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tongue of the dumb should sing.” All this, and much more, he verified. Of all natural imperfections, the want of speech and hearing seem the most deplorable, as they are those which most exclude the unhappy sufferer from society,- from all the enjoyments of the present world, and, it is to be feared, from a right apprehension of his interests in the next. The cure of the deaf and the dumb is particularly mentioned in the prophecies, among the works of mercy the most characteristic of man's great deliverer: and, accordingly, when he came, there was, I think, no one species of miracle which he so frequently performed; which may justify an attention even of preference in us to this calamity.

It is now some years since a method has been found out, and practised with considerable success, of teaching persons, deaf and dumb from the birth, to speak; but it was not till the institution of this Asylum, in the year 1792, that the benefit of this discovery was extended in any degree to the poor,----the great attention, skill, and trouble, requisite in the practice, putting the expense of cure far beyond the reach of the indigent, and even of persons of a middling condition. The Directors of this charity, who are likely, from their opportunities, to have accurate information upon the sul ject, apprehend that the number of persons in this lamentable state is much greater than might be imagined.

In this Asylum, as many as the funds of the charity can support, are taught, with the assistance of the two senses of the sight and the touch, to speak, read, write, and cast accounts. The deafness seems the unconquerable part of the malady; for none deaf and dumb from the birth have ever been brought to hear. But the calamity of the want of the sense of hearing is much alle. viated,-comparatively speaking it is removed, by giving the use of letters and of speech, by which they are admitted to the pleasure of social conversation, are made capable of receiving both amusement and instruc. tion from books, ---are qualified to be useful both to themselves and the community, and, what is most of all, the treasures of that knowledge which maketh wise unto salvation are brought within their reach. The children admitted are kept under the tuition of the house five years, which is found to be the time requisite for their education. They are provided with lodging, board, and washing; and the only expense that falls upon the parent, or the parish, is in the article of clothing. The proficiency of those admitted at the first in-' stitution, in November 1792, exceeds the most sanguine expectations of their benefactors; and the progress of those who have been admitted at subsequent periods, is in full proportion to the time. The number at present exceeds not twenty. There are at this time at least fifty candidates for admission, the far greater part of whom, the slender finances of the society will not per mit to be received.

I am persuaded that this simple statement of the object of the charity, the success with which the good provi. dence of God has blessed its endeavours, within the narrow sphere of its abilities, and the deficient state of its funds, is all that is necessary or even proper for me to say, to excite you to a liberal contribution for the support of this excellent institution, and the furtherance and extension of its views. You profess yourselves the disciples of that Master, who, during his abode on earth in the form of a servant, went about doing good, who did good in that particular species of distress in which this charity attempts to do it, and who, seated now at the right hand of God, sends down his blessing upon those who follow his steps, and accepts the good that is done to the least of those whom he calls his brethren, as done unto himself.

SERMON XI.

JOHN xiii. 34.

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one.

another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

IN that memorable night, when divine love and infernal malice had each their perfect work, -the night when Jesus was betrayed into the hands of those who thirsted for his blood, and the mysterious scheme of man's redemption was brought to its accomplishment, Jesus, having finished the paschal supper, and instituted those holy mysteries by which the thankful remembrance of his oblation of himself is continued in the church until his second coming, and the believer is nourished with the food of everlasting life, the body and blood of the crucified Redeemer;—when all this was finished, and nothing now remained of his great and painful undertaking, but the last trying part of it, to be led like a sheep to the slaughter, and to make his life a sacrifice for sin, in that trying hour, just before he retired to the garden, where the power of darkness was to be permitted to display on him its last and utmost effort, Jesus gave it solemnly in charge to the eleven apostles (the twelfth, the son of perdition, was already lost; he was gone to hasten the execution of his intended treason),-to the eleven, whose loyalty remained as yet unshaken, Jesus in that awful hour gave it solemnly in charge, “ to love

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one another, as he had loved them.” And because the perverse wit of man is ever fertile in plausible evasions of the plainest duties,-lest this command should be interpreted, in after ages, as an injunction in which the apostles only were concerned, imposed upon them in their peculiar character of the governors of the church, our great Master, to obviate any such wilful misconstruction of his dying charge, declared it to be his pleasure and his meaning, that the exercise of mutual love, in all ages, and in all nations, among men of all ranks, callings, and conditions, should be the general badge and distinction of his disciples. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another." And this injunction of loving one another as he had loved them, he calls a new commandment. commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another.”

It was, indeed, in various senses, a new command ment. First, as the thing enjoined was too much a novelty in the practice of mankind. The age in which our Saviour lived on earth was an age of pleasure and dissipation. Sensual appetite, indulged to the most unwarrantable excess, had extinguished all the nobler feelings. This is ever its effect when it is suffered to get the ascendant; and it is for this reason that it said by the apostle to war against the soul. The refinements of

. luxury, spread among all ranks of men, had multiplied their artificial wants beyond the proportion of the largest fortunes; and thus bringing all men into the class of the necessitous, had universally induced that churlish habit of the mind in which every feeling is considered as a weakness which terminates not in self; and those gene. rous sympathies by which every one is impelled to seek his neighbour's good, are industriously suppressed, as disturbers of the repose of the individual, and enemies to his personal enjoyment. This is the tendency, and. hath ever been the effect of luxury, in every nation where it hath unhappily taken root. It renders every man selfish upon principle. The first symptom of this fatal corruption is the extinction of genuine public spirit, --that is, of all real regard to the interests and good order of society; in the place of which arises that base and odious counterfeit, which, assuming the name of patriotism, thinks to cover the infamy of every vice which can disgrace the private țise of man, by clamours for the public good, of which the real object all the while is nothing more than the gratification of the ambition and rapacity of the demagogue. The next stage of the corruption, is a perfect indifference and insensibility, in all ranks of men, to every thing but the gratification of the moment. An idle peasantry subsist themselves by theft and violence; and a voluptuous nobility squander, on base and criminal indulgencies, that superfluity of store which should go to the defence of the country in times of public danger, or to the relief of private dis, tress. In an age, therefore, of luxury, such as that was in which our Saviour lived on earth, genuine philanthropy being necessarily extinguished, what is far beyond ordinary philanthropy, the religious love of our neighbour, rarely, if ever, will be found.

Nor was it missing only in the manners of the world, but in the lessons of the divines and moralists of that age, mutual love was a topic out of use. The Jews of those times were divided in their religious opinions be. tween the two sects of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, The Sadducces were indeed the infidels of their age : they denied the existence of any immaterial substance, --of consequence they held that the human soul is mortal; and they denied the possibility of a resurrection. Their disciples were numerous among the great and valuptuous, but they never had any credit with the body of the people. The popular religion was that of the

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