you have found them, receive their counsels with respect and gratitude.

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But God has told you, and every man of this character will also tell you, that "it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps;" not even in men of this respectable class. With the utmost assistance, therefore, which they will be able to lend, you will still need, and absolutely need, the guidance of Him who is the author of all wisdom, and who, if you ask him, will give it liberally without upbraiding.

Second, You need the protection of God.

The observations made under the preceding head, clearly evince that your life must be liable to many exposures of many kinds. There are, however, many other evils by which you are now threatened, and from some or other or of which you can hardly fail hereafter to suffer. Even in this healthy climate you will always be exposed to sickness; pain, languor, the loss of energy, and consequently of effort; the loss of friends, and the sorrow which it will occasion. You may lose your limbs, your reason, or your life. You are always exposed to dangerous accidents, to frauds, to slander, and to the bitter sufferings inflicted by malice and envy. You may languish out old age in poverty, decrepitude, and disgrace. Temptations will arrest you from within and from without. False friends, there is but too much reason to fear, will betray, evil examples corrupt, and evil communications seduce you. Your own prejudices and passions may, at the same time, prove worse enemies to you still; may ensnare your opinions, and harden your hearts against the truth of God; may make you deaf to the calls of mercy, and shut you finally out of heaven.

From these evils who can preserve, from these dangers who can deliver you? Can your friends? Alas! they are frail, sinful, perishing creatures like yourselves. They, as well as you, are exposed daily to sickness, and sorrow, and death. Temptations have equal power over them also. Often they will yield and fall, and thus become miserable examples of sin to you. Nay, there is but too much reason to fear, that in some instances they will themselves become the tempters, and

countenance, encourage, and even persuade you to commit iniquity. Their doctrines will sometimes be false and pernicious, their example seductive, and they will wish to have you their companions and supporters in sin. When they do not, they will cast an indulgent eye over your own passions and practices, and, instead of checking you when you most need to be checked in the career of guilt, will, by their false tenderness and censurable compliances with your inclinations, insensibly help you forward toward ruin.

At the best, they will, to a great degree, be absent from you; incapable of knowing, or, if they know, of relieving your distresses, rescuing you from dangers, restoring you from sickness, or preserving you from death. Their advices, however wise and good they may be, will be that of ignorant, erring men; a collection of mere opinions where you will need knowledge, and often a mass of errors where your circumstances will indispensably demand truth. Their example also will at the best be imperfect; sometimes alluring you to evil; often perplexing; awakening doubt and fear in your minds, and sometimes, perhaps, even staggering your charity.

But, if your friends must fail of furnishing you with the necessary assistance, where will you be able to find it? How obviously, how indispensably do you need a guardian, present at all times and in all places, of sufficient discernment to know all your wants, dangers, and sufferings, and of sufficient power and goodness to supply, protect, and relieve you. But this guardian, I need not tell you, must be God.

Third, You need the blessing of God.

By the blessing of God, I intend here that benevolent and controlling agency of the universal ruler, which enables us to form useful designs, and orders the events of his providence in such a manner as to give them success. From Him only can you derive the ability to form such designs; for "He giveth "wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to them that know "understanding." When your designs are formed, how skilfully, how wisely soever they may be formed, you cannot make them successful. The husbandman may cultivate his fields with the highest care and skill, yet the rains may dis

solve, the drought wither, the mildew corrupt, the blast shrivel, or insects consume the fruit of all his labour. The merchant may fit out and man his ship with the utmost human prudence, yet a leak or a tempest may sink it in the ocean. Except the Lord build the house, the workmen, however skilful, will labour in vain. In vain will the watchmen wake if the Lord refuse to keep the city. The whole experience of man, the experience of every day declares, with irresistible evidence, that "the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, "neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of un❝derstanding, nor yet favour to men of skill." In the transactions of every day, and particularly in those of any importance, a considerate man will regularly perceive, that between the formation of a plan and its issue there is an uncertainty which it is beyond his power to settle, depending on causes which he cannot control. On this ground, all such men, instead of saying, "We know," uniformly say, "we hope," or, at the utmost, "we believe" the design will terminate well. Men, who adopt confident language on such occasions, are by common sense pronounced to be rash and thoughtless. "Go "to now," said St. James, "ye who say, To-day or to-morrow "we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and "buy, and sell, and get gain, whereas ye know not what shall "be on the morrow." Ye ought therefore to say, "If the "Lord will, we shall live, and do this or that."

How pre-eminently do you particularly need this blessing of God? You are in the morning of your existence, and are now only preparing to enter upon the business of the day. In a great measure, you are unpossessed of those advantages to which alone even the sanguine men of this world look for success. To a great extent, you are without the property, the experience, the skill, the friends, the influence, or the reputation which many others possess, and which may hereafter be possessed by you. Your need of the divine blessing is written in sun-beams, and must be seen at every step of your progress. All the confidence which your companionship, your numbers, and your comparative importance in this seminary have given you, will in a few days vanish. You will be scattered in the

great world; will be alone; will have to begin a new character, a new employment, and a new influence; will find yourselves lost in an immense multitude, every one of whom will be occupied by his own concerns, and almost every one regardless of yours. Many anxious, some desponding, and perhaps even some despairing thoughts will then arise in your minds. From this situation, you may learn at least one invaluable lesson, and feel with strong practical conviction, that you indispensably need the blessing of God.

Fourth, You need the mercy of God.

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Forlorn," says Dr. Beattie very beautifully,

"Forlorn in this bleak wilderness below,

"Ah! what were man should heaven refuse to hear?"

You, like the rest of the race of Adam, are by nature children of wrath, being children of disobedience, even as others. The heart of man is pronounced by his Maker to be deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. I hope you will not believe me unkind when I say, that your hearts partake of the common nature and the common guilt. Look back upon your lives, and survey what you have done, and what you have left undone. Look with integrity and candour. Let each of you, then, in his own secret thoughts solemnly declare to his Maker the result of his investigation. Must not the language, which each would instinctively use, be the same with that which was anciently adopted by one of the wisest and best men ever seen in the present world: "O Jehovah, the great and dreadful "God! keeping the covenant, and mercy to them that love "Him, and them that keep his commandments. I have "sinned and committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and "rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts, and from thy "judgments. Neither have I hearkened unto thy servants, "who spoke in thy name to all the people of the land. O "Lord! righteousness belongeth unto thee; but unto me "confusion of face, because I have sinned against thee."

Would you not rejoice to add, "To the Lord, our God, "belong mercies and forgiveness, although we have rebelled against him."

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If you are at a loss concerning the character which is the

subject of these observations, it is that which prevents or disturbs the peace of your own minds, which makes you reluctant to look into the recesses of your hearts, which makes conscience an uncomfortable resident in your bosoms, which makes you unwilling to think upon your Maker, which clothes death in a formidable array of terrors, which forces you to tremble at the approaching judgment, and which compels you to shudder and shrink when your minds wander into the regions of eternity. It is the spirit which awakens all the uneasiness, unkindness, and contention around you; which slanders the character of its neighbour at the fire side, and profanes the name of God in the street; which in the hall of justice engenders the furious law-suit, and brings the prisoner, blackened with crimes, to receive the sentence of condemnation. It is the spirit which, throughout this great world, has called forth the post, the pillory, and the stocks; which has heaved the massy walls, and grated the gloomy windows of the jail; which has forged the chains of the culprit, and reared up the gibbet as the instrument of terror and death. It is the spirit of fraud and falsehood in private life, of remorseless ambition, gross intrigue, peculation, plunder, and tyranny, in courts and legislatures. It is the spirit which summons armies to the field, wades through human blood, exults over the groans of the dying and the corpses of the dead, consumes with fire the habitations of men and the temples of God, and chases back peace and virtue, happiness and hope, to their native heaven.

It is not, indeed, always seen in these terrible forms. Opportunities are not always furnished to permit, nor means to accomplish, nor talents to contrive, nor energy to execute mischiefs of so dreadful a magnitude. The evil whence some or others of them spring, still rankles, however, in every bosom. In the sight of Him before whom the heavens are unclean, and whose angels are charged with folly, every virtuous child of Adam will always find reason to exclaim, How much more abominable and filthy is man, who drinketh in iniquity like water?

It is impossible that beings, in whom such a spirit exists, in