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wise and beneficent design may be every where traced over the face of the world, bespeaking the line and compass of the unerring Architect, proportioning and balancing the various parts of the whole. Thus the earth and the waters are so divided as to form an equipoise to each other on all sides of the globe. To the Northern, is opposed the Southern ocean; to the Atlantic on the east, the Pacific on the west. The great continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa in the Eastern hemisphere, are balanced by the long extended regions of North and South America, in the Western half of the world. In the general distribution of the waters among and around these spacious tracts of dry land, provision is made for the continual and universal ascent of those vapours which afterwards fall in dew and rain upon the earth. The process of this operation is favoured by ridges of lofty mountains towering in each of the great divisions of the earth above the clouds, and serving as alembics for the collection and condensation of the vapours. In those mountains also are for the most part the springs and sources of those streams of running water which, in their progress towards the ocean, become mighty rivers, winding in various channels through every continent, fertilizing the neighbouring banks, facilitating the commercial and social intercourse of human beings, and affording a pas

sage for the inhabitants of the sea to come up shoals to the doors of men.

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We have now taken a brief survey of some of the great component parts of this lower creation, and found in each of them striking illustrations of the assertion in the text, that every thing which God has made, is very good. In them we have traced displays of goodness, as well as of wisdom and power, in all respects worthy of the supreme and all-perfect Being, the great Father of all existence and life. With these manifestations of his glorious attributes before our eyes, must we not feel ourselves constrained, not only to acknowledge and adore him, but to love, reverence, and obey him?

Having contrived and finished, as an habitation for men, this earth, he did not cast it by as a neglected work. No, not even after they had proved themselves unworthy of it. He continued, and he still continues, to uphold and superintend both it and them. On this transitory abode the many generations of our forefathers have experienced his care, and enjoyed his goodness. We ourselves, my hearers, are now, in our turn, called into existence. Our lot is fallen in a pleasant place, and we have a goodly heritage. In an age abounding with remarkable incidents and the most striking vicissitudes, we have found ourselves placed on an eminent and distinguished part of the great theatre, not

only as the spectators of his works both of creation and providence, but as the receivers of all the variety of his bounty. From day to day he renews upon us the tokens of his goodness, causes the morning and evening to rejoice over our heads, and each returning season to present us its richest blessings. The year is again crowned with his goodness.

If we have reason to discern the force of evidence, and hearts to feel the obligations of goodness, shall we not resolve to live henceforward in God's world as in an august temple, appropriated to his service and always inhabited by his presence? Awed by his infinite majesty, will it not be our care, in our whole deportment, both towards him and towards one another, to render ourselves approved in his sight?-that our future lives may be a perpetual hymn of praise, and that ourselves, soul and body, may become living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to him, through Jesus Christ. Amen.

SERMON XXIV.*

SAFETY OF THE RIGHTEOUS.

PROVERBS xii. 28.

In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.

THE "way of righteousness" is, unquestionably, the way of rendering unto all beings with whom we have any connexion what is respectively their due unto God, the things which are his; unto our fellow-men in all their several relations, the things due to them; and upon all occasions, in our whole conduct, the governing ourselves by the rules of right reason and the precepts of revelation. this way the text affirms, "there is life, and no death." In the language of Scripture, the terms life and death import, the one, safety, prosperity, and happiness, the other, danger, evil, and misery. The meaning of the text therefore is, that they who enter and persevere in the way of

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* It may not be uninteresting to the reader to learn, that the latter half of this sermon was Dr. Osgood's last composition.

rectitude, not only escape the miseries and dangers which sooner or later overtake the workers of iniquity, but secure to themselves all those blessings and enjoyments, which are essential to the happiness of rational, moral beings. This praise is given to a virtuous, religious course of life, for the purpose of recommending it to the choice of all, and especially of young people, who are about setting out in the world, and commencing that career which must end in the extremes either of life or death forever.

To minds unbiassed by corrupt passions and prejudices, the way of righteousness is of all others the most natural and easy of discovery. They have only to open their eyes, and they see it lying straight before them. "God has shewed thee, O man, what is good, and what he requires of thee," in the dictates of thine own reason and conscience, and in the plain precepts of his holy word, which he who runs may read. The way before him is marked as with a sunbeam. If it be narrow, still it is straight, and free from all those turnings and windings backward and forward, which characterize the ways of sin. "Let thine eyes look right on, and thine eyelids straight before thee. Turn not to the right hand, nor to the left." So obvious is the way of righteousness to those disposed to follow it, that they rarely need any other guide than their own uprightness. This, of itself, prompts them to whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure,