compact under which we live. No one, accustomed at all to inspect the frame of well-regulated society, need be reminded that the obligation of an oath ought to be kept clothed with the utmost sacredness and solemnity. But is this the fact? By no means. Hundreds, especially of the ignorant classes, are in want only of a sufficient stimulus to burn and blister their lips with the most abominable perjury. And why? We need not wonder at it; it is merely adding an aspect of deliberateness to what they had done again and again before, in the common round of conversation. You can easily see, my hearers, that this familiarity with swearing would naturally endanger the sanctions which judicial proceeding attaches to it; and if presumptive considerations be not enough, go and consult the ablest writers of Europe, I care not whether Christian or Infidel, and one and all will lend assent to the opinion that it is profaneness, more than any single cause besides, which effaces the obligation of judicial oaths from the mind. I have myself known individuals stand up in courts of justice, and swear to positive falsehoods, when the same men, having enforced upon them the kissing of a Bible, or a cross, would turn pale, and halt, and tremble, and finally speak the truth; and the reason plainly was, that the simple act of swearing was too common with them to inspire solemnity, while the merest appendage, in itself of no value, clothed the whole transaction with a novelty which produced the effect.

I say not these things as if any of us were in danger, from a habit of profaneness, of losing our veneration for an oath: but this I say, that each of us is putting forth an example which has its sphere of influence. And we are solemnly bound, in whatever relation of life, as parents, as citizens, as men, to abandon a practice which carries with it the silent and imperceptible, but certain consequence of inflicting a serious injury on the public welfare. There is still, however, another light in which this subject presents itself, one more impressive than any that have yet been named. I mean in regard to the positive and repeated prohibitions of the Godhead. Go the rounds of human society, and what a picture meets the eye! In the dominions of Mahometanism, you will see a devout Turk curb-. ing his fondness for wine during life, in obedience to his prophet. In Pagan countries, the Hindoo will forego his ordinary food for weeks together, because the beda or shaster enjoins it. And even among the Indians of our own wilderness, you will find the most painful austerities enforced in the worship of the Great Spirit. But come back to Christendom, and one half, if not more, of the whole population are indulging in a habit of profaneness which the Christian's God has forbidden, and to which not a propensity in human nature furnishes the least palliating incentive or temptation! But is nothing alleged to excuse it? Certainly there is, my hearers; and never, since the days of Adam, has there been a sin for which human ingenuity has not devised an excuse! The swearer tells you that he means no harm: and what does this prove? Why, only that he has forgotten his Creator, and trampled on the duty he owes him, and become so much of a veteran in the practice, as to be insensible to its enormity. Mean what he may, let him lay his hand on the Bible, and ask, if the unchangeable God will hold him guiltless who taketh his name in vain? He tells you, again, that he swears only under the excitement of passion or drink. And here, you see, is one sin lugged in to expiate another. How came he under that excitement? As if the native depravity of the heart were not sufficient, it must be goaded on by animal indulgencies. Quite as well, yes, better, might the criminal escape justice by pleading that he too was under influence of rage or intoxication! It is said, again, especially

by persons entrusted with command, that profaneness is necessary to enforce obedience. The whole secret of this is, that superiors upon sea or land become first accustomed, on any urgent occasion, to evince their earnestness by a volley of oaths, until, at last, they never seem to their men in earnest without oaths. Let them fix upon any artificial mark of earnestness, whatever-a sentence in Greek, or an extract from Propria que maribus and it will help them quite as much in the command of sailors, soldiers, or workmen, as profaneness now does, if it only be as often and as furiously repeated.

Alas! my hearers, wretched, wretched indeed are such apologies for the profanation of the awful name of God. How you may feel, I cannot say, -the practice has spread so widely among men, that by this time it is rifled of nearly all its seeming enormity; but, for my part, I confess I should shudder at contracting a guilt like this, so useless to my. self, and so insulting to my Maker; and if I did it, I should shudder still more to look forward to that terrific and appalling day, when, for every idle word, the all-seeing God will bring me into judgment!

A single remark more, and I have done: I observed, when I commenced, that the subject brought before us by the text was one of unusual solemnity. The reason is, that every individual, no matter who, addicted to the habit of profaneness, is carrying upon himself the most positive and unequivocal mark of impenitence!

Let me be understood, my hearers, I do not mean that every lingering imperfection in the human heart is to be construed into an evidence of its unregeneracy. So far from it, the New Testament expressly informs us that a variety of sins will lurk in a Christian's bosom even after his conversion. But what are they? They are sins of infirmity. But is profaneness of this class? What constitutional weakness would ever tempt a man, if left to himself, without the pestilence of example around him, to swear? They are sins of ignorance. But is profaneness of this class? Hardly can we turn to a page of the Bible, on which it is not in the plainest terms condemned. They are sins of surprise. But is profaneness of this class? Who was ever surprised into a habit, and especially one which not a propensity in human nature is found to crave?

No, my hearers, I might call upon you by your duty to yourselves, to your children, to society, to mankind, to relinquish a practice which good sense disclaims no less than religion prohibits. But, apart from all those things, what I now wish is to tell another very solemn thing: that to swear, in the sense of the apostle, is a deliberate violation of the law of God. It never was, and never will be, habitually chargeable on a follower of Christ; and, to endeavor for a moment to reconcile it with the feeblest hope of salvation, would be like supposing an act of open treason in a patriot, or a known and pre-meditated larceny in an honest man!

The rest I leave to your own reflections.

SERMON XXVII.

"And this is the condemnation that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." 1 John, iii., 19.

It is no wonder, my hearers, that the Gospel should be depicted upon the pages of inspiration under the warm and animating image of light. To us, there is no other language fitted to convey the religion of Christ in the real loveliness of its attributes. We have seen the imposing step with which it has moved through society; we have witnessed the splendid renovations which have everywhere followed its march; we have felt (or it is our own fault if we have not felt), the commanding influence which it wields over the heart, in dislodging the corruptions of sin, and leaving, in their place, the high and holy hopes of immortality; and yet, on some accounts, the metaphor of the text must have been more striking to the primitive Church than it is even to us. They had what we have never had, the spectacle, not merely of Christianity itself, but of the gloom which it came to irradiate. Not only did they see the "Sun of Righteousness" as we do, but they saw it "arise," and they beheld the deepening shadows of night upon which it shone, and they watched its first glowing and glittering beams breaking over the surrounding expanse of darkness and desolation. It is not therefore wonderful, that the early Christians, as well as ourselves, and perhaps more intensely, should have felt in all its force the gladdening assurance, that life and immortality were brought to light in the Gospel. But, after all, so far as regards the meaning of the passage I have read to you, we are still short of the mark. There is reference here not so much to Christian.