The youth returning from a whaling voyage.

another, though our hopes may come in angel-robes, it is a sad proof that our hearts are here also.

Is there any thing of weakness in these hopes of good men? Are we not continually seeking rest for the soul?-A few years ago, a youth went up to the mast-head of a large whale-ship, and there sat down to think. He was the only child of his mother, and she a widow. He had left her against her wishes and remonstrances, her prayers and tears. He had for many years been roaming over the seas, and was now returning home. He was thinking of the scenes of his childhood, all the anxious hours which he had cost that mother, all the disobedience on his part, and that love on hers which no waters could quench. Would she be sleeping in the grave when he once more came to her door? Does his home still look as it used to? -the tree, the brook, the pond, the fields, the grove,

-are they all as he left them? And his mother,— would she receive him to her heart, or would she be sleeping in death? Would she recognize her longabsent boy, and forgive all his past ingratitude, and still love him with the unquenchable love of a mother? And may he again have a home, and no more wander among strangers? The pressure, of these thoughts was too much. He wept at the remem brance of his undutifulness. Troubles and hardships did not break his spirit, did not subdue his proud heart; but the thoughts of home, of rest, of going

The dying thought of Hooker. The world under an immense mistake.

out no more, suffering no more, engrossing the love of a kind parent, melted him. Is not this human nature? And is it weakness in a good man to rejoice at the thought of that day, when death shall be swallowed up in victory? when the Lord God shall wipe away all tears, and take away the rebuke of his people, that they may be glad and rejoice in his salvation? "I am going," said the great Hooker, "to leave a world disordered and a church disorganized, for a world and a church where every angel and every rank of angels stand before the throne in the very post God has assigned them."

The world, the great mass of mankind, have utterly misunderstood the real object of life on earth, or else he misunderstands it who follows the light of the Bible. You look at men as individuals, and their object seems to be to gratify a contemptible vanity, to pervert and follow their low appetites and passions, and the dictates of selfishness, wherever they may lead. You look at men in the aggregate, and this pride and these passions terminate in wide plans of ambition, in wars and bloodshed, in strifes and the destruction of all that is virtuous or lovely. The history of mankind has its pages all stained with blood; and it is the history of a race whose object seemed to be, to debase their powers, and sink what was intended for immortal glory, to the deepest degradation which sin can cause. At one

The army of Xerxes.

The crusade.

time, you will see an army of five millions of men following a leader, who, to add to his poor renown, is now to jeopardize all these lives, and the peace of his whole kingdom. This multitude of minds fall in, and they live, and march, and fight, and perish, to aid in exalting a poor worm of the dust. What capacities were here assembled! What minds were here put in motion ! What a scene of struggles was here! And who, of all this multitude, were pursuing the real object of life? From Xerxes, at their head, to the lowest and most debased in the rear of the army, was there one, who, when weighed in the balances of eternal truth, was fulfilling the object for which he was created, and for which life is continued? Look again. All Europe rises up in a phrensy, and pours forth a living tide towards the Holy Land. They muster in the name of the Lord of Hosts. The cross waves on their banners, and the holy sepulchre is the watchword by day and night. They move eastward, and whiten the burning sands of the deserts with their bleaching bones. But of all these, from the fanatic whose voice awoke Europe to arms, down to the lowest horse-boy, how few were actuated by any spirit which Heaven, or justice, to say nothing about love, could sanction! Suppose the same number of men, the millions which composed the continent which rose up to exterminate another, and who followed the man who was first a soldier and then a priest and

Peter the Hermit.

A wonderful example of avarice.

hermit, and who has left the world in doubt whether he was a prophet, a madman, a fool, or a demagogue, had spent the same treasures of life, and of money, in trying to spread the spirit of that Saviour for whose tomb they could waste so much; and suppose this army had been enlightened and sanctified men, and had devoted their powers to do good to mankind, and to honor their God, how different would the world have been found to-day! How many, think you, of all the then Christian world, acted under a spirit, and with an object before them such as the world will approve, and especially such as the pure beings above us will approve?

Look a moment at a few of the efforts which avarice has made. For about four centuries, the avarice of man, and of Christian men too, has been preying upon the vitals of Africa. It has taken the sons and daughters of Ham, and doomed soul and body to debasement, to ignorance, to slavery. And what are the results? Twenty-eight millions-more than twice the population of this country-have been kidnapped and carried away from the land of their birth. The estimate is, that the increase in the house of bondage since those times, is five-fold, or nearly one hundred and seventy millions of human, immortal beings, cut off from the rights of man, and, by legislation and planning, reduced far towards the scale of the brutes. This is only a single form in which avarice has been

Ancient kingdoms.

Experiment of paganism.

exerting its power. Suppose the same time and money, the same effort, had been spent in spreading the arts of civilization, learning, and religion, over the continent of Africa, what a vast amount of good would have been accomplished! And at the day when the recording angel reads the history of the earth, how very different would be the picture, and the eternal condition of untold numbers! If the marks of humanity are not all blotted out from that race of miserable men, it is not because oppression has not been sufficiently legalized, and avarice been allowed to pursue its victims, till the grave became a sweet asylum.

I am trying to lead you to look at the great amount of abuse and of perversion of mind, of which mankind are constantly guilty. When Christianity began her glorious career, the world had exhausted its strength in trying to debase itself, and to sink low enough to embrace paganism; and yet not so low, as not to try to exist in the shape of nations. The experiment had been repeated, times we know not how many. Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, polished Greece, iron-footed Rome, mystical Hindooism, had all tried it. They spent, each, mind enough to regenerate a nation, in trying to build up a system of corrupt paganism; and when that system was built up-let the shape and form be what it might-the nation had exhausted its energies, and it sunk and fell under the effects of misapplied and perverted mind. No nation existed on the face of the