comfortless. Do not, I entreat you, abandon them in their necessities. Do not harden your hearts to their entreaties. Should their attempts to move you be ineffectual, let not my endeavours, at least, be vain-the endeavours of your loving Jesus. Whatsoever you do for them, I consider as done for myself. Oh! despise not, at least, my prayer. Refuse not, I beseech you, my request. When you were plunged in the depth of misery, I did not avert my countenance from you. Oh! no; I looked down upon you with an eye of pity. I came forth spontaneously to your assistance. I rescued you from the unfathomable abyss. For you I suffered every species of ignominy. For you I bled at every pore. For you I underwent the disgraceful fate of the vilest malefactor. I was wounded, that you might be healed. I died, that you might live. Can any greater love be conceived, than that a man lay down his life for his friends? See, in my hands

and feet, the prints of the nails. Lo! where the spear entered my side! Thence did my life's blood gush forth in purple streams. That when absent from you I might not leave you in the destitute state of unprotected orphans, I have sent down among you the Holy Spirit, to be your guide and comforter. Absent from you? Oh! no; for now. that you are assembled in my name, I am here in the midst of you. A few minutes, and your altar will be dignified by my corporeal presence. A few minutes, and you will behold me, elevated and exposed to your view, presenting for you my petitions

to my Eternal Father. As then, my dearly beloved, I have not forgotten you, do not you forget your indigent and afflicted brethren: Remember'-oh! do, pray, remember the poor.'" Father of mercies, and God of all consolation, manifest, I beseech thee, this day, thy paternal tenderness in behalf of thy poor and distressed children. Infuse, into the compassionate hearts of all who are here assembled, the efficacious influence of thy all-powerful grace. Grant, moreover, I pray, that all who this day contribute to the relief of the needy and distressed, may, in return, be rewarded with thy choicest blessings; that, conformably to thy holy word, their light may break forth as the morning, that their health may speedily arise, that their justice may go before their face, and that thy glory, O Lord, may, hereafter, gather them up.

SERMON XVII.

ON DETRACTION.

IF any man think himself to be religious, not bridling his tongue, but deceiving his own heart, this man's religion is vain. JAMES, c. i. v. 26.

It is impossible, my friends, to form a stronger and more lively conception of the baleful influence of detraction, than that which is conveyed to our minds in the words of the text; since they represent it to us as blasting, by its malignity, all the goodly fruit which the cultivation of religion is calculated to produce. Yes, my friends, although you may be, in other respects, punctiliously exact in the discharge of your religious duties-though "you have faith sufficient to move mountains"-though "you refrain from carnal desires which war against the soul"—though the warmest sentiments of devotion animate your hearts-though feelingly you compassionate the woes of your suffering fellow-creatures, and liberally relieve their wants-yet if, neglecting to restrain the licentiousness of your tongues, you criminally indulge them to the prejudice of your neighbour's reputation, and still imagine yourselves to be religious, you are, indeed, miserably deceived; since the Apostle himself assures you that your religion is a chimera: "If any man think himself to be

religious, not bridling his tongue, but deceiving his own heart, this man's religion is vain." I know not, my friends, if ever you have been accustomed to consider the vice of detraction in that heinous point of view in which it is here presented to you. But if you have not, I exhort you to make it this day the subject of your most serious attention. Will you, in particular, my pious friends—you who are otherwise so scrupulously exact in complying with every obligation of your holy religion—who are so laudably cautious in avoiding every occasion from which your purity may be exposed to incur the least blemish-who resist so courageously the various temptations by which your virtue is frequently assailed-whose thoughts are wont to soar to the regions of everlasting bliss, there to range amidst objects of transcendent excellence—whose delight is to meditate on the law of the Lordwhose feelings are so severely wounded by the insults uttered against it by the impiety of the infidel, or the violations which it experiences from the corrupt practices of the libertine ;—will you, I say, my pious friends, allow yourselves to be deprived of the benefits of so much piety and virtue, by the intemperate gratification of your ungoverned tongues? Yet you cannot be ignorant that the enemies of religion, in order to render it odious, are fond of representing detraction as a vice to which those are peculiarly addicted who are eminently distinguished by their punctuality, zeal, and fervor, in exercises of devotion. Perhaps, too

my friends, it may be with regret acknowledged, that persons whose demeanour is, in other respects, exemplary and edifying, are not always sufficiently upon their guard in this particular. God forbid, however, my devout friends, that in addressing myself to you on the present occasion, it should be my design to unite with the enemies of the cross of Christ, in letting fall the most distant insinuation in any manner disrespectful to the cause of piety, which I admire and honour. The Great Searcher of hearts-from whose all-pervading eye no secret lurks concealed-knows that other motives actuate my breast. He well knows, that, far from wishing to depreciate your partiality for devotional exercises, I am anxious, on the contrary, to remove from devotion the odium under which it is apt to labour, in consequence of the injurious imputations of its adversaries, and thus to extort from the lips of even the most prejudiced and profane, a reluctant tribute of admiration and applause. But let it not be thought that, in discoursing this day, on the subject of detraction, I mean to direct my observations upon it to such among my present hearers who are most remarkable for the fervor of their piety. There are other individuals of a very different description-men whose affections are absorbed by earthly concerns-men whose hearts are depraved, and "whose tongues," in the language of St.. James, "are full of deadly poison,"-to whom I wish to paint, in all the horrors of its intrinsic deformity--this most detestable of vices. To persons of

U