intercessions of your brethren, that have ascended for you, with so much fervency, to heaven. They will remind you, how your own heart has melted into the full and flowing stream of their fraternal tenderness; while, beneath the pressure of their gentle hand, so lately imposed upon your head, and committing you to God as a living sacrifice, your very soul has seemed to dissolve and sink away, as if that offering had been perfected, and that immolation were complete. Again you will dissolve and sink beneath that gentle pressure. Again you will feel the descending of that holy flame which has hallowed every thing within you. You will again experience the ardour of that sublime emotion, with which you have glanced across the arena of your future conflict, determining to fall rather than abandon it, and, if you perish, to perish at the goal. In moments of sadness or of disappointment, such remembrances may quicken to renovated hope;-and should you be endangered by a spirit of indifference or languor, they may revive your vigour, and stimulate your exertions, giving to your efforts fixedness where they were fluctuating, and decisiveness where they were uncertain, and thus insuring their end. May I entreat you, then, to make this your motto; and to supply by frequent meditation those deficiencies, whether of illustration or of interest, which may attach to the manner wherein it is now to be presented. It will thus accomplish, more effectually than any efforts I should be able of myself to put forth, the design of that responsible engagement you have intrusted to my discharge.

It is probable that the very mention of this topic, while I am recommending to you singleness of object and unity of action, may bring to your recollection a most valuable and well-known essay on "Decision of Character," from the pen of a distinguished living writer. With his subject, indeed, mine is very intimately connected. Neither of the qualities they relate to can subsist without the other;-such singleness of object being wholly unattainable without decision, and such decision without singleness of aim. And accordingly, the author of that essay has exhibited in its progress, with a force and beauty peculiar to himself, much specifically pertaining to that which now more immediately calls for your attention. Permit me to extract one paragraph, bearing, more directly than perhaps any other, on our present theme. It occurs in that portion of the essay wherein is portrayed the character of the illustrious Howard; and relates to the singular fact, that he turned not for a moment from his course, when traversing those scenes the most calculated to enkindle curiosity and to awaken enthusiasm by the associations of ancient glory with which they were connected, and even Rome itself. "The importance "of his object held his faculties in a state of excite"ment which was too rigid to be affected by lighter ، interests, and on which, therefore, the beauties of "nature and of art had no power; like the invisible "spirits who fulfil their commission of philanthropy "among mortals, and care not about pictures, sta"tues, and sumptuous buildings. It implied an in"conceivable severity of conviction that he had one

"thing to do; and that he who would do some great thing in this short life, must apply himself to the "work with such a concentration of his forces, as "to idle spectators, who live only to amuse themselves, looks like insanity. It was thus he made "the trial, so seldom made, what is the utmost effect "which may be granted to the last possible efforts "of a human agent; and therefore, what he did not “accomplish, he might conclude to be placed be"yond the sphere of mortal activity, and calmly "leave to the immediate disposal of omnipotence." —I have taken the liberty of citing these remarks at the very commencement of my address, because they coincide so exactly with the design I have in view; and by them, in a very narrow compass, my whole intention is placed most distinctly before you.

Were illustration or enforcement wanting, however, for the due effect of such a theme upon the mind, it might be found in the words immediately connected with the text. The apostle is here unfolding to us those secret sources of action, which conspired to form a character unrivalled in all the history of the church, both for the energy of its principles, and for the extent and grandeur of its effects. He describes himself as thinking lightly of all those advantages he had inherited from education, or from outward circumstances;-as counting them nothing, and esteeming them but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ;-and further, as despising the largest and noblest of his acquisitions, even as a Christian, for the higher and more estimable blessings which he was incited con

tinually to desire,-in a more perfect acquaintance with the mercy and the work of Jesus, and a deeper experience of the operations of his grace. Whatever he had either learned or accomplished, he represents himself as casting far behind him in the career of this holy ambition;—and "this one thing," says he, "I do; forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." The whole force of his mind was thus collected and poured out on the attainment of more eminent spirituality and greater usefulness;—and we know the result.

The success of his labours in the cause of Christ was, like his devotedness, beyond all parallel. No danger could quench his ardour, no difficulty abate his confidence. To hardship, opposition, and delay, his spirit was invulnerable. Whatever could be

achieved by effort, or acquired by perseverance, he infallibly accomplished. Where others would have fainted or sunk into despair, he discerned only causes of more fixed determination:where they would have relaxed into supineness, he perceived only the occasion for more vigorous activity.-To affirm of such a man that he was unconquered, or even that he was invincible, would be to say infinitely less than the truth;-since the very causes that might have been expected to enfeeble or to weary out his spirit, became his safeguard, and supplied resources to insure his victory. Violence, tumult, bloodshed, obloquy, treachery, desertion, the loss of all things, and the endurance of all,-what

ever was most abhorrent, or most perilous, was converted only into an omen of conquest, and an incentive to exertion.

It is truly refreshing to learn, as here we do, that such unrivalled eminence, and such unprecedented success, were not attributable alone to the concurrence of secondary causes, or to the arbitrary appointment of Providence; but had, in their whole character, a correspondence to the principles out of which they rose, such as to qualify them to become of practical utility as an example to ourselves. This declaration discloses the reason, and resolves the mystery. And as we have seen the apostle animated by heroism that nothing could subdue, it is now delightful to find him tracing up all to the operation of a principle that nothing could resist.

Nor is it less profitable than attractive, to be able thus to look within upon the mechanism of so great a mind, and watch the workings of its innermost machinery; till we arrive even at the discovery of its first and master spring. We cannot gaze on such a spectacle without practical advantage proportioned to the wonder and delight which we receive from its inspection. Nothing is fitted so to lift us above what is feeble in sentiment, or timorous in action; while the sanctity emanating from the whole casts a glow of beauty, like its own, over the soul which it at once elevates and humbles,-till we come insensibly to partake in all its purity, as we follow in the train of all its greatness.

I. Let me remind you, how the office you are