anthropy he had lost in individual sympathy; and you would, probably, discern that he was a less affectionate son, a less careful parent, a less useful private citizen. If patriotism or universal benevolence were to become his passion, you would find him sacrificing the great laws of mutual justice to the imagined interests of his own country, or of the world at large; and his moral sense, which was once a nice test of right and wrong in human actions, would be destroyed by too great familiarity with the maxims of national policy, or with the speculations of universal benevolence. Thus we may venture to predict that this man, when arrived at the summit of the excellence he most earnestly sought, would, in fact, be a man of less moral worth than if his character had been left to be formed by the plastic power of the common situation, uncertainties, disappointments, and casualties of life.

I will suppose another case in which a man shall be permitted to choose his own character. It is that of one impressed with a deep sense of the importance of religious opinions. He looks around on the world, and his heart aches, when he views the creatures of God perishing in ignorance of what, he thinks, can alone constitute their felicity. He glows with a zeal which to him appears the purest of human passions.

If he were to choose the character he would exhibit to the world, it would be that of a man passionately devoted to the progress of religious opinions. Nay, more, he would establish the character to which he aspires, if it were necessary, by marching cheerfully to the stake, and dying a martyr in the cause of his God. He is afraid of incurring the suspicion of lukewarmness, and would change any situation in life, if he could open a wider field for the exercise

of his zeal. But take care that you are not too impatient to burst the limited sphere in which God has placed you. Your zeal, if it had all the scope you wish, might break out into passion; your deep sense of the value of religious opinions might tread on the brink of uncharitableness; and your ardor for reform might, if your station would admit of it, lead you to reform by persecution instead of persuasion. No, my friend, trust the shaping of your character in the hands of Providence. He has placed you in circumstances where you are obliged to love men with whom you differ, and to coöperate with men whom you burn to reform. Sometimes God cools your ardor in his own cause by disappointments for which you cannot account; sometimes he places you in situations which you find it difficult to accommodate to your principles of conduct, and opens to you views which make you doubt the infallibility of your own conclusions. In short, God, by the circumstances and connexions in which you have been placed, has made you truly useful, whereas you might have been only zealous; he has kept you candid, when you might have been uncharitable; he has given you influence only, where you wanted power; and has preserved you, a mild example of the excellence of his religion, when your own enthusiasm might have dishonored the cause you had espoused, or your passions have led you to the stake, a vain and unprofitable martyr.

Indulge me, my friends, with one supposition more on this subject, and I have done.

Here is a man whose ruling passion is honor. If he were allowed to fashion his own reputation, he would be distinguished for an excessive sensibility which feels a stain as it would a wound. Influenced by the contemplation of

imaginary characters, he endeavors to form himself after the model of heroes he has admired in history, or characters that he has contemplated in the lustre of romance. But, as soon as this man enters into the world of actual existences, he finds that he has been preparing himself for a different sphere. He finds that the every-day virtues of sober and industrious citizens meet with a better reception than all the refinements of superior spirits, with the light of which he hoped to encircle his character. He begins to suspect that he has fashioned his feelings for a state of society which it is the amusement of romancers only to portray, and of enthusiasts to imagine, and that he has lost much of the happiness which he might have found in this mixed world, merely by seeking for beings which do not yet exist, and cherishing expectations which the ordinary race of his companions will delight to disappoint. He will wish in vain, that he had been cast, from his youth, among the roughnesses and disappointments of life, that he might have acquired a disposition adapted to the world in which he is to bustle; and, if God should once more allow this child of refinement to choose the character he would sustain in life, you will find him seeking for happiness in the customary track of human virtues.

You will recollect, my friends, that, in the beginning of this discourse, we hoped to establish two conclusions. First, that God alone disposes of our lot in life; and, secondly, that his arrangements are made with the kindest intentions toward every individual. These conclusions are most interesting, most important, and most consolatory.

Let us bow at the feet of the omniscient Being who orders our circumstances in life, and say: O God! I am ashamed of my pride, my discontent, and my vain expec

When I

tations. I have been disappointed in life, but it was thou who didst disappoint me, and I murmur not. I have been fortunate, but it was thy blessing which gave this unexpected success to my projects, and I am humble. If my plans had always succeeded, they would have interfered with the wise arrangements of thy providence, and, merely for my partial good, disconcerted the profound and extensive operations of thy wisdom and beneficence. When I look back upon my life, I see that thou hast trained me up, in the sure and progressive order of thy providence, to the character and the hopes which I now possess. have thought myself abandoned, thou hast been watching me with paternal care; when I supposed myself most miserable, I have found myself nearer to the acquisition of the only permanent good. The very circumstances of my life, which I thought the most inauspicious, I find the most favorable; and the very trials, which I thought would terminate in my misery or death, I now find had the most benevolent tendency, the most cheerful conclusion. My expectations have been often defeated, and my views altered, but I still find myself crowned with loving-kindness, and surrounded with opportunities for virtue and happiness. In all the events of life, then, I will bless thee. "Though the fig-tree should not blossom," and there should be no fruit in the budding vine of my hopes, yet will I bless the Lord, and" joy in the God of my salvation." I have trusted thee for this life, and, with sentiments like these in continual exercise, may I not trust thee, O God, for eternity?

SERMON III.

ROMANS II. 16.

IN THE DAY WHEN GOD SHALL JUDGE THE SECRETS OF MEN BY JESUS CHRIST, ACCORDING TO MY GOSPEL.

THE doctrine of a future judgment, and consequent retribution, after death, is the first principle of all religion, and the foundation of all religious obedience. It supposes a Power above us, which observes, while it upholds; a Being from whom nothing in our character, or conduct, or destiny is hidden, and to whom it will be as easy to assign with equity our future condition as it was to appoint our present lot. It supposes that we are here on trial for eternity, that we know our obligations and our powers, and that we must hereafter render an account of our conduct. If it were true, that the revelations, which God has given us, had not expressly declared that there would be a day of judgment for every moral agent, it would not be the less probable, for the whole system of Christianity and the whole language of the Scriptures proceed on the supposition of such a retribution; and, whatever there may be of figure and embellishment in the descriptions which the gospel contains of this solemn proceeding, — whether the whole of this great transaction will be finished in one literal day, or the whole world be congregated in one great assembly, the substantial truth of the doctrine is not affected,