, by the charities and benevolent exertions of those religious communities which are blessed with the institutions of the Gospel.

The waste places of Connecticut, and the duty of building

them, will be the subject of consideration in this discourse.* That there are desolations in this State, will not be questioned by any minutely acquainted with our circumstances. Not a few societies have ceased to hear those doctrines of the Gospel, by the instrumentality of which the Spirit of God awakens, converts, and sanctifies men. A number of churches have become feeble, and, by hard struggling, prolong from year to year the enjoyment of divine institutions; while some have long since fallen, and are now lying in utter desolation.

The building of these wastes will include the propagation of the truth, the communication of strength to the feeble, and the restoration of fallen societies to the order of the Gospel. In the illustration of the subject, it is proposed to consider, I. The causes of these desolations.

II. The means of restoring them.

III. The motives to immediate exertion for that purpose. I. The immediate causes are, evidently, the difference of religious sentiment and worship which prevails, connected with a criminal indifference to the institutions of the Gospel.

There is not, in the State, a town or parish unable to support the Gospel constantly, and with ease, provided all the families in the limits of each were of one heart and of one way to serve the Lord. But the property, in many societies, is divided between three or four different denominations, beside a part which the love of money and indifference to the Gospel wholly withdraw from the support of divine institutions. The consequence is, the decline, and, in some cases, the entire subversion, of that religious order which our fathers established.

*The remarks applied to this State are, with slight modification, applicable to New England generally; but it is thought best to preserve the local references.