sweet counsel, and walk to this house of God in company. The places which once knew them, now know them no more. Yet busy imagination again peoples the seats which they were wont to occupy, with their dear and honoured forms. The bereaved husband seems for a moment again to behold the departed wife of his bosom; the widowed wife again to behold her stay and counsellor and friend; the loved image of the sister rises to the affectionate remembrance of the brother, and the sister thinks again of her lost brother's virtues ; the child once more looks on his venerated parent and guide, and the parent recals again the sweet smiles of the tender infant, or the maturer graces of the child whom he had hoped was to be the ornament and joy of his declining years.

But, my beloved friends, let not these imaginations be indulged merely to gratify the luxury of grief. Let us think of the virtues of the friends who are gone, not to lament that they are translated to kindred spheres, but that we may be incited to imitate them in our lives, to purify our minds from all inordinate sublunary desires, and to endear a better and purer world to our hearts.

Nor can he who speaks to you remember without some sensibility that he occupies this sacred desk for the last time. He cannot forget that it was here that he was separated to the work of the ministry of Christ; that here the vows of God were imposed on him; that his life was here

your

devoted to your service for Jesus' sake; that he has here baptized and instructed children; and that he has never here seen a countenance which was not turned on him with most unmerited kindness and indulgence. God forgive the many defects and imperfections of his services, and grant that what in them has been right, may not have been wholly performed in vain.

May God grant his blessing upon you during your partial and temporary separation from each other. May he prosper all your wishes and designs for the honour of his worship. And if it should be too much to expect, in this world of mortality, that you should all be permitted to resume your seats, still may it be granted that we may all be reunited, if not in an earthly temple, yet in those mansions of bliss, that our Saviour has gone before to prepare for the just in heaven.

But it is time that we should bid farewell to these walls, so long the silent witnesses of our worship, now no more to be filled with the sounds of adoration or the hymns of praise. Farewell to this sacred desk, where Checkley, Bowen, Howe and Everett have preached and prayed. I need not add another name to this list, nor say with what affection you regard it.—But does there then, remain nothing more for us to perform within this temple? Can nothing more be here done which heaven will approve? Yes, my friends, you are invited to make one more sacrifice on the altar of

mercy

charity. You may mark your departure from this house by a deed of beneficence. Let your last be your best and purest service. Let the angel of bear an honourable record of your bounty on high. Remember that the poor are a legacy left you by your Saviour; and that he has told you,that a cup of cold water given to one of his disciples in the true spirit of charity, shall in no wise lose its reward. And how can I better close the instructions, which for so long a period of years have been given from this place, than by repeating the gracious words which his true disciples shall hear again from his lips at the last day; "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; sick, and ye visited me; in prison, and ye came unto me. Verily I say unto you; inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

SERMON XXII.*

DEDICATION OF THE NEW CHURCH.

I PETER, III. 15.

Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope, that is in you, with meekness and fear.

CHRISTIANITY is a religion addressed to the reason of man. Look around you, my friends, on this temple, which we have now assembled to dedicate to the purposes of christian worship, and see how every thing proclaims, that the religion we profess makes its appeal only to our nobler nature. Here is no pomp of a gorgeous and imposing ceremonial. Here no altar smokes with the blood of victims ; no incense fills the air with its perfume. No priest is here claiming a mysterious sanctity, as the in

*The title page of this discourse, as printed by Mr. Thacher, was as follows: "An Apology for rational and evangelical christianity; A Discourse at the Dedication of a new Church on Church Green, Summer Street, Boston. To which are added Notes and Illustrations. By Samuel Cooper Thacher." Mr. Thacher's Preface is now printed at the close of the sermon, immediately preceding the notes.

spired depositary of the will of heaven. No daring hand has here attempted to represent to the senses the awful person of the Being we adore ; or even to suggest through them to the imagination the most distant image of his ineffable glory. All here is simple. All is intellectual. All announces, that the God, whom the christian worships, is a spirit, and is to be worshipped only in spirit and in truth. The gospel, we see, disdains to owe its influence to the fears of a superstitious temper, or the enthusiasm of a heated fancy. It requires of us only a reasonable service. It demands no tribute, but the homage of the understanding. It accepts no incense, but the secret sigh of the broken and contrite heart. Our bodies, purified from all guilty passions, are the only victims, it calls us to present on its altars; and it is the fire of divine charity alone, which descends from heaven to consume our spiritual holocaust.

Our

Christianity, then, is a religion addressed solely to the intellectual and moral nature of man. text implies this truth, when it directs us never to decline to submit the grounds of our christian hope to the tribunal of enlightened reason. It teaches also, that we are not to be indifferent to the manner in which our fellow men regard our religious sentiments; and this obligation, I conceive, extends not only from christians to unbelievers, but from one christian to another. There exist-it is but too well known-among the different communities