to just apprehensions of religious liberty; and that it is to them that the world is now indebted for the more just and definite views which prevail. More exclamation and invective has been called forth by the few instances of persecution by the Fathers of New England, than by all the fires which lighted the realm of Old England for centuries, and drove into exile, thousands of her most valuable subjects.

The superstition and bigotry of our Fathers are themes, on which some of their descendants, themselves far enough from superstition, if not from bigotry, have delighted to dwell. But when we look abroad, and behold the condition of the world compared with the condition of New England, we may justly exclaim, 'Would to God that the ancestors of all the nations had been not only almost, but altogether such bigots as our Fathers were!'

But

Their strictness in the family, and in church and state, has been complained of as too rigid. they were laying the foundations of a nation, and applying a moral power, whose impulse should extend through ages; and who that beholds the rapid and appalling moral relaxation of the present day, can believe that they put the system in motion with too much rigor? In proportion as their discipline had been less strict, our present condition had been more alarming, and our future prospects more desperate.

Our Fathers have been ridiculed as an uncouth and uncourtly generation. And it must be ad

mitted, that they were not as expert in the graces of dress, and the etiquette of the drawing room, as some of their descendants. But neither could these have felled the trees, nor guided the plough, nor spread the sail which they did; nor braved the dangers of Indian warfare, nor displayed the wisdom in counsel which our Fathers displayed. And, had

none stepped upon the Plymouth rock but such effeminate critics as these, the poor natives never would have mourned their wilderness lost, but would have brushed them from the land, as they would brush the puny insect from their face; the Pequods would have slept in safety that night which was their last, and no intrepid MASON had hung upon their rear, and driven into exile the panic-struck fugitives.

2. We are called upon to cherish and extend our religious institutions.

Religion was the power on which our Fathers relied the power which has made us what we are, and which must guarantee the perpetuity of our blessings. Every other influence has been tried and has failed, while this has been tried with ample promise of success. The application of religious and moral influence is, therefore, the great duty to which, as a nation, we are called. On this influence depends our rise or fall-our glorious immortality or our hasty dissolution. Every thing but this, may be safely left to the operation of existing causes. Ambition will secure the interests of education and sci

ence; the love of gold will push agriculture and commerce and arts; and the pride of liberty will arm the nation, and render it invincible. All these things, the nations who have preceded us have been able to do. But there was a sickness of the heart which they could neither endure nor heal;-and with this same disease this nation is sick, and intellectual culture, and civil liberty, and national wealth will not heal it. There is but one remedy; and that is, the preaching of the Gospel, with the Holy Ghost sent down from on high. But to render the Gospel effectual, the religious education of the family, and the moral culture of our schools and colleges must be secured; and the Sabbath must be rescued from profanation. The Sabbath is the great organ of the divine administration-the only means provided by God to give ubiquity and power to his moral government. The intellectual culture of a nation requires schools and literary institutions; and that the subjects of instruction shall be brought under their influence. Let the fascinations of pleasure, or the demands of labor withdraw the children and youth from the power of intellectual culture, and ignorance will ensue; in like manner, let the stream of pleasure and of worldly cares bear away the population of the land from the house of God, and from the duties of devotion on the Sabbath; and ignorance of God and of his laws will with equal certainty ensue; irreligion will prevail, and immorality and dissoluteness, to an extent utterly inconsistent

with the permanence of republican institutions. Europe can never enjoy civil liberty until she shall do more homage to the Sabbath of God; and we shall enjoy it but a short space after we have ceased to render to God his right in that sacred day for, all the millions who violate the Sabbath, will draw themselves from the moral power of the divine government, deprive their families of a religious education, and abandon them to the power of their evil hearts and their own bad example. In the mean time, the secular interests of men are so indissolubly connected, that the stream of business, put in motion by the wicked on the Sabbath day, not only pains the eye of the virtuous, but, as it deepens, and roars, and rolls onward its turbid waters, it draws into itself by the associations of business, a large, and still larger portion of the community; until it spreads unresisted over the land, obliterates the government of God, and substitutes covetousness and pleasure and dissoluteness, instead of godliness and the morality of the Gospel.

The present, undoubtedly, is the generation which is to decide the fate of this great empire, by deciding whether the Sabbath of God shall be preserved or blotted out; for the temptations of the seaboard and of canals are immense, and are increasing most fearfully; and, unless public sentiment and law shall make a stand soon, we may as well attempt to stop the rolling of the ocean, or the current of our mighty rivers.

The universal extension of our religious institutions, is the only means of reconciling our unparalleled prosperity with national purity and immortality. Without the preserving power of religious and moral influence, our rapid increase in wealth will be the occasion of our swift destruction. The rank vegetation of unsanctified enterprise, thrown into one vast reservoir of putrefaction, will send up over the land desolation and death. No nation will be so short lived as ours, unless we can balance the temptations of our prosperity by moral power. Our sun has moved onward from his morning to his meridian, with a rapidity and glory which has amazed the world. But, unless we can extend the power of religious institutions through the land, dark clouds will soon obscure his glory, and his descent to a night of ages will be more rapid than his rising.

When we were colonies, or unallied states, the law could make provision for the creation and application of moral power. The law could compel men to desist from secular employments and vain amusements on the Sabbath. The law could compel men to support the Gospel, and attend the public worship of God-and civil officers could see to it, that every town should in due time settle a minister, and that every family should possess a Bible and a catechism. But these means of moral influence the law can no longer apply; and there is no substitute but the voluntary energies of the nation itself, exerted by