of gold would tempt us deliberately to renounce or barter away forever this precious inheritance?-and take our chance for time and eternity with benighted pagans or with infatuated infidels? Have we the Bible-and can we be insensible to its blessings, or regardless of its commands? Have we yet to learn that liberality, charity, active benevolence, are as positively enjoined upon us by the great Jehovah as are the duties of justice and common honesty? That while human wants, and human woes, and human ignorance abound in our country or in our world, we are as much obligated to seek their alleviation and removal, as we are to pay our debts-as much bound to love mercy as to do justly-as much bound to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and instruct the ignorant, and to send the gospel of salvation to the perishing, as to bring up our own children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and to provide things honest in the sight of all men for our own households? Here The Bible cause, if any cause in the world can do it, may claim to unite the zeal and the exertions of all sects of Christians, without inducing one momentary feeling of suspicion, jealousy or unkindly exasperation. is common ground-if not neutral ground-upon which all may safely and heartily co-operate. Christians are not required to think alike, on all points, any more than to look alike. Let them differ in charity-and respect each other's scruples, peculiarities and prejudices. But if they possess the spirit of their Master they will be ever in readiness to march forth, with one heart, to the help of the Lord against the mighty. Is it possible that Christians can pray to the great Head of the church, from day to day, "thy kingdom come," and yet refuse to contribute an effort or a dollar towards its enlargement? That the highly-favoured Christian citizens of the wealthy and flourishing City of Nashville ought to give something to aid the great work of circulating the Bible, and of evangelizing the world-none of us, here in the presence of the heartsearching God, will dare to question. How much each individual ought to give must be left to his own conscience, and his own sense of responsibility and obligation. I judge no man. God is Judge of you and me. I upbraid no man. "To his own Master he standeth or falleth." (Rom. xiv. 4.) I shall need indulgence in the great day, on this score, as much as any of you. None of us, in the hour of death, or before the judgment-seat of Christ, will ever imagine that we have done too much, or given away too much, in charity. Our regret will not then be, that we have loved and honoured the Bible too much, or that we have loved our fellow-men too much, or that we were too zealous in spreading the gospel, or too liberal in our benefactions to disseminate the knowledge and the blessings of heavenly truth, and wisdom, and peace, and joy, and salvation. VINDICATION OF THE TEMPERANCE CAUSE.* Ar the request of the Tennessee Temperance Society, I appear before you this day as the advocate of temperance and of temperance associations. I should certainly have declined the task on this occasion, as I had done at other times, on the ground that many individuals, more highly gifted and better fitted for the work, could have been easily prevailed on to officiate, did I not apprehend that my silence might, at length, be construed into indifference or hostility to the cause itself. I felt the difficulty of meeting any reasonable expectations in discoursing on a subject so thoroughly exhausted by the numerous able essays and eloquent addresses which have been written, and spoken, and published in every corner of our land-which seemed to preclude the hope of exciting interest or of commanding attention by even the semblance of novelty, in any mode of argument or illustration which might be adopted. I was not insensible also to the extreme delicacy of the undertaking, which would require no mean share of prudence and tact to discuss the subject fairly and fully without giving offence. I knew that a large majority of my hearers * An Address delivered before the Tennessee State Temperance Society, May 15, 1831. |