and "the foolishness of preaching" has brought to light a secret in politics which the depth and the reach of mere human sagacity have never comprehended. This single announcement of the Gospel, "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, to give an account of the deeds done in the body," brought home to the consciences of the people with an abiding prevalence, would be a better safeguard to our liberties than all the devices of our politicians, and all the terrors of our penal codes, and all the learning of our schools. Such a doctrine, believed and cherished, would counteract every tendency to national degeneracy. It would carry the healthful influences of uprightness, and charity, and patriotism throughout the mass of our population. It would establish in every man's bosom an impartial tribunal, which corruption could not bribe nor artifice mislead. It would fix an eye of wakeful and of searching inspection upon all the performances of his public history, and all the secrecies of his private walk. In a word, it would make him a good man and a good citizen, just because it made him a good Christian.

Let us suppose this moral preparation to be introduced into any given portion of our territory, so as to obtain over a majority of its inhabitants a thorough and predominant ascendency. I hazard nothing in saying that such an experiment would give you an erect, high-minded, and public-spirited people, watchful over their rulers, jealous of their liberties, and ready to assert them. Their high regard to the commandments of God and the rights of men would be a sacred pledge of fidelity and devotion to their country. By such a community, no duelist, with his blood-stained hands-no ruffian destroyer of domestic peace and female innocence- -no profligate, whose principles have been dissolved in the guilty haunts of debauchery, would ever be made the repository of public confidence. They could not breathe so pure an atmosphere. It would be the death of their expectations. The splendors of eloquence and the riches of erudition would be deemed but

worthless substitutes for the nobler attributes of a sober head and an honest heart. Upright principles and an unblemished character would be the indispensable qualifications of successful candidates for office; nor would a virtuous people ever exalt to the high places of power those examples of splendid depravity which provoke the righteous judgments of Heaven, and corrupt the ingenuous and aspiring youth of our land with the winning blandishments of a tolerated and an honored profligacy.

Would to God that what I am compelled to offer in the forms of hypothesis were the history of our country—that our citizens might be persuaded, at length, that the firmest supports of their liberty must be found in their own virtue and godliness; and that while, with conscious pride, they are contemplating our growing navy and gallant army, our fortresses and our canals, our polished scholars and skillful statesmen, our agriculture, and commerce, and manufactures, as the certain tokens of national safety and prosperity, they might be brought to look into their own lives and their own hearts for surer testimony and more infallible conclusions. If this wish shall never be gratified, and if the sentiments I have uttered shall be thought a shallow artifice to magnify my office, or the vain hallucinations of a devotee rather than solid, practical principles, which can bear the scrutiny of reason and the test of experiment, I will yet rejoice that our country has produced at least one great man who has been their advocate-a name most honored and most worthy of honor on every recurrence of this glorious festival. Nor can it be said that he found and adopted, in the closet and in the schools, a doctrine which a better acquaintance with human affairs would have led him to reject; for he guided our destinies through many sore and bloody conflicts, and through many disastrous campaigns, to safety and independence. He presided at the birth of our Constitution, and in the midst of opposing factions, his wisdom and influence gave it estab

lishment and success. No man better understood the value of victories and of warlike preparation. None labored more

zealously or more successfully to promote the common welfare by protecting laws, upright tribunals, and public education; but the achievements of war and of policy he esteemed insufficient guaranties for our liberties, and whether he resigned the sword, or accepted the executive chair, or withdrew himself from the proffered honors of a grateful country, his language was gratitude to God, and his paternal admonition to the revering millions who hung upon his words was obedience to God's commandments. And amid that infidel forgetfulness of God which breathes through our public documents, and speaks in the messages and addresses of our rulers, it is cheering to the heart to find one illustrious exception. One man, who outstripped them all in the powers of his mind as far as he did by the splendor of his victories-whose political opinions, and foreign and domestic policy, have been permanently adopted by the voice of a united people, pointed to the religion of the cross as the dearest hope of our country and firmest security of its happy institutions.

Would you be the children of the Father of his Country? Would you be true patriots, the benefactors of a nation? You may not become such by being noisy, and important, and bustling at an election; nor by declaiming upon liberty in the market; nor by shouting the praises of a favorite candidate amid the fumes of intemperance and the clamors of a mob. If you would become a true patriot, become a true Christian. Do to others as you would have them do unto you; love your neighbor as yourself; live soberly, and righteously, and godly in this evil world. Pray to the Father for a high and a holy influence, which shall subjugate your passions, exalt your affections, and purify your heart. Teach your children to love God, and they will love their country; to keep his commandments, and they will prove obedient citizens. Thus may the humblest and the poorest of you all,

in the noiseless obscurity of his own private walk, more effectually promote the public welfare, than the vicious and infidel statesman, whose influence may guide the nation, and the fame of whose eloquence may be echoed by the wild solitudes of its remotest frontiers.

Oh, if our people were animated with such a spirit, and our nation exalted with such a righteousness, what a spectacle would this glorious jubilee exhibit to the admiring gaze of earth and of heaven! Ten millions of freemen, hastening with eager rivalry to Jehovah's courts, which their feet have trod with weekly joy, and from around the holy altars, where mercy had often regarded their penitence, and sealed forgiveness of sins, and imparted the Holy Ghost, speeding the sacrifice of a hearty and a common thanksgiving, acceptable unto God through Jesus Christ! The victories and deliverances of two bloody wars, and the blessings of forty years of prosperity and peace; the luxuries of commerce and the abundance of husbandry; the spread of the Gospel and the increase of learning; new cities and states, and the comforts of their happy population; all the glories of freedom, in which every man reigns the undisputed lord of his own habitation, and walks abroad the prince of his own possessions: all of these should pious recollection bring to swell the chorus of a nation's festival, and enrich the offering of a nation's gratitude.

XIX.

THE MEDIATION OF CHRIST.

If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. -ROMANS, V., 10.

THE subject here presented is the mediation of Christ. The text teaches that, since the Savior's ascension, he is ever engaged in promoting the salvation of men. This is one of the simple but deep truths of the Gospel, to which we are specially called to revert at the present time. We must review first principles, and see what there is of the supernatural, the spiritual, and the divine in our religion-what the Bible authorizes us to expect and believe when so many substitute symbols and forms for the Savior's agency, and thus obscure the simple doctrines of the cross with dark mysticism, hiding and fettering their divine efficiency in traditionary dogmas and ritual observances.

Sincere Christians, too, ought to maintain the most clear and practical views with regard to the agencies connected, in God's economy, with the working out of their salvation. Forgetting or indistinctly perceiving these, they often dwell in doubt or darkness-beat the air, and almost seem to have lost the Savior out of their system. They think of the higher privileges of the attendants of Christ's personal ministry, and regard them as having been more favored—as having had more facilities to aid their faith. They inquire, "Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above); or who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead)."

The mediation of Christ is exclusively a scriptural doc