and the stake, where they wore the crown of martyrdom 15 in the cause of Jesus, has ascended in thick volumes to the skies. The tribes of persecution have sported over her woes, and erected monuments, as they imagined, of her perpetual ruin. But where are her tyrants, and where their empires? the tyrants have long since gone 20 to their own place; their names have descended upon the roll of infamy; their empires have passed, like shadows over the rock--they have successively disappeared, and left not a trace behind! But what became of the church? She rose from 25 her ashes fresh in beauty and might. Celestial glory beamed around her; she dashed down the monumental marble of her foes, and they who hated her fled before her. She has celebrated the funeral of kings and kingdoms that plotted her destruction; and, with the in 30 scriptions of their pride, has transmitted to posterity the records of their shame. How shall this phenomenon be explained? We are at the present moment, witnesses of the fact; but who can unfold the mystery. The book of truth and life, has made our wonder to 35 cease. 'THE LORD HER GOD IN THE MIDST OF HER IS MIGHTY.' His presence is a fountain of health, and his protection a 'wall of fire.' He has betrothed her, in eternal covenant to himself. Her living head, in whom she lives, is above, and his quickening spirit 40 shall never depart from her. Armed with divine virtue, his gospel, secret, silent, unobserved, enters the hearts of men and sets up an everlasting kingdom. It eludes all the vigilance, and baffles all the power of the adversary. Bars, and bolts, and dungeons are no ob 45 stacle to its approach: Bonds, and tortures, and death cannot extinguish its influence. Let no man's heart tremble, then, because of fear. Let no man despair (in these days of rebuke and blasphemy,) of the Christian cause. The ark is launched, indeed, upon the 50 floods; the tempest sweeps along the deep; the billows break over her on every side. But Jehovah-Jesus has promised to conduct her in safety to the haven of peace. She cannot be lost unless the pilot perish. Mason. 93. Obligations to the Pilgrims. Let us go back to the rock, where the Pilgrims first stood, and look abroad upon this wide and happy land, so full of their lineal or adopted sons, and repeat the question, to whom do we owe it, that "the wilder5 ness has thus been turned into a fruitful field, and the desert has become as the garden of the Lord?" To whom do we owe it, under an all-wise Providence, that this nation, so miraculously born, is now contributing with such effect to the welfare of the human family, by 10 aiding the march of mental and moral improvement, and giving an example to the nations of what it is to be pious, intelligent, and free? To whom do we owe it, that with us the great ends of the social compact are accomplished to a degree of perfection never before real 15 ized; that the union of public power and private liberty is here exhibited in a harmony so singular and perfect, as to allow the might of political combination to rest upon the basis of individual virtue, and to call into exercise, by the very freedom which sucha union gives, 20 all the powers that contribute to national prosperity ? To whom do we owe it, that the pure and powerful light of the gospel is now shed abroad over these countries, and is rapidly gaining upon the darkness of the western world ;--that the importance of religion to the 25 temporal welfare of men, and to the permanence of wise institutions is here beginning to be felt in its just measure;--that the influence of a divine revelation is not here, as in almost every other section of christendom, wrested to purposes of worldly ambition;-that the ho 30 ly Bible is not sealed from the eyes of those for whom it was intended;-and the best charities and noblest powers of the soul degraded by the terrors of a dark and artful superstition? To whom do we owe it, that in this favoured land the gospel of the grace of God has 35 best displayed its power to bless humanity, by uniting the anticipations of a better world with the highest interests and pursuits of this;-by carrying its merciful influence into the very business and bosoms of men; by making the ignorant wise and the miserable happy; 40-by breaking the fetters of the slave, and teaching "the babe and the suckling" those simple and sublime truths, which give to life its dignity and virtue, and fill immortality with hope ?-To whom do owe all this? Doubtless to the Plymouth Pilgrims!--Happily did one 45 of those fearless exiles exclaim, in view of all that was past, and of the blessing, and honour, and glory that was yet to come, "God hath sifted three kingdoms, that he might gather the choice grain, and plant it in the wilderness!" Whelpley. 94. A Future State. 'Tis done! dread Winter spreads his latest glooms, 5 His desolate domain. Behold, fond man! See here thy pictur'd life: pass some few years, And pale concluding Winter comes at last, 10 And shuts the scene. Ah! whither now are fled 15 Lost between good and ill, that shar'd thy life? 20 Of heav'n and earth! awak'ning Nature hears 25 Uniting as the prospect wider spreads, Ye vainly wise! ye blind presumptuous! now, 30 Why unassuming worth in secret liv'd, 35 In palaces, lay straining her low thought, 40 Imbitter'd all our bliss. Ye good distress'd! Thomson. 95. Present facilities for evangelizing the world compared with those of Primitive times. The means of extending knowledge, and influencing the human mind by argument and moral power, are multiplied a thousand fold. The Lancasterian mode of instruction renders the instruction of the world cheap 5 and easy. The improvements of the press have reduced immensely, and will reduce yet more, the price of books, bringing not only Tracts and Bibles, but even libraries within the reach of every man and every child. But in the primitive age, the light of science beamed 10 only on a small portion of mankind. The mass of mankind were not, and could not be, instructed to read. Every thing was transient and fluctuating, because so little was made permanent in books, and general knowledge, and so much depended on the character, the life 15 and energy of the living teacher. The press, that lever of Archimedes, which now moves the world, was unknown. It was the extinction of science by the invasion of the northern barbarians, which threw back the world ten 20 centuries; and this it effected through the want of permanent instruction, and the omnipotent control of opinion which is exerted by the press. Could Paul have put in requisition the press, as it is now put in requisition by Christianity, and have availed himself of literary so 25 cieties, and Bible societies, and Lancasterian schools to teach the entire population to read, and of Bibles, and Libraries and Tracts, Mahomet had never opened the bottomless pit, and the Pope had never set his foot upon the neck of kings, nor deluged Europe with the 30 blood of the saints. Should any be still disposed to insist, that our advantages for evangelizing the world, are not to be compared with those of the apostolic age, let them reverse the scene, and roll back the wheels of time, and obliterate 35 the improvements in science and commerce and arts, which now facilitate the spread of the Gospel. Let them throw into darkness all the known portions of the earth, which were then unknown. Let them throw into distance the propinquity of nations: and exchange their 40 rapid intercourse for cheerless, insulated existence. Let the magnetic power be forgotten, and the timid navigator creep along the coasts of the Mediterranean, and tremble and cling to the shore when he looks out upon the loud waves of the Atlantic. Inspire 45 idolatry with the vigor of meridian manhood, and arm in its defence, and against Christianity, all the civilization, and science, and mental power of the world. Give back to the implacable Jew his inveterate unbelief, and his vantage ground, and disposition to oppose Christian 50 ity in every place of his dispersion, from Jerusalem to every extremity of the Roman Empire. Blot out the means of extending knowledge and exerting influence upon the human mind. Destroy the Lancasterian system of instruction, and throw back the mass of men into 55 a state of unreading, unreflecting ignorance. Blot out libraries, and Tracts; abolish Bible and Education and Tract and Missionary Societies; and send the nations for knowledge parchment, and the slow and limited pro |