CONCLUDING REMARKS. Or the foregoing splendid pages there will be, in most respects, but one opinion. The historical facts, the sincerity of the writer, the force and originality of his conceptions, and the reasonableness of his conclusions must be generally allowed. But the christian who believes that there is one Almighty Power, that he made the world and all things therein, and that he doth according to his will in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, will here find a true echo to the feelings of his bosom*. And even the prudent worldling, though regardless of futurity and every thing unconnected with the present life, cannot hesitate to prefer the path of safety to that of danger and difficulty. It is true the bigot to a false idolatrous faith, who, intrusting the welfare of his precious and immortal soul to the direction of those interested in his undoing, shuts his eyes against the light, and seems afraid to read, or even think for himself, lest conviction should stare him in the face; the hoary infidel who beholds not a Deity in the midst of his works*; the self-sufficient • The celebrated Galen, in the early part of his life, was not persuaded of the existence of a God. In one of his solitary walks he found a skeleton; having attentively examined the structure of the bones, their wonderful accomodation to receive and secure the nerves and muscles, their texture and figure to give support, strength, and activity, to the whole body, he exclaimed "Surely nothing but a God can have produced this frame!"' Even those, who have persisted in denying God to his face in the midst of his works, have been forced by the power of conscience to recant before they left the world:-One of these maintained his infidelity to the last moment, when he fixed his eyes on heaven, and died exclaiming, O God, O God!-Dr. Valpy's Address to his Parishioners. sciolist, who, though confining his inquiries to the surface of things, imagines himself a paragon of excellence, may withold assent to truths the most sublime, and best attested; and perhaps may treat as baseless and visionary our firm belief in all that has a tendency to exalt human nature above the brutes, and wean the affections of man, the glorious image of his maker, from the transitory scenes of the present life, to the contemplation of subjects suitable to his hopes of immortality beyond the grave*. Such men there always have been, and most probably always will be in the world, "quibus lumen ademptum," and who hear not the voice of the charmer, charming never so wisely. But maugre the blinded obstinacy of the bigot, and the blasphemous sneer of the infidelt; * Vide Note E. "The proud scorners," says Dr. Doddridge in his Life of the celebrated Colonel Gardner, "who may deride sentiments and enjoyments like those which this truly great man so experimentally and pathetically describes, I pity from my heart; and grieve to think how unfit they must be for the hallelujahs of heaven, who pour contempt upon the nearest approaches to them; nor shall I think it my misfortune to share with so excellent a person in the profane derision," the contemptible pretensions of the sciolist, and the guilty apathy of the indolent, the general laws of nature will be upheld till time shall draw the curtain upon mortal existence. The planets will continue to roll on in their courses, and empires to rise and fall; the humble shall be exalted, and the haughty brought low, until the arrival of that appalling period when the sun shall become black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon become as blood—when the stars of heaven shall fall to the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the time is at hand !-Even the present aspect of affairs is ominous of this long predicted and unavoidable event, and adds weight to the opinion that we are fast verging towards the opening of that awful scene when the ways of Providence will be justified to man. War lours over Europe. And what man will be bold enough to affirm that the trumpet, already sounded on the shores of the Bosphorus, may not be intended as the signal of a no very distant reecho from the four quarters of the Globe? And though, judging by analogy from past deliverances, we may entertain the laudable hope that England will still be preserved amid the general wreck of national polity; yet a tenfold vigilance is imperiously called for from every individual member of the state; for who can say that by reforming and correcting himself he may not complete the number for which our country may be saved? For when we reflect upon the ever memorable promise of the Almighty, not to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, if only ten just men could be found amongst their inhabitants, it is by no means improbable that the fate of Britain may likewise hang upon the religious conduct of ONE SINGLE PERSON. True religion then, as it concerns our present peace and eternal welfare, demands at all times the most rigourously unceasing cultivation and support; but especially "on the eve of that mighty catastrophe, which will change alike the face of nations and the minds of men." The evidences of its authenticity are ample, and more than sufficient to satisfy every reasonable and candid inquirer; and indeed I believe there are probably none, who have earnestly, and honestly set about the examination, but what have been convinced of the truth of the doctrines of the |