porter of the gates of glory, and dissolution into a precursor of everlasting beauty. It nurtures the helplessness of infancy, checks the waywardness of childhood, and guides the inexperience of youth; ever mingling with the stream of early existence, a cheerfulness always serene, and a usefulness always active. Balancing the reciprocal duties of life, it assigns to each his station, his temper, and his employ. It teaches the parent to be faithful, and the child to be obedient; the husband to be affectionate, and the wife to be a ministering spirit: the master to be kind, and the servant to be industrious; the ruler to be just, and the subject to be dutiful. It counsels the rich to beneficence, and the poor to patience :-the enemy to be forgiving, and the injured to bless. It presents to the view of all, that precious law, every word of which beams as a sun on the happiness of man. Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.

"Over the porch of the tavern it writes a lesson of temperance at the door of the tippling-house, it presents a vision of judgment: in the ear of the gambler it pronounces the accents of warning: to the midnight of the adulterer it reveals the terrors of retribution. It converts the sluggard into a man of usefulness, and the spendthrift into a man of true generosity. It makes the slanderer a man of peace, and the covetous a man of piety. It instructs the farmer at his plough, the mechanic at his anvil, the merchant at his counter, the lawyer at his desk. It enlightens the moralist, and makes wise the sage. It gives to the rugged, courteousness; to the angry, gentleness; to the fretful, resignation; to the sensual, holiness. It subordinates appetite to conscience, and conscience to God.

"And what are all these but rays scattered amid the darkness, foretelling the approach of an unclouded day. The Gospel reveals a hand in the Heavens, unrolling the charter of man's everlasting hopes: it opens the volume of

the counsels of God, and shows him the page rich with life and immortality. Annihilating the distance between Heaven and earth, it introduces him to the presence of the Father of his spirit, and wafts to his ear the promise, Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Leading him to Calvary, it shows him written on the cross, God can be just, and the justifier of him that believeth. Along the valley of humiliation, it directs him to the fountain of the Holy Ghost, whispering as he advances-Ask and it shall be given. Thus cleansing from guilt and sanctifying from depravity, it places him in a highway to an everlasting home, and at length brings him, a poor, lost, wounded, despairing wanderer, to the enraptured hosts of congratulating Seraphim, and the embracing arm of an eternal GOD.

"To spread the Gospel, therefore, is a paramount duty. If we had a fountain whose healing waters could cure all the diseases of the body, would we not send heralds to sound along all our mountains and throughout all our vallies, the language of invitation? If we had a spring in which all who were dipped should gambol in childhood and bloom in youth again, whatever were their infirmities or their age, would not the echo of our call be heard by the hunter on the Rocky Mountains, and the savage on the shores of the Pacific? And have we not in the Gospel a fountain for the soul, which can circulate through all her powers the vigour, the cheerfulness, and the activity of health-cleansing from every defilement, and brightening with unfading youth? And shall we not be solicitous to send forth the Ho every one that thirsteth to all who are destitute? O shall we not call those of our own blood, to pluck with us the balm of Gilead, and to clothe themselves with us in celestial panoply, and to crown themselves with us with eternal effulgence!

"And if, as is the fact, we find any who are our country.

men, who are connected with us by clime, and empire, and kindred, without the means of grace, shall we not exert ourselves to make vocal their Sabbaths-to throw in the path of their little ones the beams of the Gospel, and shed around their habitations the light of truth? Shall we not encourage them to rekindle the fire on their ruined altarsto draw from its scabbard the sword of the Spirit—to take their harp from the willows, and give to the breeze the songs of Zion? It is the order of God's Providence that men should labour first in their particular sphere, and then send forth the influence of their talents, nor stop them in their way, until they find, either their own limit, or the limit of the family of man.

"Perhaps this congregation is not aware of the extent of the moral desolation, as whose solicitor, I stand here this day. Blessed with residence in a place, where those of every denomination are supplied with pastors according to the dictates of their conscience, it is not aware that there are tens of thousands, in the vast district stretching between us and Carolina and Kentucky, who are without the regular ministrations of the Gospel-it is not aware of the facthear it, oh inhabitants of the Valley, hear it, and let the echo long remain to stimulate you to exertion !—the fact that the people of Massachusetts are sending missionaries to this very district; a district at our door; a district inhabited by our relations and friends!! If we had not the means we might listen to this intelligence without a blush, but, as it is, we may well exclaim-Can these things be without our special wonder!'

"I have before me an extract from the Journal of one of these missionaries, reported to the Society of Hampshire county, Mass., in August last. His seat of labour was Randolph county, Virginia. It will be to us a source of considerable information. He says, 'many expressed their gratitude for the interest your society has taken in their

spiritual welfare. As it respects the moral and religious situation of the people, it probably resembles new settlements generally. The Sabbath is by many grossly profaned, and some disregard all religious institutions; but there are also many of regular and sober habits, who habitually attend on the public ordinances of the Gospel when favoured with them. They greatly need well-educated religious instructors. All that region is deplorably destitute of competent teachers. SHOULD BEVERLY BE MADE THE CENTRE OF A CIRCLE, WHOSE RADIUS IS ONE HUNDRED MILES, IT WOULD NOT INCLUDE PROBABLY MORE THAN THREE, OR AT THE MOST FOUR, WELL-EDUCATED MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL; and two of them have been settled there within a year and a half past.'

"Another missionary was appointed by the same Society, for Lewis county and its vincinity.

"One fact I would state, which may appear equally strange, the correctness of which, I can myself attést;that, within three years, there existed a body of people, within twenty-five miles of this place, among whom there was no preacher of the Gospel of any denomination, and whose language was 'If we could have a sermon once in three months we should be very thankful.' Even some parts of the adjoining county of Shenandoah were, until lately, experiencing a famine of the word of God. And if this be the situation of counties immediately contigious to the best supplied sections of our land, what must not be the state of those more remote; what must not be the state of those under and beyond the Alleghany-of a host scarcely known by name to your preacher, but well known to be in a very desolate condition. Now will it not become us passing well to send over this wilderness the bloom and the beauty of the garden of God?—to multiply throughout it, facilities of gaining religious instruction?-to scatter with liberal hand the good seed of the Word?

"These considerations address themselves alike to all, but there is one which makes its peculiar appeal to us; and that is, that in this vast district, there are very many, who, baptized at our altars, continue attached to our Communion, and sound in our ears the language of the man of Macedonia-Come over and help us. Though scattered and peeled during a long night of adversity, they still retain their early preference. A very few years have rolled round, since some who now hear me, were standing in desponding attitude by the ruins of their Churches, saying one to another, Watchman, what of the night? And would not the attention of your brethren at a distance then have been precious to you? And will you not retain, as a relic of your desolation, a sympathy with those who are yet under the cloud, and a determination to send them the means of grace accordant to their wish?

"The principal object of the Society, which I would fain introduce to your notice, is, sending forth missionaries to waste places, west of the Blue Ridge, in Virginia and Maryland. We have no wish to enter the enclosures of others, or to interfere with any, but to seek the sheep who are wandering without a shepherd: to reclaim the lost; to warn the careless; to encourage the feeble; to build up the former desolations, the desolations of many generations. Another object of vital importance, near to the hearts of the members of this society, is, to extend the helping hand to such young men of piety and talents, as may be disposed to enter the ministry, but are destitute of the means of procuring an education: The harvest indeed is great, but the labourers are few.

"Being, as many of us are, and shall continue to be, connected with our brethren of the Christian world generally in Bible Societies, those fountains of catholic feeling, and precursors of millennial unity, it is not supposed that the funds of this institution will be drawn upon to any con