of human sympathy; be assured that nothing which interests you can be beyond or below His knowledge; for by Him are not the very hairs of your head all numbered? Accustom yourselves, too, to think of Him in your happiness, as well as in your sorrow, remembering that to Him are known even those secret joys with which no stranger can intermeddle. Surely, when you recollect that He is the witness of your every pleasure, such a thought must tend to purify and hallow your enjoyments. And on whose sympathy can you so safely reckon, in your innocent joys, as on His who is the author and giver of them all. Learn then continually to live in His presence here, so will you become more and more fitted for His presence hereafter. So will you be breathing a purer and calmer atmosphere than this lower world can furnish, even that which rests around the holy mountain of our God. So will your foundation be upon the rock, which stands unshaken by the floods and tempests of this mortal life; and yours will be that peace which passeth all understanding, which the world cannot give, which nothing earthly can destroy.

SERMON XIV.

CHRISTIAN COLONIZATION.*

DEUT. IV. 5, 6, 7.

BEHOLD I HAVE TAUGHT YOU STATUTES AND JUDGMENTS, EVEN AS THE LORD MY GOD COMMANDED ME, THAT YE SHOULD DO SO IN THE LAND WHITHER YE GO TO POSSESS IT. KEEP THEREFORE AND DO THEM; FOR THIS IS YOUR WISDOM AND YOUR UNDERSTANDING IN THE SIGHT OF THE NATIONS, WHICH SHALL HEAR ALL THESE STATUTES AND SAY, SURELY THIS GREAT NATION IS A WISE AND UNDERSTANDING PEOPLE. FOR WHAT NATION IS THERE SO GREAT, WHO HATH GOD SO NIGH UNTO THEM, AS THE LORD OUR GOD IS IN ALL THINGS THAT WE CALL UPON HIM FOR?

CALLED upon as we are to-day to consider English Colonization in its religious aspect only, we need not turn aside to prove either its efficacy as a safeguard against our national dangers, or the reality of the

Preached in obedience to the Queen's letter, in aid of the funds of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, April 24, 1842.

evils which it is thought to remedy. The opinions held on these points will differ, according as hope or fear for his country predominates in the mind of him who holds them. On the one side, it will be urged that the chief cause of dread threatening our future welfare is a novelty in history, which defies experience to check or cure it. For that which is the subject of our fear, was the object of hope to our forefathers; the strength of a state was, in their view, proportional to the number of its citizens, and its effective power was measured by the less or greater host of men whose living energies were its own, and whose blood was ready to be shed in its defence. And although, up to a certain limiting point, the old view may have been the true one, yet this limit (it will be maintained) has in our own age and country been reached, or rather overpassed. The natural law to increase and multiply, is thwarted by the want of space to contain those multitudes whom its action brings into being. The over-crowding of every profession among the higher classes, and the competition for labour among the lower, witnesses in both to the same excess of our numbers over our wants; and all ranks are ready to exclaim, in the words of the Prophet,* "Thou hast increased the nation, and hast not increased the joy." Nor, when we look forward to the future, can we fail to observe grounds for increasing apprehension; for we have lately learned, that greatly as this pressure has been already felt, yet such even still

*

Isaiah, c. v. The verse, however, is mistranslated.

is the rate of increase of our population, that in about half a century more (unless something occurs to check it,) the number of our fellow-countrymen will be doubled. And to supply such vast and unwieldly multitudes, what new resources can we expect to find? What is to be done with those additional myriads who will have made our numbers two-fold, even during the life-time of many now living? Does there appear any place still vacant for them-any gap in our ranks which their presence will fill up? Already has not the compression of the human masses reached the extremest point consistent with the equilibrium of the system. And what must follow if it be doubled? Thus the distance seems darker and more threatening as we look nearer to the horizon; the atmosphere has become of a close and suffocating density, and is overcharged with its own inflammable elements; nor can we see how they are to pass away and leave a serener sky, till their hostile collision has blazed forth in all the terrific fury of the thunderstorm.

Such will be the argument of those who take a gloomy view of our prospects; and they will add, that the only plausible remedy proposed for these evils, namely, that of sending forth the excess of our people to take possession of other lands, is utterly insufficient; for the small gaps thus created will be instantly filled up again by the more rapid increase of the remaining masses, resulting from this momentary lessening of the pressure. Thus they see no hope of anything but national ruin before us; they

believe that the progress of a nation, like that of an individual, must always be first from weakness to vigour, and then from vigour to decay; that states, like stars, have their culminating points, which they attain only to fall from them; and that England has passed her zenith, and begun her decline.

The more hopeful reasoner might reply, that we ought not to resign ourselves to despair because our weak foresight can descry coming dangers, without being able to perceive the means by which they are to be averted. It may doubtless be God's will to destroy our national greatness, and reduce us individually to want and misery, in some fearful convulsion. But we are not to suppose this will known to us before the event. Rather may we believe that He, who out of darkness calls up light, will from the very evils of our condition elicit some unforeseen advantage. And we must remember how his providence has before now struck out unlooked for remedies to meet desperate diseases; and how He has from time to time balanced our increasing wants with increasing powers, and supplied new means in proportion as new ends required them. Let us, for example, consider with what feelings a political philosopher would have heard, three centuries ago, a prophecy of the present numbers of Englishmen. Would he not have thought it absolutely impossible that they could be provided with the necessaries of life from the national resources? And how wonderful is that succession of providential arrangements, that series of inven