' blind also' to the signs of this time,' and deaf to the voice of heaven which cries in our ears, People of America! Choose ye this day whom ye will serve... Choose ye between Jehovah and Baal...between reformation and ruin. ус Professed disciples of Jesus! what think you of this subject? The great, the momentous question, whether you love Christ or not, must soon be decided. If you serve him here, you will reign with him hereafter. If you are penetents on earth, you will soon be saints in glory. There, faith will be swallowed up in vision, and hope in consummate, endless enjoyment. There, christians from every clime and country will gather around their father's table; patriarchs and prophets; apostles and martyrs; the pious and faithful of every age, kindred and tongue will have a happy meeting, and that happy meeting will last forever. There, millions of redeemed souls will raise their joyful hosannas to the Lamb, while they look back on earth and time, where they were born to God, and trained for immortal bliss. Sinners in Zion! what think you of this subject? Can you still live at ease, without Christ and without hope? Can you still shut the Saviour from your hearts, trifle with his authority and trample on his blood? Will you scorn the grace which he has pur chased, and the glory which he offers? Then know assuredly that he will debar you from the blessings which you have so awfully undervalued, and consign you to the misery, which you have so foolishly refus ed to escape. 'To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.' THE FOLLY, GUILT, AND MISCHIEFS OF DUELLING. A SERM O N. BY TIMOTHY DWIGHT, D. D. PRESIDENT OF YALE-COLLEGE. PROVERBS Xxviii. 17. A man, that doeth violence to the blood of any perfon, fhall flee to the pit let no man flay him. THIS passage of scripture is a republication of that general law concerning homicide, which is recorded in Gen. ix. 5, 6. "But surely your blood of your lives will I require at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he This law was published at the time, when the kil ling of beasts for food was permitted. No time could have been equally proper. As the shedding of animal blood would naturally remove the inherent hor. ror at destroying life, and prepare men to shed the blood of each other; the law became indespensable for the prevention of this crime, from the beginning. It ought to be observed, that the detestation, with which God regards this sin, is marked with a pen of iron in that singular declaration; At the hand of every beast will I require it. If homicide is so odious in the sight of God, as to expose the unconscious brute, which effected it, to the loss of his own life as an expiation; with what views must he regard a man, a rational agent, formed in his own image, when accomplishing the death of his brother man with design, from the indulgence of malice, and in the execution of revenge? As this original law was given to Noah, the progenitor of all postdiluvian men, it is evidently binding on the whole human race. Every nation has accordingly felt its force, and executed it upon the transgressor. In the text, the same law is promulged with one additional injunction. 'He shall flee to the pit; let no man stay him.' However strongly the past services of the criminal, or the tender affections of his friends may plead for his exemption from the sentence; no man from any motive, or with any view, shall prevent, or even retard, his progress towards the punishment required. To this punishment God has consigned him, absolutely and with his own voice. No consideration, therefore, can prevent, or hinder, the execution. A sober man would naturally conclude, after reading these precepts, that in every country, where their authority is acknowledged to be divine, homicide would in all cases, beside those excepted expressly by God, be invariably punished with death. At least, he would expect to find all men in such countries agreeing, with a single voice, that such ought to be the fact; and uniting with a single effort, to bring it to pass. Above all, he would certainly conclude, that whatever might be the decision of the vulgar, and the ignorant, there could be but one opinion, in such countries, among those who filled the superior ranks of society. How greatly then, must such a person be astonished, when he was informed, that in christian countries only, and in such countries among those only, who are enrolled on the list of superiority and distinction, homicide of a kind no where excepted by God from this general destiny, but marked with all the guilt, of which homicide is succeptible, is not only not thus punished but is vindicated, honored and rewarded, by common consent, and undisguised suffrage. The views; which I entertain of Duelling may be sufficiently expressed under the following heads; The Folly, The Guilt, and The Mischiefs, of this Crime. Duelling is vindicated, so far as my knowledge ex tends, on the following considerations only; That it is A punishment, A reparation, A prevention of injuries; And a source of reputation to the parties. If it can be shown to be neither of these, in any such sense, as reason can approve, or argument sustain; if it can be proved to be wholly unnecessary to all these purposes, and a preposterous method of accomplishing them; it must evidently fail of all vindication, and be condemned as foolish, irrational, and deserving only of contempt. As a punishment of an offence, which for the present shall be supposed to be a real one, duelling is fraught with absurdity only. If a duel be fought on equal terms, the only terms allowed by duellists, the person injured exposes himself, equally with the injurer, to a new suffering; always greater in truth, and commonly in his own opinion, than that which he purposes to punish. The injurer only ought to suffer, or to be exposed to suffering. No possible reason can be alledged, why the innocent man should be at all put in hazard. Were the tribunals of justice to place the injured party, appealing to them for redress, in the same hazard of being obliged to pay a |