ledge of God to cover the earth, as the waters cover the seas."

According to the foregoing call of our rulers, we are now assembled, to unite with our fellow citizens, not of one church or denomination, but of all the churches and people of these United States, in Thanksgivings, Prayers and Praises, for His late mercies and deliverances; and truly, if the duties of the day be sincerely and conscientiously discharged, we ought to consider the occasion as awfully interesting and solemn.

"A great and numerous people, with one consent and under one authority, met to render thanks, and to offer up praises to the Almighty, for signal favours and blessings, is, indeed, a spectacle, on which angels above look down with complacency, and the great God of angels and men will regard with delight!"

Songs, or Hymns of praise and triumph, addressed to the great Creator of Heaven and earth, (or to the Divinities considered by the nations that knew not the true God, as the supreme benefactors of mankind) were among the oldest and most exalted compositions of Poets, and other writers, inspired as well as uninspired.

There is something in Poetry and Music admirably suited to divine and lofty subjects; and it is natural for the soul of man, when struck with any thing surprisingly great, good, or marvellously new, to break forth beyond the common modes of speech, into the most rapturous strains of expression, accompanied with correspondent Attitudes of Body,

and Modulations of Voice. Even the untutored savages around us, furnish striking proofs of this!

Hence it arose, that Poetry and Music were originally appropriated and confined to the worship of the Supreme God, or the divinities of the nations, to whom He was not known; and the best and wisest men of all ages have had recourse to divine Hymns and Spiritual Songs in the effusions of the soul to the almighty Lord of heaven and earth.

Ere yet temples were built, or fixed hours of devotion set apart; when the voice of Conscience could be heard, and the busy scenes of Art had not seduced away the attention of Man from the grand scenes of Nature; the great Progenitors of our Race, and Patriarchs of Mankind, as they tended their flocks onward from pasture to pasture, as they beheld the refreshing Rains descend, and the Sun, in his turn, pour down his refulgent beams, to vivify and fertilize the earth, and to rejoice the heart of man and of every living creature; or when they were struck with any more surprising effect or manifestation of Almighty Power and Goodness, kindling their admiration and gratitude-that auspicious moment they embraced, as the Tongue or Organ of Praise for the whole Animal Creation on earth, and rapt into sacred extasy, poured forth their unpremeditated strains, to that adorable God, the author of all this bounty, who formed the earth, the Sun and Moon which they beheld; that poised the clouds in air, that enriched their bosoms with treasure and bade them drop down in fatness, to rejoice herb, and beast, and man.

These divine emanations of the soul, in strains of praise and gratitude to heaven, are surely nothing less than the express inspirations of God himself, through the secret agency of his grace, and the power of his works, in the hearts of men, in those first ages of simplicity and love; and, as this was the first origin of Poetry, Music, and Songs of praise before God, it were to be wished, that among all our other improvements, we had not too much improved away this pure primitive intercourse with the Father of Light and Spirits! Yet still, we are to reflect that this is a world of imperfection; and that, as there are advantages, there are also inconveniences, to every stage of its progress, from original simplicity to its last stage of improvement and refinement.

But to proceed; some of the most beautiful pieces of divine poesy are left us by the eastern nations, and especially by the Hebrews; in whose compositions of this kind, we are more directly concerned, as they are recorded for us in our Bibles. One of the most exalted of these is the Song of Moses, from which I have taken my text-composed in a transport of joy, admiration and gratitude, when he beheld the Mighty One of Israel, divide the great deep before his people, and lead them through on dry ground; while the waters closed with irresistible fury behind them; and whelmed their proud pursuers in the bottom of the sea!

This was a subject marvellous indeed, and astonishing beyond a parallel! At the blast of the nostrils of the God of heaven, the course of Nature was controuled. A mighty ocean divided itself before the

Lord.

the sea.

The waters left their channel in the heart of

They were gathered up on either side, wave on wave, heap on heap, and stood arrested or congealed in liquid mountains at the nod of the Almighty! The children of Israel passed through on dry ground. Immediately the waters closed with irresistible fury; and the hosts of their proud pursuers were covered, overwhelmed, consumed-as a stone that sinks to the bottom.

"Thus the Lord saved Israel that day, out of "the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea-shore

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"Then sang Moses and the children of Israel "this Song unto the Lord, saying-I will sing unto "the Lord for he hath triumphed gloriously. The "Lord is my strength and my Song; and he is become my salvation. He is my God and I will prepare Him an habitation; my father's God, and I "will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war; the "Lord is his name."*

In such strains as these did the raptured leader of Israel, and all his host of followers, celebrate the God of their fathers, on their deliverance from the rage of Pharaoh; leaving an example for all succeeding ages on the like grand occasions.

A like sacred example we have in the great festiyal sacrifice and thanksgiving of David, on receiving back the Ark of God, the great pledge and deposition of the civil and religious privileges of his nation. On that happy occasion† "He and all the

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Elders of the people, and the Levites, and the Captains over thousands, appeared in solemn procession, with instruments of music, psalteries, and harps, and cymbals, and the sound of the cornet and of the trumpet, and the lifting up the voice with joy; and David himself came singing and dancing before them, as a testimony of his true piety and gratitude; though Saul's daughter, beholding out at a window, and not animated with the same godly rapture, despised or laughed at him in her heart as guilty of levity."

But why should I mention more examples? The same Reason that calls us to humble ourselves before God, on the marks of his Displeasure, calls us to rejoice before Him, with Thanksgiving, on the marks of his Favour. For a series of years past we have had many days of weeping and sorrow and fasting; and the hardest heart must bleed to recount the scenes of suffering and anguish and distress which we have beheld. In every city, in every village, nay in every private house and family, long hath the voice of sorrow been heard, for heroes slain in battle; kindred hands imbrued in kindred blood; fathers deprived of sons; sons of fathers; wives of husbands; brothers of brothers; and friends of friends.

But we are this day called to express our gratitude to God on events of a more pleasing nature, the Success of the allied armies of these United States, almost in every quarter of our country, by land and by Sea; the blessing the fruits of the earth, and giving us plentiful harvests; and, particularly, the capture of a General* of the first rank, with his whole army,

Lord Cornwallis.