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I cannot leave my subject without enforcing upon you, my Christian brethren, the duty of seriousself-examination. You profess to be running the Christian race, and to be striving for that crown of glory which fadeth not away. Is the termination of your career continually before you? Is the eye of your faith continually directed to Him from whose hand you expect to receive those robes of righteousness and palms of victory which will adorn your eternal triumph over sin, and death, and hell? If you thus look unto Jesus, the fruits of your faith will not be hid. They will put forth their brightest and loveliest forms. They will enrich

your character with a beauty, and cast around it a fragrance, that will compel even a censorious world to recognize in you the faint though sure image of your Father, who is in heaven; and to confess that the genuine spirit of Christianity, so far from debasing the human character, serves to give it the greatest dignity and happiness of which it is susceptible. If you thus look unto Jesus, he will most assuredly shed down upon you the gifts and graces of his Spirit; and your souls will be always the happy residence of "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." May Almighty God, by his grace, enable you thus to adorn the religion which you profess, and thus to feel its influence in your hearts! So may he afford you the most satisfactory evidence that you are indeed looking unto Jesus as the Author and Fin

isher of your faith. So may he beget within you a lively hope, that there is "laid up for you a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give you at the last day; and not to you only, but unto all them also, that love his appearing." Amen.

DISCOURSE XVL

[Delivered at the Opening of the Connecticut Asylum for the Education of Deaf and Dumb Persons, at the Request of the Directors, April 20, 1817.]

Just two years have elapsed, since the first steps were taken towards the establishment, in this city,, of an Asylum for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb. Those who then embarked in this enterprize felt it to be their duty to commend its future prospects to the protection of that Arm which moves so easily the complicated springs of human action, and wields, with unerring wisdom, the vast machinery of Providence. Their united supplications ascended from the lips of one* whose venerable presence has so often filled this sacred desk, and whose spirit, perhaps, now witnesses the fulfilment, in some good degree, of his wishes, and the answer of Heaven to his requests. His voice no more guides our devotions, nor animates us in the path of duty but his memory is cherished in our hearts,

* Rev. NATHAN STRONG, D. D. late Pastor of the Church in which this discourse was delivered.

and, on occasions like the present, while we mourn his absence and feel his loss, let it be a source of grateful consolation to us, that the undertaking, of which this evening is the anniversary, began under the hopeful influence of his prayers. It has met indeed with difficulties, and still labours under embarrassments, which are incident to almost all the untried efforts of benevolence. Yet, in its gradual progress, it has been encouraged by the smiles of a kind Providence, and is at length enabled to commence its practical operation.

At such a season, the Directors of its concerns have thought, that a remembrance of past favours, and a conviction of future dependence on God, rendered it proper again to unite in solemn acts of religious worship. These acts they have made thus public, from a grateful sense of the general interest that has been expressed towards the Asylum; and it is at their request that the speaker rises to address this respectable assembly.

He enters upon the duty which has thus devolved upon him, not reluctantly, yet with diffidence and solicitude, principally fearing that the cause of the Deaf and Dumb may suffer, and yet hoping that God, in whose hands the feeblest instruments are strong, will deign to make our meditations not only productive of benefit to the unfortunate objects of our pity, but of eternal good to our own souls. And, my friends, how soon would the apologies of the speaker, and the implored candour of his hearers, pass into forgetfulness, could we feel that we

are in the presence of Almighty God, and that the awful destinies of our immortal existence are connected with the events of this passing hour! May the Spirit of Grace impress these truths upon our hearts, while we take as the guide of our thoughts that portion of Scripture which is contained in

ISAIAH XXXV. 5, 6.

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.

THESE Words depict a part of the visions of futurity which gladdened the eye of Isaiah, and irradiate his writings with so cheering a lustre that he has been called "the evangelical prophet." His predictions are assuming, in our day, some of their most glorious forms of fulfilment. For although they had a more direct reference to the time of our Saviour, by whose miraculous energy the ears of the deaf were opened, and the tongue of the dumb loosened, yet without doubt, as might be proved from the general scope and tenor of the prophetic writings, they equally allude to the universal diffusion of the Gospel in these latter ages of the church, and to its happy influence upon the hearts of all mankind. The same Saviour, who went about

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