this thy name,

THE FATHER OF THY PEOPLE! Cherish worth!

Where talent is, turn it to good! Pre

THE words of Joshua now before us suggest several important ideas.

In the first place they teach us, that religion is a subject of choice. We are not born religious, nor are we made so by education or the mere care and labors of parents or instructors, without our consent and earnest cooperation. Religion requires our determination, our voluntary choice; and it is also the most solemn question on which we can be called to deeide.

To what purpose are all the exhortations of ministers, the prayers of God's people, and the expostulations of the gospel, if we will not be persuaded to choose and seriously act for ourselves? Let us then bring our

selves to the test of serious examination, whether we have in very deed chosen a life of real religion.

Some perhaps will say for themselves-We have regularly attended God's worship; we have been trained up to walk circumspectly, to avoid impiety, impurity, dishonesty and falsehood; we have set a good example, and have not deliberately brought disgrace on religious institutions. But it may be asked, Why have you done these things? Has it been from a principle of duty, a sense of obligation and from love to God? Or has it been from a thousand various motives which you have never examined? If the latter, you have yet to choose whom you will serve.

As religion is a subject of

choice, it is not a thing to be forc ed upon as either by God or man. Nor are we to wait in a atate of indifference and indecision, expecting miraculous agency to turn us from a course of sia to the service of God. If we speak it with reverence, we may truly say, that even Omnipotence cannot effect the conversion of a sinner without his consent. For conversion implies the consent and choice of the mind to serve the Lord.

Choosing religion or the service of God, implies more than a consent to be of this or that party among professed Christians, and more than the adoption of any human system of doctrines or opinions. It consists rather in a serious determination of the mind to devote ourselves to the honest study and practice of God's will. Without this we shall be exposed to pass through life in a state of delusion, to confound our zeal for a sect, with zeal for the truth; our attachment to those who bear

the same insignia with ourselves, with love for our neighbor; and our choice of a party for devotedness to God.

In the second place we are to remark, that in choosing religion we make choice of some object to serve-Choose you whom you will serve. The majority of mankind are the slaves of some ruling passion from which their whole life takes its direction. The passions which hold the world in bondage, may be reduced to a few great tyrants-the love of pleasure-of power-of money-of fame.

..Know ye not," says the apostle, "that to whomsoever ye yield yourselves

servants to obey, his servants ye are whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?"

Do any plead for themselves thus? We have been always devoted to the service of Godour parents dedicated us to him in our infancy-and we have yielded to the authority of his law.'

Let this profession be examined: How are you affected by the opinion of the world? What are the vices which you abhor? Do you abhor all the vices which God's law forbids, or only those which happen to be censured by the indulgent moralists of the age? Do you abhor all impurity, profaneness, dissoluteness, revenge, worldliness and irreligion? Dare you in the face of reproach, contempt, and ignominy, refuse to yield to the favorite opinions of those who call themselves the world? Are you so much superior to their condemnation that you dare to forgive a man who has insulted your Dare you let the world know that you fear God and not reproach-heil and not the contempt of the wicked? Can we be the servants of God, and yet the slaves of the world's law? Can we be the servants of God and yet ashamed to avow our religious principles and to practise according to his requirements?

ers and closes our hearts against their distresses and wants, if it makes us hard in our dealings and punctilious in our demands, if it renders us more sensible to wrongs done to ourselves than to sins against our heavenly Father, then are we the slaves of wealth rather than servants of God.

There are many who are the slaves of sensuality, who perhaps do not feel their own bondage. How sure, and yet how secret, is the progress of intemperance! How is the whole mind often subjected, and the faculties exhausted by this vice before the poor slave is aware of his danger! He is a slave of sensuality who for the sake of its pleasures neglects the improvement of his mind, or incapacitates himself for the discharge of his duties, or for the enjoyment of the sweets of religion.

Let those who have hitherto preferred the service of the world to the service of God-and who imagine that religion is a burden and the service of God a restraint-believe the voice of all experience, that there is no master so severe as the world, and no service more unprofitable than that which they have chosen. There is no end to the sacrifices which must be made to conform to the capricious laws of custom and popularity. After all that is made in this life there must be a dreadful sacrifice when death closes the state of probation. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul!

In the last place, observe the time of choosing. Choose you

this day whom you will serve. Why this day? Because every motive which can affect a reasonable mind demands it.

Choose this day, because it is the most important thing in life. Our first obligations were to God, and time, instead of diminishing them, only encreases their number, and the sin of our neglect.

Choose this day, because it is the only day of which we are sure. We know not what a day may bring forth; we have no pledge of the continuance of life, we have nothing to depend upon but the mercy of that very God to whose service we are required to devote ourselves.

Choose you this day, because every day's delay renders your choice more unlikely. The motives may never again appear so strong to your minds as they do at present; the subject may never again be urged upon you, and some change in your circumstances may place you out of the hearing of these calls, and out of the power of using the means with which you are now favored. You may be prevailed upon by some considerations of pleasure or wealth, to abandon the ordinances of worship which you now attend. By delay you contract the habit of making excuses, your hearts become more insensible, and the world fastens upon you some new chain.

Choose you this day whom you will serve, because to choose the service of God may be more difficult hereafter, and because late repentance will be bitter and perhaps of little worth. What is thought to be repentance at the eleventh hour is much to be sus

pected, as only the effect of fear, or as a state of mind extorted by the prospect of death, without any sincere love to God.

Choose you this day, because the whole life ought to be devoted to God, and to serve God is a different thing from determining to commence his service in a future day. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. The night cometh, in which no man can work. Think how much sin and sorrow you may prevent by an immediate dedication of yourselves to God: how many your example may influence, how many may be awakened by your determination to serve the Lord. Think also how many are encouraged to go on in sin by your delay, and how their condemnation as well as yours may be aggravated by your neglect.

Choose you this day, because the invitations of heaven are so

pressing and SO affectionate. How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity, and the scorners delight in their scorning, and the fools hate knowledge. "Turn ye at my reproof." "Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die."

Choose you now, because to defer is to presume on merey which has already been abused by delay. To delay any longer is both disingenuous and presumptuous; and the expostulations of Heaven are very affecting. "Because I have called and ye have refused, I have stretched out my hands and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh. Then shall they call on me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me; for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord."

B.

that no previous and concurrent efforts have been made to give them a favorable impression of the tendency and effects of Christianity, and thus to prepare them for its reception, by extending to them the improvements and comforts of civilized life? This will not be said. Neither zeal, nor benevolence, nor discretion, nor activity, in many cases well directed, nor ample means judiciously applied, have been wanting. Yet the savage prejudices have not been overcome. Is there

not, then, some other cause, to which we may attribute a part, at least, of our want of success? Are not the best endeavors to give to the natives of the land the comforts of civilized life, and the blessings of the gospel, counteracted by the treatment they receive from us in other respects, and the character in which we appear to them? We offer to them a religion of peace and good will, yet they see us carrying on among ourselves and against them ferocious and desolating wars. We profess and preach a doctrine of purity and self denial, and they witness in us a licentiousness of manners and self indulgence unknown among them, who make no such pretensions. We invite them to embrace a religion of justice and disinterestedness; yet we drive them from their possessions, and take from them their country. While some of us are teaching them the doctrine of eternal life, and offering them the hopes of a heavenly inheritance, others of the same nation and manners, and apparently of the same profession and principles, are cheating them out of their possessions, corrupting their morals, brutalizing their manners, & driving them to seek safety from our depredations in deeper forests, and remoter wildernesses. We exhort them to embrace a religion, which considers all men as brethren, and teaches humility, mutual condescension universal good will, and the common regards of the universal Parent for all his children, and the common provision he has made for them; yet they find themselves treated by us, as a different order

of beings-as a degraded race, not possessing the same nature, not entitled to the same rights as ourselves. Is it wonderful then, that they are not converted? Can we be surprised, that they resist our endeavors for their benefit, when experience has taught them, that whatever may be the designs and views of Christians, the uniform result of an intercourse with those who profess to be Christians, to them has been robbery, corruption, exile and slavery? Are we to be surprised that the most pious, and wise, and faithful missionaries should meet with little success, surrounded by intrepid adventurers, who treat these natives of the soil as beasts of the forest, and are continually embroiling them in quarrels, that they may have a pretence for seizing on their lands;-and by cunning traders, who are ready to defraud them of their rights, to take advantage of their ignorance and their propensities, to spread the worst of corruptions among them; in fact to sacrifice every principle of justice and feeling of humanity to a lucrative traffic? Little reason have we to hope, that even accompanied with the useful arts, and the improvements and comforts of civilization, the gospel will be received by the natives of our country, until those causes shall be removed, which have thus counteracted, and continue to counteract the efforts of piety, and benevolence, and enlightened zeal.

In other regions of the world we have indeed heard of better prospects; and we rejoice to hear, that both in Asia and Africa some hopeful symptoms have