Perhaps no nation under heaven has been more favoured in almost every cir cumstance conducive to the real prosperity and happiness of a people, than the land we live in. The very temperature of our climate repelling the noxious vapour and the pestilential blast; the winds of heaven not visiting it too roughly, neither blasted by the hurricane, nor deluged by the sweeping flood. If it is not fertile in the useless delicacies produced by other soils, it is productive of all that is necessary for the use of its inhabitants, affording much to repay their annual toil-to give them health, competence, and riches, experiencing so little evil, mixed with so much good. By nature, we are defended from without, against the encroachments of other nations; surrounded by the strongest bulwark, that proud element, that will not be controuled by mortal power, that has hitherto protected us against the vain attempts of that insulting foe, to whose

dictates the neighbouring continent has bowed its servile neck, and will protect us, while our navy rides triumphant on its waves, while there is a spirit to command, or a hand to steer our vessels.Guarded at home by a system of laws, founded on the basis of reason and equity, giving protection to individuals, and respecting the general security of the whole nation, while it punishes those only who transgress against the good of society and violate the duties they owe to God and man. Happy in a constitution, not perfect, indeed, (for what system framed by the art of man can boast of absolute perfection?) but blest with as many advantages, and encumbered with as few imperfections as any human establishment can be;-a constitution that has stood the test of admiring ages, and has ever risen superior to all attempts to undermine it. Though occasional convulsions, may have threatened for a time to shake the building

from its foundation, it has still returned to its original position, for it is founded on the firm basis of Liberty, and its corner stone is Religion. This then is our Sion;

let us go round about her, and tell the towers thereof; mark well her bulwarks, set up her houses in her defence, let us unite with one heart and voice, and above all, let us incessantly "pray for the 86 peace of this Jerusalem, for they shall 66 prosper that love her."

SERMON XXX.

THE PROVIDence of god in the MIRACLE OF THE LOAVES AND FISHES.

St. JOHN, CHAp. vi. Ver. 5.

LATTER PART.

Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?

THIS demand was made by our Saviour to his apostles, to prove their faith and confidence in him; one would imagine that they could not be at a loss for an answer who had already been witnesses to so many of his miracles, and, yet, in this pressing emergency, at a time when the Son of God was in some measure

compelled not to abandon those men to the distresses of hunger, who had left all and followed him, they thought of every other expedient without once considering, that he who had drawn hither this multitude of people, by the charms of his eloquence, and had nourished their souls for three days by his divine word, could as easily provide for the necessities of their bodies; but we must confess this disagreeable truth, that although nothing is more visible than the providence of God, that directs and governs this grand machine, yet men in their particular distresses think least of that providence; and however we ought to be, we are effectually persuaded how little earthly beings are capable of assisting us in the time of need, God is the last to whom we have recourse-such is the deplorable infatuation of human understanding, never to be convinced that its strongest support and most confident dependance should be