sorrows of widowed affliction aggravated, and the struggles multiplied that await orphans torn from the habitation they have been used to call their own, and thrown, it may be, on the help of strangers in the wide inhospitable world! But in the case of every faithful servant of the Lord, the voice is heard from heaven, "Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them, and let thy widow trust in me." And in such circumstances is it not becoming and honourable for the members of the flock and of the fold to come, as it were, "to the help of the Lord," and by united effort, to realise His promise, and shew that you will by no means see the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging bread?" I close with the encouraging declaration of the anointed King at the great day of judgment, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all!"

XVIII.

THE COUNTRY'S BANE.

PREACHED ON THE LAST SABBATH OF THE YEAR.

"And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit." -EPH. v. 18.

THE goodness of the great Creator is conspicuous, throughout the whole extent of the animal creation, in uniting with the gift of life the capacity of enjoyment; and in furnishing, in the munificence of nature, much to gratify this capacity. In the ample storehouse of Providence we find not only such things as are necessary to subsistence, but such as are conducive to pleasure; and as there is not any living creature, however insignificant it may seem, that is not endued with the susceptibility of pleasing sensations or impressions, so there is not any for which the great Author of life has not provided enjoyments suited to its condition and circum

stances.

But the liberality of our Divine Benefactor is particularly conspicuous in reference to man, whose nobler powers are accompanied with abilities above those of other animals for deriving pleasure even from those sources of enjoyment that are of an external and physical kind. Who can look with an observant eye on the arrangements of the natural world

without recognising the regard creating Wisdom has shown, not only to the supply of man's necessities, but to the gratification of his various faculties? Might not the all-wise Creator have furnished the light necessary for the purposes of mere existence and needful occupation, without gratifying the eye with the glories of the solar sky or the luminaries of night, and with all the variety of colour that paints the landscape, and all the lavish expenditure of beauty discernible in the vegetable and animal world, and in the human form and countenance? Might He not have provided the means of communicating sound, so as to convey all such intimations as are necessary to safety and utility, without regaling the ear with the charms of harmony, whether furnished by the minstrels of nature or by the voice and skill of man? Might He not have supplied us with food, and imposed the necessity of using it, without conjoining with it the gratification of the taste and appetite? Might He not have secured from parents the attention necessary for the rearing of their offspring, without soothing their cares and rewarding their pains by the precious feelings associated with the relation and with the multiplied delights of reciprocal affection? In some of the gratifications thus furnished by the bounty of Providence, the inferior animals participate, but their share in them is low and limited. Man derives from them a far more varied and refined enjoyment in the exercise of those powers of thought and reflection that invest the objects before him with qualities unseen by the eye, and associate, with the fleeting, unretainable present, the interesting or momentous properties of the past, the distant, and the future.

For the pleasures that are of an external and physical kind are, in reference to man, the meanest gifts of the Divine bounty. His grand distinction is found in those intellectual and moral endowments which raise him above the lower animals, and give him an affinity to the higher orders of being-powers that qualify him for tracing the works of God with an intelligent eye, for inquiring into the character of their Divine Author, yea, for rising to the love and enjoyment of the ever-blessed Source of all that is excellent and happy. The soul of man can find no satisfying object-his vast and restless desires no settled repose-till they rise to their Great Original, and, thankful for inferior enjoyments, but not content with them, fix their hopes on a state where the gratifications of sense, if admitted, will hold a very subordinate place, and pure and heavenly joys will fill up all the capacities of the immortal soul.

My brethren, the purest pleasures of which man is susceptible the only pleasures that are pure and permanent— are found only in conformity to the will of God, in consciousness of His favour, and in the immediate communications of His love, and are, therefore, of necessity suspended on the predominance of holy principles and affections, and cannot exist in a state of prevailing and wilful disobedience. Despoiled of these precious treasures by the treachery of sin, man has not only lost the possession, but been deprived of all remembrance and sense of them; so that he cannot form one just conception of spiritual and holy enjoyments till Divine grace becomes his teacher, and revives the idea by communicating anew the possession of them. And in his present fallen state, even the inferior pleasures that remain

are greatly lessened and abridged. Is not the gratification attendant on the discoveries of the understanding greatly abridged by the feebleness of the human mind, the frequency of its errors, and the uncertainty of its conclusions? Is not the gratification attendant on the affections of the heart greatly impeded by the imperfection of its best feelings, and the perverting influence of contrary propensities? Still there are many alleviations of the mournful consequences of the fall, and numberless proofs of the bounty of Heaven; but how much to be lamented is that perverse bias of our nature which converts the goodness of the great Creator, so conspicuous in the arrangements and productions of the natural world, into an occasion of sin, and in the abuse of His gifts discovers its alienation from the Giver of all good!

What a fatal tendency do we observe in man to set his affections on those meaner gratifications that are designed only to assist his nobler efforts, diverting them from the purpose for which they were intended, like a fraudulent servant who purloins his master's property, or advancing them, in the spirit of idolatry, into that place in his regard which is due to God alone! How generally are the pure enjoyments of spiritual religion unknown and despised! How often are the amiable, though inferior, delights of affection, sympathy, and benevolence disregarded! And in how many instances does the degradation of human nature appear still more grossly in the predominance of the appetites over the affections in the abuse and excess of animal gratifications, in which, sacrificing his intellectual distinctions, man voluntarily debases himself to a level with the brutes!

But of all the perversions of appetite none appears so