caterpillars have scourged guilty nations for crimes.

How frequently have fire and water, these serviceable elements, made horrid insurrections, disastrous to the human race? Populous cities, with guilde palaces and lofty temples, have smoked fiery ruins; and, in old time, the dwillings of sinful men were swept away by a watery inundation. In vain the shrieking wretches betook themselves for safety to the lofty battlements of houses, the tops of highest trees, or even the summits of the aerial mountains. Hear how the earth groans under the burden of thy sins! Here she spreads a barren wilderness, and idle desert; there lifts a frightful ridge of rocks, whence in many places we look down with giddy horror. In some countries she belches fire and smoke from dreadful volcanoes, tremendous indeed to all who hear, but much more terrible to those who live in the neighbouring city, or in the villages of the circum jacent plain. Be it so that these awful phenomena of nature, and others of the like threatening aspect, bespeak not this our globe to be the habitation of an accursed race; what shall we say to useless choking weeds, and poisonous plants, of which she is a willing parent, whilst she refuses to produce the foodful grain, unless when much carressed and importuned? How frequently she

disappoints our fond hopes, and baulks our expectations!

When she refuses to yield her increase, then it is that we have cleanness of teeth in all our borders, while pale famine walks abroad with her evil arrows. The staff of bread is broken, and feble man totters, and falls, and dies.-At other times she expands her jaws, and swallows up alive vast multitudes of rational beings. Earthquake! men tremble when thou art but named! Who can think of thee without horror? O what dire consternation in that dreadful moment! Whither, ah! whither can we fly from the doleful calamity? Avert it, heaven. Execute not thy threatening vengeance upon these guilty lands, and our proud metropolis. If thou hast a mind to punish us, O visit with some milder rod, some gentler minister of wrath.

Not the earth alone, on which we tread, but the air in which we live, and move, and have our being, proves dreadful to our wretched race. Sometimes she summons her stormy winds, her roaring tempests, and bids them shake the walls of stone, and dash the wall-built vessel on the rock. Vain is the help of tough cables and tenacious anchors. The mighty waters at once receive the valuable cargo, and the despairing mariners. How often is she infected with the wide-wasting pestilence? Then death's shafts

y thick, and the hungry grave rejoices at the uncommon fare.-Yet, ugly monster! she never says, it is enough.-But, with no greater calamity can you be visited, ye sons of men, than those which claim your own species for their original. Fell are the monsters of the Lybian deserts! but not to be compared with the abhorred productions of the human heart. Hence matchless killing envy, filthy slander; hence persecution with torturing engines, war with her odious din, and bloody garments. How can you have peace among yourselves, when warring with your God?

Nor is there any period of life wherein we are exempted from wo. Not even the smiling infant is secured against the most fatal disasters. The miseries of childhood are apparent. Affliction spares not the blooming youth, nor reverences the venerable old man. Even age itself, what is it? An incurable distemper, always terminating in death. See how the countenance is shriveled up with wrinkles, the shoulders stoop, the hands tremble, the strong men bow themselves, and they that look out of the windows are darkened!

Neither can any station or condition rescue from these incumbent miseries. The rich, the honourable, and they who swim in tides of pleasure, can bear witness. Why else would Ahab

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sicken for Naboth's vineyard, and Haman lay so sore to heart the refractory behavior of Mordecai? If treasured riches, if sensual delights, added even to knowledge and wisdom, could satisfy the heart, then might thou, Solomon, enjoyed a heaven upon earth, nor complained of vanity and vexation, nor that he who encreaseth knowledge, encreaseth sorrow. Alas! even our greatest comforts prove killing; and far from issuing in contentment, we still complain even in large abundance of worldly delights.

What shall we say then to these things? Shall wretched mortals abandon themselves to sullen sorrow, and hopeless desparation? Shall the world be turned into a Bochim? Is it a place where his mercies are clean gone, and where he will be favourable no more? Are there not many footsteps of the divine benignity, even in this our earthly mansion? Doubtless there are ; for he hath not left himself without a witness, that goodness is essential to his nature; he bids the earth teem with plenty, and the clouds drop with vegetable fatness. There are pleasures of sight, of smell, of taste, peculiar to the various seasons of the revolving year. Many creatures are yet subservient to our interest, and all the elements are made to contribute for our welfare. Far be it from high-favoured men, to despise the riches of the Almighty's goodness. But, O ye

everlasting joys, which the glorious gospel reveals! what thoughtful being would not be discontented with such a world as this, without the consideration of you? The distant prospect of life ́and immortality is able, and that alone, to reconsile the heart to the visible œconomy of God. Even great and sore affliction is deemed but light and vain, because it lasts but for a moment. Eternity apart, the miseries of life would swallow up the joys. But now even these devourers are buried in the capacious womb of vast eternity.

Blessed be thy condescension, O patient son of God, who disdained not to taste the bitter cup of grief; grief not thy own, but ours. And blessed be that wisdom to whose glorious contrivance we are indebted for the cup of consolation presented in the gospel, which we may drink, and remember our misery no more. By various ways the sons of men have tried to extricate themselves from the lamented consequents of their fall. Games and recreations, arts and sciences, yea, many false religions have been invented for this end. Miserable comforters are they all! Christianity it is thine alone to chase our gloom of thought, and wipe away our tears; while by thee we are directed to dart our thoughts beyond this transitory world, this inconsiderable speek of time, unto the eternal