of clay; but rather that, on being liberated from all mixture with body, pure and entire, it enters upon its true intellectual existence. At death, any one may discover what becomes of the material par of our frame: all finks into that from which it arofe every thing is refolved into its first principle; the fou alone is apparent neither while it is with us, nor when it departs. What so much resembles death as fleep Now the powers of the mind, in fleep, loudly proclaim their own divinity; free and unfettered, the foul plunges into futurity, ascends its native sky. Hence we may conclude how enlarged those powers will be, when undeprefssed, unrestrained by the chains of flesh. Since these things are so, confider and reverence me as a tutelary deity. But, granting that the mind were to expire with the body, nevertheless, out of reverence to the immortal Gods, who support and direct this fair fabric of nature, pioufly, affectionately cherish the memory of your affectionate father." The great Roman orator puts these words into the mouth of Cato, in addressing his young friends Scipio and Lælius. "Those excellent men, your fathers, who were fo dear to me in life, I confider as still alive; and indeed, as now enjoying a state of being which alone deferves to be dignified with the name of life. For as long as we are shut up in this dungeon of sense, we have to toil through the painful and necessary drudgery of life, and to accomplish the laborious task of an hireling. The celestial spirit is, as it were, depreffed, de. graded from its native seat, and plunged into the mire of this world, a state repugnant to its divine nature and eternal duration." And again, "Nobody shall ever perfuade me, Scipio, that your father Paullus, and your two grandfathers, Paullus and Africanus, and many other eminent men whom it is unnecessary to mention, would have attempted and acheived fo many splendid actions, which were to extend their influence to posterity, had they not clearly difcerned that they had an interest in, and a connexion with the ages of futurity,

futurity, and with generations yet unborn. Can you imagine, that I may talk a little of myself, after the manner of old men, can you imagine, that I would have fubmitted to fo many painful toils, by night and by day, in the forum, in the fenate, in the field, had I apprehended that my existence, and my reputation, were to terminate with my life? Were this the cafe, would it not have been much better to dose away in indolence an infignificant and useless life? But, I do not know how, the foul, inceffantly exerting its native vigour, still sprung eagerly forward into ages yet to come, and feized them as its own.

"I feel myself transported with delight at the thought of again feeing and joining your fathers, whom on earth I highly respected and dearly loved; and, borne on the wings of hope and defire, I am speeding my flight to mingle in the honoured fociety, not of those only whom on earth I knew, and with whom I have conversed; but of those also of whom I have heard and read, and the history of whose lives I myself have written, for the instruction of mankind. I have the confolation of reflecting, that I have not lived wholly in vain: and I quit my station in life without regret, as the way-faring man, whose face is towards home, bids farewell to the inn where he had stopped for a little refreshment on his way. O glorious day, when I shall be admitted into the divine assembly of the wife and good! When I shall make an eternal escape from this fink of corruption, and the din of folly! When amidst the happy throng of the immortals, I shall find thee also my fon, my Cato, best, moft amiable of men! On thy ashes, I bestowed the honours of the tomb. Ah! why did not mine rather receive them from thy hand! But your spirit, I know it, has never forfaken me; but cafting back many a longing, lingering look to your afflicted father, has removed to that region of purity and peace whither you were confident I should shortly follow And I feel, I feel our feparation cannot be of

you.

long continuance.

"If,

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"If, indulging myself in this fond hope, my young friends, I am under the power of delusion, it is a sweet, it is an innocent delufion. I will hold it fast and never let it go, while I live. I despise the sneer of the witling, who would attempt to laugh me out of my immortality. Suppose him in the right, and myself under a mistake, he shall not have the power to infult me, nor shall I have the mortification of feeling his fcorn, when we are both gone to the land of everlasting forgetfulness."

How pleasing the thought, my dear chriftian friends, I again repeat it, how pleasing the thought, that the honest propenfities of nature, the fairest conclusions of unassisted reason, and the most ardent breathings of truth and virtue, are here in unifson with the clearest and most explicit declarations of the holy fcriptures!

But the facred Dove foars into a region which na, ture and reason never could have explored. Revelation, to the immortality of the foul, has added the refurrection of the body. And, "wherefore should it be thought a thing incredible that God should raife the dead?" The Spirit says to "these dry bones, Live." "We believe that Jesus died and rose again." What a fure ground of hope, that "them also who fleep in Jesus, God will bring with him!" Delightful reflection! Who would be so unjust to God, and fo unkind to himself, as to part with it? How it smooths the rugged path of life, how it tempers the bitterness of affliction, how it diffipates the horrors of the grave! One child fleeps in the dust, the diameter of the globe feparates me from another, but the word of life, "I AM the God of thy feed," rescues that one from corruption, and puts the other in my embrace. Time dwindles into a point, the earth melts away, trumpet sounds," " the dead arife incorruptible." Behold all things are made new! "New heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."

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"the

Arife, let us go hence," and "fit down with Abraham, Ifaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God." History

By faith Mofes, when he was come to years, refused to be called the fon of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of fin for a feafon; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith be forfook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured as feeing him who is invisible.

THE history of mankind contains many a lamenta

ble detail of the fad reverses to which human affairs are liable; of the affluent, by unforeseen, unavoidable calamity, tumbled into indigence; of greatness in eclipse; of the mighty fallen; of princes dethroned, banished, put to death. In fome instances of this fort, we fce the unhappy fufferers making a virtue of neceffity, and bearing their misfortunes with a certain degree of patience and magnanimity; but in general, fudden and great distress either fours or de. presses the spirit, and men submit to the will of Providence with so ill a grace, that it is evident they are not under the power of religion, and that they flee not for confolation to the prospects of immortality,

We are this evening to contemplate one of those rare examples of true greatness of mind, which made a voluntary facrifice of the most enviable fituation, and the most flattering profpects, which human life admits

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admits of; and that at an age when the heart is most devoted to the pursuit of pleasure, most fufceptible of the allurements of ambition. It is the fingular instance of Mofes, the prophet and legislator of Ifrael, who, brought up from infancy in a court, instructed in all the learning of the Egyptians, treated as the heir of empire, and encouraged to afpire to all that the heart naturally covets, and that Providence bestows, on the most favoured of mankind; at the age of forty cheerfully refigned all these advantages, and preferred the life of a flave with his brethren, and of a shepherd in the land of Midian, among strangers, to all the luxury and splendour belonging to the fon of Pharaoh's daughter, to all the dazzling hopes of royalty or of power next to majesty.

Scripture, in its own admirably concise method, dispatches the history of this great man's life, from his infancy to his fortieth year, in a few short words, namely, "and Mofes was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds: "* as not deeming information concerning attainments in human science, or feats of martial prowefs, worthy of the knowledge of pofterity, compared to the triumphs of his faith, the generous workings of his public spirit, and the noble ardour of fervent piety.

Philo and Jofephus, however, and other Jewish writers, have taken upon them to fill up this interval of time, by a fanciful, fabulous, unsupported account of the earlier years of Mofes; which we should perhaps be difpofed, in part, to retail for your amusement, if not for your instruction, had not the Spirit of God fupplied us with well authenticated memoirs of a more advanced period of his life. In the perusal of which, with ferious meditation upon them, we shall, I trust, find pleasure and profit blended together.

Taking infpiration then for our guide, we divide the history of Mofes into three periods of equal duration

* Acts vii. 22.