lic for assistance, it may be inquired what objects we hope to attain by this institution. I answer, in the first place, that it sheds an aspect of stillness and serenity over the Sabbath. Its efficacy in this respect is literally astonish. ing. I remember the observation of a distinguished physician in New-York, whose profession led him to see much of that place, that such was the change produced by Sunday Schools, he could easily have distrusted the evidence of his senses. On this point, however, I can safely appeal for testimony to those of the audience who have recently resided in the Atlantic cities; and if the foreign gazettes may be credited, the same order and tranquillity are witnessed in the principal towns of Great Britain. Just in proportion also to the observance of the Sabbath, does this institution become a powerful engine for the prevention of vice. During the week, children are induced to husband their leisure moments for their lessons; and when Sunday arrives, they repair to the place of recitation, to receive the reward of their industry. This is at once relieving the parent from a duty which he seldom has time to discharge; and it also shields them from the examples of idle, heedless, or profane servants, and the company of improper associates-exposures which have probably debased and degraded more youthful minds than all other causes united. I only add, that of four thousand children educated on this plan by Mr. Raikes, in Gloucester, but one at the time of his death had been charged with a crime, although the whole of them had then attained the age of maturity. After all, the importance of Sunday Schools may be estimated chiefly by the blessings they convey to the pupils themselves. They develope the faculties of the mind, and especially they elicit and exercise the powers of the memory. With respect to poor children, also, who have few other advantages, they frequently detect, amidst the rubbish of ignorance and obscu

rity, the diamond of native talent. Besides this, they have an unequivocal tendency to create habits of respectability and virtue. Often, very often, have they rescued purity from exposure, misfortune from despondency, and innocence from temptation. Conversing recently with an intelligent merchant at the eastward, he told me with much feeling, that he could never cancel the debt he owed to Sunday Schools. On subsequent inquiry, I was informed that they had reclaimed him from early debasement and laid the foundation of his present affluence and character. A similar instance lately occurred in New-York: A young man called at the British Consul's office, and made himself known as the pupil, several years ago, of a Sunday School in the north of Ireland. He was the child of shame, and no parents owned him for their son. But that Sunday

School had been to him a father, and mother, and sister, and brother. With the principles which it instilled into his mind he had entered the world become his own ancestor, and secured, by merit, a standing which family had not bestowed. He handed to the Consul one hundred dol. lars, his little earnings in a foreign land, and wished it remitted to his destitute mother-the forlorn daughter of sorrow, and guilt, and disgrace. But there is another triumph which has distinguished the march of Sunday Schools, and that is, the frequent instances in which they have led the docility of childhood to the Cross of Christ.

Could I present you, my hearers, with a register of those who are indebted to such institutions for the hope of immortality, I should think my object secured. In cases too numerous to be related, have children been ultimately imbued with the spirit of that Bible which they studied at first only under the incitement of curiosity or emulation. Multitudes are now living, of the most consistent Christian character, who ascribe to this origin their first religious impressions;

and, as if to demonstrate the genuineness and divinity of the work, hundreds have been called to the world of spirits, and left their dying testimony to the power of the Gospel on their hearts. I might easily fill up the evening with examples. I might tell you of a child eleven years old, in Baltimore, not long since removed from life, who spent the last efforts of nature in singing an hymn she had learned at the Sunday School. I might remind you of a pupil of nine years, in Massachusetts, who called his parents to his bedside, told them of the love of Christ, kissed them a composed farewell, and died in their arms. I might repeat the story of a little child in Edinburgh, eight years only of age, who had found his Saviour in a Sunday School; who remained firm in the hour of dissolution; summoned the family around him; gave one hand to his father, and the other to his mother, and triumphantly expired. I might recite an impressive variety of cases in which juvenile faith has abandoned the pursuits of sin, enlisted in the ranks of religion, honored the Church and the world, disarmed death of its terrors, and irradiated eternity with the hopes of the Gospel. But I will not consume your time by recounting the items of this evidence. Rather let me add: Here are the objects of our ambition; here are the conquests we aspire to achieve ; here are Sunday Schools in all the legitimacy of their influ ence, and all the majesty and magnificence of their results. Of the institution in this city, we can only say, it has risen, like the rest, from small beginnings. Receiving continual accessions, however, about seventy pupils are now the regular subjects of gratuitous instruction on the Sabbath. Upon you, my hearers, it depends whether we shall go on in the work we have begun. Lend us your patronage, and we will cheerfully submit to the labor, the toil, the difficulty of the undertaking. Replenish our funds, and send us your children, and we will rear in New-Orleans an institution of

civil, social, and religious good, which all of you shall rejoice to contemplate. I have no further arguments to urge. This is one of those subjects which, to the citizen, the philanthropist, the Christian, plead their own cause, and speak their own eulogy. Let me merely say, that if your liberality enables us to accomplish the plan we have commenced, not only the children who are now advancing to take our places as we retire from life, not only they, but generations yet unborn will rise up and call you blessed.

SERMON XII.

"We pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God."
2 Corinthians, v., 20.

THAT was not an unmeaning inquiry of the prophet, "Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" Were an angel suddenly to light upon this earth, a stranger to its impenitence and guilt, and degradation, he would instinctively recoil. He would find himself on a little isthmus, between time and eternity, wasted by the one and washed by the other; and yet crowded with millions of immortal souls, indifferent to the suddenness and certainty with which they were sinking into the surrounding abyss. He would see them absorbed in a world they must soon relinquish,—unmindful of an existence they will never terminate, and careless of a Saviour they must receive or die; and, overpowered by the solemn and affecting prospect, he would exclaim, in the words of Inspiration, "Verily, the carnal mind is enmity against God— not subject to the law of God-neither, indeed, can be.”

But, my hearers, it needs not the purity nor the penetration of an angel to adopt this melancholy language. It is only to examine the lineaments of the natural heart by the light of the Bible, and all of us must confess that we are the enemies of God, unless and until "reconciled by the blood of His Son." For what else is the meaning of the text? On whom could the apostle enjoin reconciliation but on enemies? How could he instruct us, as instruct us he certainly does, to return to friendship and peace, if we had never before felt hostility? The truth is, he has deceived us and every chapter of Revelation has deceived