tially the same as in the days of the apostles: that the dangers to which they are exposed are still as great, and the enemies that oppose their salvation as numerous, as artful, and as powerful as ever; and that, therefore, they still need faithful watchmen to care for their souls. Has not experience taught you, my brethren, that such watchmen are necessary for yourselves? If so, remember, they are no less necessary to others. And if they are thus necessary, then care and exertion are requisite to provide them. By whom shall this care be exercised, this exertion made? Will you reply, By those whose necessities require them? And is it, then, needful to remind you, that by them it will never be done? Have not observation and experience taught you, that men are never more insensible to their spiritual wants, than when those wants are most numerous and pressing? This, this is the circumstance, which, above all others, renders it necessary to care for the spiritual state of mankind. They will not; no, they will not care for themselves. When would the Son of God have made his appearance in our world, had he waited till its prayers drew him down? When would he have sent his apostles to the heathen, had he waited till they solicited such a favour? And when, O Christian, would the Spirit of God have visited your heart, had he waited till it became spontaneously desirous of his presence? Why then should we expect the present inhabitants of the world to be more spiritually wise, more concerned for their eternal interests, than former generations, or than we ourselves have been? Like the merciful God, we must have compassion on those who have no compassion on themselves, and listen to the speechless cry of their necessities.

But why do I insist on this obvious truth? From many of the destitute an imploring cry is already heard. Wakened by the still small voice of God, or by the occasional warning of some transient messenger of the cross, they are becoming sensible of their wants, and beseech us to care for them. Hundreds and thousands would at this moment receive with gratitude and joy the fragments, the crumbs of your spiritual repasts. They cry for the bread of life, but there is none to break it to them. To provide a supply for themselves is beyond their power. And even if it were not so-if all the destitute in our own country and in the world possessed the disposition and the ability to care effectually for themselves, who is to care for posterity-for your posterity? Who is to make the present exertions which are necessary to preserve them from suffering a famine of the word of God? Of this, chimerical as the apprehension may appear, there is no small nor doubtful danger. Only suffer things to pursue their present course, and it is certain that your descendants, at no very distant day, will experience the fulfilment of that awful threatening; "Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will send a famine upon the land; not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord." You can, in some faint degree, conceive of the miseries attendant upon a famine of bread, though the unmerited goodness of God has never permitted you to witness them. But what are these in comparison with the evils occasioned by a famine of the bread of life? As far inferior, as is

corporeal pain to mental anguish; as is the death of the body, to that of the soul; as are a few days of suffering to an eternity of wretchedness. To witness these evils, is to see the moral wilderness, with all its briars and thorns, its wild beasts and noxious reptiles, rapidly encroaching upon the vineyard of God. It is to see our golden candlesticks successively removed out of their places, and one burning and shining light after another extinguished; while none are set up in their room to dispel the hourly increasing darkness. It is to see the ways of Zion mourn because few come to her solemn feasts; the houses of God decaying, shut up, or desecrated; the temples of vice multiplying; the barriers which protect the sanctity of the sabbath prostrated; the Bible cast aside and forgotten as a useless book; the exertions of religious and charitable institutions suspended, and even their existence terminated; the few remaining disciples of Jesus destitute of strength, of activity, and almost of life, constantly diminishing in number; the rising generation growing up without God and without hope; and darkness which may be felt overspreading the land; while an insulted God, looking down from above, commands the clouds to rain no rain upon it, and pronounces it a spot rejected, and nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned. Such are some of the effects which result from a famine of the word of God; such the evils under which a large proportion of our own country and of the world now groans. If we wish either to remove this most terrible of God's judgments from those who are now suffering it, or to avert it from our posterity, immediate and vigorous exertion is indispensably necessary.

Will any one reply, These apprehensions are groundless? It is impossible that in our country, or at least in the most highly favoured parts of it, the gloomy scenes which have been portrayed should ever be realized? My brethren, let no one be too confident of this. Must I remind you that every spot occupied by the Church on earth is a spot which, like the territory of Holland, has been won from an ocean; and that nothing but an adequate mound can prevent that ocean from reclaiming what it has lost ? This mound consists, under God, in a faithful and well educated Christian ministry. Remove this, or neglect to repair the breaches which are constantly making in it, and you will soon see the billows, whose rage it even now scarcely restrains, bursting upon you with irresistible violence, and sweeping away the labours of ages in a day. Where are now the seven churches of Asia, which rose and smiled like so many verdant islands amid the surrounding waves? Go to Asia, or take up the glass of history, and see. II. A second remark, suggested by our text, is this: Men who properly care for the spiritual state of their fellow-beings are rarely to be found. This was the case in the days of St. Paul. It has been so ever since; and, we are constrained to add, it is so still; though, blessed be God, in a less degree than formerly. Will any one attempt to disprove this assertion by referring to the numerous societies which have been formed, to the sums which are collected, to the zeal and activity which are displayed for the promotion of almost every religious object? To every thing which can be urged of this nature, I would allow its full weight. That much has been

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done, that much is now doing to meliorate, the moral condition of man, is readily acknowledged. Still there exists, I conceive, ample foundation for the remark, that men who are suitably concerned for the spiritual condition of their fellow-beings are very rarely to be found. It must be recollected that warmth and coldness are relative terms, no less in the spiritual than in the natural world, Our climate might be thought warm by a visiter from Nova Zembla; but how would it appear to a native of the torrid zone? So to us, natives of this frozen world, the present temperature of our spiritual climate may appear sufficiently high. But how would it appear to an inhabitant of heaven, were he condemned to reside among us? How would it appear to our benevolent Saviour, should he revisit the earth? Would he not find it intolerably chilling? Would he not regard the warmest love, the most fervent zeal, which are to be found among us, as comparatively Gold? Would he not tell us that in comparison with what ought to have been done, almost nothing has been done?

And, to allude to a term employed by our translators in the text, how small a portion of that which is done appears to be done naturally? How much of the concern displayed for the destitute is artificial; how much of it is forced into action; what exertions, what importunities, what appeals to every principle of our nature are required to procure even the most scanty supply for their necessities? Alas, my Brethren, were the fervent apostle of the Gentiles now on earth, labouring, as he was wont for their salvation, would he not too often have occasion to address them in the language before us—" I have no man who will naturally care for your state?" III. It will not perhaps be departing from our subject, certainly not from our object, to notice some of the principal causes of this unconcern: For a knowledge of the causes of existing evils is often necessary to their removal.

Of these causes, one is an inordinate and criminal self-love. To this & cause the apostle ascribed the deficiency of which he complained. "All," says he, "seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's." It is needless to remark, that this cause still operates with undiminished force. It is frost in the heart, and a palsy in the hand. It draws around us a magic circle, beyond which our affections and exertions with difficulty pass. It presents to our eye a false glass, through which our own interests appear immeasurably important, and the interests of others comparatively trifling. It is ever suggesting some scheme of self-gratification, or self-aggrandizement, which engrosses, and exhausts the vigour of the soul, and leaves nothing but spiritless languor for plans of benevolence. In a word, it prompts us to care so much for ourselves, that we find little leisure or disposition to care for others.

This cause, however, prevalent and operative as it is, does not alone appear sufficient to produce all the evils of which we complain. It does not, except in some few instances, prevent us from relieving the wants of the body. Why then should it prevent us from relieving the far more pressing wants of the soul? The most selfish individual among us would scarcely suffer a beggar to famish and expire at his gate. Yet how many, who are by no means slaves to avarice, suffer their immortal fellow-beings, while

within hearing of their cries, to expire under the pressure of spiritual famine! Inordinate self-love, then, however prevalent, is not alone sufficient to account for the existing indifference to the religious interests of mankind. We must seek a still more general and operative cause; and such a cause we may find in the prevalence of unbelief. We do not, my brethren, properly believe the account which inspiration gives us, of the spiritual state of mankind. Still less do we believe its awful descriptions of the fate of those who die in their sins. Did we fully credit the declarations of God, relative to these subjects; did we, like the apostle, know the terrors of the Lord; concern for the spiritual state of sinful men would be one of our main-springs of action; and to effect their salvation would be the great object of our exertions. Were such a belief universally prevalent in Christian countries, it would engage their whole population in one grand, combined effort, to rescue slaves of ignorance and depravity from impending ruin. Comparatively speaking, no tears would then be shed for merely temporal calamities; for they would be regarded as light afflictions, and not worthy to be compared with that far more exceeding and eternal weight of wretchedness, which must overwhelm the impenitent. Natural sympathy alone would then do more for the salvation of mankind, than Christian benevolence has ever done since the days of the apostles. This is not mere conjecture; it is a conclusion founded on facts. For, look at the scenes which were exhibited in Europe, during those dark ages, when men really believed the dogmas and superstitions of papal Rome. See the churches which were erected, the convents which were endowed, the treasures which were lavished, the numberless masses which were said, and the almost endless succession of prayers which were offered, for redeeming departed souls from the purgatorial miseries they were supposed to be suffering. Had all the exertions thus made, to redeem sinners from a fancied purgatory, been employed under the direction of an enlightened zeal, in arresting their progress to a real hell, every nation on earth would now be enjoying the benefits of a preached gospel, and the Bible would be in the hands of every individual of our race. And why is this? Why has superstition possessed, apparently, greater power to touch the heart and open the hand, than faith has had, at least in these latter ages of the church? Because, I answer, our faith is so weak that it scarcely deserves the name. Because the papists did, in one sense, believe the existence of a purgatory; and we do not, or act as if we did not really believe the existence of a hell. Brethren, these things ought not so to be. As far as the sufferings which we believe to await impenitent sinners beyond the grave, surpass in magnitude and duration those fancied sufferings which excited the compassion, and called forth the exertions of papal devotees, so far ought we to surpass them in our efforts : and so far we should surpass them, did we properly believe the declarations of eternal truth. We should then feel, that he who prevents but one immortal from incurring those sufferings, takes more from the mass of human misery, and adds more to the sum of human happiness, than would he, who should banish sorrow from the earth, and secure the highest temporal felicity of the whole human race.

It must, however, be acknowledged that there is another cause of supineness and inaction, which, perhaps, affects those most powerfully, who are least affected by the causes mentioned above; and that is despondency. When the persons, to whom we now refer, contemplate the situation and prospects of sinful men, as portrayed by the pencil of inspiration; when they survey the mighty mass of human wretchedness, together with the apparently insurmountable obstacles which oppose its diminution, and the many powerful causes which are ever operating to increase it, they are overwhelmed, crushed, and paralyzed. They feel like men required to empty the ocean, by the daily removal of a drop, while a thousand rivers are incessantly pouring into its bosom. All that their utmost exertions can effect, appears so much like nothing, that they almost resolve to attempt nothing, and to say that nothing can be done.

It appears, then, that the three great causes, to whose influence all our unconcern for the spiritual wants and miseries of mankind is to be ascribed, are selfishness, unbelief, and despondency. And by which of these, my hearers, permit me to ask, can you consent to be influenced? Shall it be selfishness? Is any one willing to acknowledge, even to himself, that he is controlled by a principle so base? Is any one prepared to say as follows, I renounce all pretensions to that charity which seeketh not her own; all pretensions to any union of feeling with the benevolent Redeemer; or any similarity of character to those whom he approves and rewards; and when the great Husbandman gathers in the immortal harvest, it shall not be said, that any of the seed which produced it was sown by my hand, or watered by my tears?' If this language appears too shocking to be adopted, will any one say, 'Selfishness shall not control, but it shall counsel me; it shall not entirely repress, but it shall limit my exertions ? It shall preserve me from the dangers into which a too ardent charity might plunge me, and prevent its sacred flame from rising too high.' My brethren, if any of you are in danger of loving your neighbour more than yourselves, of surpassing in benevolence the Son of God, or even of exceeding his apostles, it may perhaps be necessary to ask the advice of this base counsellor. But if no such danger exists, its advice may safely be dispensed with. And if no one is prepared to utter such sentiments in language, let no one express them in action.

Shall we then yield ourselves to the palsying influence of unbelief? Shall we plead a disbelief of God's declarations, as an excuse for disobeying his commands? Even if we disbelieve, or explain away the declarations of scripture, relative to the present and future state of sinners, how shall we evade the no less plain and forcible language of facts which it records. The plain, the undeniable inference from all these facts is, that the situation of mankind without a Saviour, without a knowledge of the gospel, is unspeakably dangerous. Nor can this inference be avoided, unless we assert, that neither the apostles, nor our Saviour himself, knew any thing of the matter. Unless we are prepared to assert this, we must, with the apostle, judge, that since one died for all, then were all dead; that if Christ died to redeem men from the curse of the law, from the wrath