pride. In despite, therefore, of personal reluctance, your lordship will, I trust, not only permit me thus openly to mark a "difference between the evil and the good," but further excuse me if I seem to overprize an excellence which is so lamentably rare.

As a clergyman, I very naturally associate in idea the person of the present Commander-in-chief with that of his venerated namesake and departed kinsman, the Reverend ROWLAND HILL: I have also had an opportunity of perusing certain of your lordship's “PRI

VATE INSTRUCTIONS ADDRESSED TO OFFICERS COM

MANDING REGIMENTS," bearing date the 24th June, 1830. These instructions appear to have been dictated by a spirit of benevolence and consideration, so wise and seasonable, for the interests of the army, as to inspire a conviction that, if they were cordially seconded on the part of officers, they could not fail eventually to restore that high standard of honour and self-respect, that chivalrous sense of moral right and wrong, once peculiar to the profession, but now of a long time departed from it.

I have reason, therefore, to be persuaded that PIETY and PHILANTHROPY are the (heaven-bestowed) heritage of your lordship's family: and I the more willingly indulge this persuasion, from the HOPE that your lordship may become the honoured instrument

of elevating the character and the principles of the British soldier.

The measures of a severe system of legislative economy have abolished the means formerly appointed for the purpose of evangelising the army-(I mean) the REGIMENTAL CHAPLAINCIES-instead of instituting a reform and a re-establishment of that much abused department. The practical inefficiency of the individuals who formerly occupied those important posts, was no doubt one great cause of this abolition: but, constrained as we may be to admit that such inefficiency, and even great abuses, did exist, still, surely the mere fact of those abuses would not justify the extreme measure of an utter extermination of the order. Will any rational reformer of the state maintain, that the constitution itself shall be destroyed because it requires to be altered and amended? And, in like manner, is it not obligatory, both upon the heads of the army and of the church, to provide duly and abundantly for the spiritual recovery and saving health of those military wanderers, that are "like sheep not having a shepherd ?"

The mention that has been made of this subject, more especially in the FOURTH of the following Sermons, addressed to a military congregation, (however slight and partial,) may not be totally unworthy of

your lordship's attention. And that this, and every other humane and patriotic object contemplated by your lordship, may be attended with merited success, and operate to the extension of true religion, and all its hallowed advantages, among that peculiar class of men over whom it is your lordship's office to preside, is the devout prayer of,

My Lord,

The Soldier's zealous friend,

and

Your Lordship's humble servant,

THE AUTHOR.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

I.

On the Unkindness of Friends

II.

On the Duty and due Effect of Preaching the Word

of God

III.

Against Despondency and Despair

IV.

Compassion for them that are "as Sheep not having

48

79

On the " Unprepared" State of many for Receiv-

ing the Word of God

VII.

103

On Providential Warnings and Divine Visitations 130

VIII.

The Truth an Offence

172