him! the glory of his head is fallen, and the child is thrown into the shade, unnoticed and unknown!

Behold these orphans! their distresses how complicated! Here you may find all the variations of helpless orphancy! Some bereaved of a father's smile, some of a mother's love! and some deprived of both! they will never more enjoy a parent's warm embrace; these are bereaved indeed! I can, with the pencil of my mind, draw the scene of a pious couple struggling against the tide of poverty, night and day tugging at the oar; but they have little ones to whom they look for future joy which alleviates their present suffering. I can remove this scene, and substitute another, in which I behold the head of a family removed by an awful and inscrutable Providence. He has left behind him a wife; he has also left a daughter, now a little orphan! The mother finds mercy in the dispensation; her grief, otherwise inconsolable, is dried up; the innocent chides the mother's tears, while her throbbing heart conceals her own, and pours the balm into that part particularly affected. The mother lives -lives in her child; the child lives, but it is only for her mother! But I again take up my pencil, and reverse the scene: the mother is removed and the father is spared! Of all objects under heaven, a motherless daughter, in the morning of life, is the most pitiable! Pining anguish enters her little soul! The father, seldom at home, is diverted in some degree from his grief while pursuing his daily duty, and the strength of mature reason has fortified his mind: meantime the infant mind wastes itself away! It walks the seat of all its past comforts-stares with seeming wildness on the withered scene. A thousand little arrangements made by the mother's hand combine to keep the wound still fresh, while she gazes on them with mournful pleasure: her mother's image is ever present before her, for her business was domestic, and she sees her in the armed chair, and rises and treads the domestic rounds: the sigh heaves, the tear gushes out, the streams flow, and mother! mother! involuntarily escapes her lips, for it is uppermost in her heart! The father seldom views the scene; she carefully conceals her grief, attends him in her mother's stead, reads his wishes in his eye, anticipates his wants; but, though steadfastly she reads his looks, she cannot trace the soft lineaments of a mother's face or find a mother's smile! But the father is removed, and now weigh the affliction! Surrounded by a gloom which will not suffer hope to shed a ray, she is but one remove from the shadow of death! Death had eclipsed in eternal night her only joy ere the shade of the intervening monster had been dispelled from her abode. Saw you such a scene, and would no messenger of peace step in to this dreary haunt, and at least ameliorate, if they cannot restore, by quieting the distress on account of future support? Would none be found to whisper to the throbbing heart, "Peace, be still!יי This tale is not fiction: I have shown you the picture; there are the living images!

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III. The claims they have on us, and our duty with regard to them.

1. As Christians. If religion be that which is to induce a conformity to its Author, who, though rich in all the glories of the upper skies, yet for our sakes became poor, and ever went about doing good, can it possess that heart in which no bowels of mercies are excited at the orphan's artless tale, but whose soul ever presents the insensibility and frigid temperature of the dead, though cased in a living coffin?

If religion be in the heart, let its fruit appear; the Lord puts you to the test. Though he no longer keeps his court upon earth, but has removed it to the heavenly city, yet he sends down a message by his ministers; and this is the message which we declare unto you, that pure religion is evidenced by this display: will you then parley with the ambassador and slight the embassy of the high court of Heaven?

St. John, enlarging on this message, asks, "How dwells the love of God in such a man?" with what face can he call himself a Christian! Who is the man that has just risen from his knees while he has been saying, "Thou hast dealt bountifully with thy servant," and yet contracts immediately the spirit of avarice, and lets go the Divine feeling? I speak to you as unto Christians; no fruit in the life is a proof that there is no religion in the heart, and all professions of this kind only prove the man to be a religious hyprocrite. Good works are not meritorious, for all merit must centre in God; but yet they are rewardable when flowing from evangelical principle. They justify our faith, and shall meet a full reward; while others who produced them not will share another fate. "Conceive a thousand shivering beings on the cold flood of death; driven by its strong tide, they soon reach the opposite shore; they are driven away in their wickedness. I follow them with my mind's eye to a cavern hideous on all sides, roused as one great furnace flamed; and through volumes of sulphur and smoke I am just enabled to read in characters of blood, 'Reserved in everlasting chains of darkness until the judgment of the great day;' my soul sickens at the sight, and I turn from the scene; I anticipate what that judgment will be: "I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not; sick and in prison, and ye visited me not: for inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these ye did it not to me;" therefore, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."

I speak to you as unto Christians, "Be ye followers of God as dear children." Behold the peculiar regard which he has ever taken for the fatherless. It was among the laws delivered by God to Moses that the gleanings of the field, the wheat, the grape, and the olive, should all be left to the orphan and the widow; nay, the Jew was even obliged to distribute part of his tithe to these forlorn ones, and it is expressly said that they are not to make merry or rejoice without the fatherless. It is observable, also, that in the conditions which God made by the prophets in his covenants with the Jews, almost the first was, "If ye shall judge the fatherless." On the other hand, whenever their crimes were multiplied and he recapitulates the catalogue, among them we find this charge repeatedly made: "Ye judge not the fatherless." That men might ever be kept in mind of this duty,

God has applied to himself the epithet of Everlasting Father; and Christ annexes the same to our dispensation when we daily pray "Our Father who art in heaven."

Shall, then, the peculiar object of the regard of Heaven not be the object upon which we shall look with more than common feelings? shall not our awe be inspired while looking at these children of Deity ?

But learn a lesson from these children of Providence. "Divine Providence is always deserving our attention. Providence is God in motion; Providence is God teaching by facts; Providence is God fulfilling, explaining, and enforcing his own words; Providence is God rendering natural events subservient to spiritual purposes; rousing our attention when we are careless, reminding us of our obligations when we are ungrateful, recalling us to our duty; Providence will be heard, and whoso is wise will observe these things." Read you not in these orphans the presage of what may be the case with regard to those who now call you father? who now call you mother? "Yes, O man! O woman! you must separate! It is useless to keep back the mortifying truth; it was the condition upon which your union was formed. O man, it was a mortal finger upon which you placed the ring, vain emblem of perpetuity! O woman, it was a dying hand that imposed it! After so many mutual and growing attachments, you must separate" and leave your little ones to be then called orphans: one must be taken and the other left, fondly to deck your grave or bedew the spot with nature's tears. Trust not the love of friendship with your helpless charge! Many have been the false friends which these orphans found; many were their professions; "but how small the number of sterling ones in the day of trial! Some of those who are now fawning on you would not, if a change of circumstances occurred, even know you or yours; they leave the garden in winter; there is nothing to gather. The flower which you placed in their bosom, as soon as it has exhaled its perfume, they throw withered into the dust. Of what use is the scaffolding when the building is finished? It is laid out of sight: 'My brethren have dealt deceitfully.' * * * Trust not then in

riches; they may perish before your child should enjoy them; the moth may eat these." Lay up treasure for them more durable this night, and make God your friend while you act up to his golden rule.

2. As men! I appeal to humanity. Behold these orphans! and, if you can, steel your heart against them and bind it with fetters of brass! But no; you could not do it! you could not but be affected with their cries: "Cast upon the world, we have no father's care, no mother's love!" A rhetoric is heard in such cries powerful to soften the hearts of the obdurate and to persuade the opulent to contribute to their relief; and that man would cease to be human who could not be moved by them: their case is sufficient to melt the adamantine heart to tenderness, and to act as a powerful attraction to draw relief from the coffers of those to whom God has given ability to bestow. Surely, as men, you could not leave them alone to mourn their suffering lot and rehearse their tale of wo! to speak to the passing wind and sigh to the unheeding gale!

But it is often found that professing Christians are prevented from the diffusion of universal charity by that worst of monsters, sectarian bigotry. (See Styles.) But I speak to you as unto men; we may differ about nonessential points of doctrine, and it is no great wonder; we know little of God or the ways of God, and no wonder that we should entertain diversified opinions on subjects connected with such a Being. But we do know what we ourselves are; and as we all expect to meet in heaven, can we not agree to meet somewhere on earth? Shall no spot be found as a common possession on which we can take our stand? Yes! there is at least one: let us then rally around suffering humanity; here we can all meet. Look at these orphans; let not these be the victims of party feeling; forget that we are separatists, and feel that we are men! Should the demon of party feeling attempt to cross the boundaries of this line, he should at once be hewn in sunder!

Ye poorest of the poor! Little was it thought by your fond parents that you would ever be exposed to the cravings of public charity; often did the fond mother give lati