God himself is the universal element, in which att living creatures live and move and have their being."

This is the voice of reason and philosophy, as well as of scripture. He, that made all things, must be every moment necessary, to the support of every thing. As, according to that particular constitution of nature, under which we live, when you lift with your hand a body high in the air, if you wish to prolong its elevation, you must not only lift it thither, but hold it there; as, if you take away your hand from under it, that instant it falls: so, according to the eternal nature of things, the being, that called us into existence, must every moment hold our soul in the life, to which he has raised us. If he withdraw his hand, we drop. "In his hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind." Whatever we subsist upon, subsists itself, upon him. All that sustain us, it is God that sustains. Our dependance upon him is of the most comprehensive, complicated, and profound nature. Whatever name we give to its prop, God is the staff of every life. That, whatever it be, on which it leans, leans upon him. When your seasons are fruitful, it is not only he who covers your vallies with corn, who causes to rise the suns that ripen it, who prevents your bread from failing;-but who gives to that bread its nutritive power. When your seasons are healthful, it is not only he who preserves your air from pollution, but who empowers the purest air to supply you with life. When your slumbers are sound, it is not only he who protects your pillow from pain, but who imparts to sleep its restorative property. The civil polity, that defends your person from violence, is the result of wisdom which he has illuminated, and of passions which he has implanted. The medical art, that raises you from the bed of sickness, proceeds from understandings, which his inspiration hath given, and is supplied with materials, which his hand hath furnished. The arm, that saves you from violent death, is an instru ment made, and moved, by him.

So completely is our breath in the hand of God. He is the soul within us; he is the shield without us: the word by which we live; the word by which we die. So the scripture tells us it is; so reason tells us it must be. Man, the partial maker of a single thing, possesses but a

partial power over it; God, the perfect maker of all things, must be every moment necessary to the support of every thing.

The habitual recollection of this close and intimate connexion between the giver and the receiver of life, between the living God and the living creature, is what I would earnestly recommend to all before me, as being adapted, in the highest degree, at once to entertain the understanding of contemplative, and gratify the heart of affectionate, piety. The perfectly uninterrupted, and the infinitely extended activity of divine power, in the preservation of universal nature, presents to reasou a contemplation, of all others the most sublime; while religious sensibility is soothed by the idea of being completely in the hand of a power, to whom it feels the most animated love, and in whom it reposes the most tranquil trust,

V. On the respect due to all men.

As all the several ranks of society have an equal claim to those native qualities, in which consists the dignity of human nature, they are equally subject to the weaknesses, that constitute its humiliation. The higher classes of human life are no more able than the lower, to defend themselves from the attacks of sickness, or the stroke of mortality. None of the rich, any more than the poor, can redeem his brother, when death has hold of his pri soner; and they shall both lie down at last in the same low bed together. They who pride themselves in the splendor of their family, as well as they that are said to be basely born, are compelled to "say to corruption, thou art my father, and to the worm, thou art my mo ther and my sister."

The endeavours of man to disguise his littleness have been all in vain: they have only tended to make it more conspicuous. He has sought to magnify his diminutive being by the voluminous drapery and plenitude of its dress; to swell out his narrow size by the amplification of his possessions; as if the branches of his outspread property were to be regarded as limbs of the man, and the members of his numerous household as the membos

of himself; as if he imagined the height of the ground upon which he stands would be mistaken for his own, and supposed the lowliness of his head could be lifted by the loftiness of his roof. Alas! his minuteness, so far from having been enlarged, has been only illustrated, by this most mistaken method of magnifying it. A little object only looks the less by standing at the side of a large one. In the vast possession the possessor has been lest. The dress of the giant derides the dwarf that puts it on. Amid the immensity of his grounds, the dimen sions of his mansion, the magnitude of his equipage, the pigmy proprietor appears like a speck. His tall turrets and his towering trees seem to look down upon him, as he walks under them, as upon a reptile. Man has sought, and with similar success, to procure the glory of excellence in strength, by borrowing the hands of others; to hide his individual impotence under the collected power of many servants. Strange method of impressing me with an idea of his dignity! to multiply, by sloth and by luxury, his necessities for the assistance of his fellow creatures, and then presenting himself before me in the midst of a multitude of ministers to his wants, and guards of his weakness! spreading out before me, in full and ample display, the wide extent of his helplessness! ranging around him the proofs, stationing on every side of him, lest it should not be sufficiently obvious, the evidences of his dependence; as if he were ambitious of exhibiting, of holding up his imbecility to the notice of mankind; as if he were ostentatious of his insufficiency to the supply of his desires, and the security of his person!-An equal increase of exposition to the eye, instead of concealment from it, his littleness has met, in the high sounding names by which he has been accosted, and the ceremonies that have accompanied access to his presence. Many of the salutations that have been addressed to the great ones of the earth sound like insult in the ear of reflection. "Live for ever!" to a shadow beneath a canopy! Sarcastic salutation!" High and mighty," to worms in state! Humiliating taunt!And the instituted forms of introduction into their presence, the slow steps, and awful regularity of approach, with which the inferior in station has been accustomed to draw nigh unto them, do they not appear to the thoughtful,

eye a mockery of mortality, and seem as if they were practised, instead of exalting, to ridicule dust and ashes? Death enters their room without any of this ceremony: Sickness will not wait in the antichamber: Disease demands immediate admission. To him who thinks of this, the solemnity of human access, the sublimity of human greeting, to human grandeur seem but the gravity of irony.

From riches and honours man may derive a variety of things. They can afford to his sloth a softer couch; to his appetites a wider range; to his person a broader shield! to his vanity a sweeter incense; to his curiosity, if he feel it, a larger field; or to his virtue, if he have it, an ampler sphere: but that virtue as they cannot Confer upon his character, neither can they yield any accession of excellence, of any sort, to his nature.They cannot add one cubit to his stature; one sinew to his arm; one organ to his body; or one power to his mind.

But, so far as superior station involves intellectual superiority, does not this lay a foundation for the pride of those who occupy it, and justify them in looking down with disdain upon them, from whom they are thus distinguished? May not mankind behold with contempt their inferiors in knowledge? May not the enlightened contemn the ignorant? May not the learned look with scorn upon the unlettered? May not the refined despise the rude? They would deserve to be despised themselves, if they did. This distinction of the rich and great, if they chance to possess it, is adventitious as every other. Not only their exterior, but their intrinsic points of superiority are so. Delicacy of feeling, elegance of taste, polish of manners, liberality of sentiment, enlargement of knowledge, are accidents, as well as wealth and power. The same education would have communicated the same accomplishments to the poor. The same powers of reasoning, the same seeds of taste, the same sparks `of wit and fancy, are discoverable in those of low, as in them of high condition. Let it be remembered, that their roughness is not incapacity of refinement. Their ignorance is not owing to stupidity of intellect, but to the want of opportunity for intellectual improvement.

Let those, then, whose riches have purchased for them the page of knowledge, regard with respect the native

powers of them, to whose eyes it has never been unrolled: The day labourer, and the professor of science, belong naturally to the same order of intelligencies. Cireumstances and situation have made all the difference be tween them. The understanding of one has been free to walk whether it would; that of the other has been shut ap, and deprived of the liberty of ranging the fields of knowledge. Society has condemned it to the dungeon of ignorance, and then despises it for being in the dark. Many of those, whom the pride of refinement has styled barbarians, have contained capacities, which, if they had been called forth by education, would have excited not only the respect, but the astonishment of mankind. Nature has made more statesmen than have governed states; more generals than have headed armies; more philosophers than have taught; more orators than have harrangued; more poets than have sung. Wonderful talents for literature, for eloquence, for science, for government, have been prevented from making their appearance, by the want of that cultivation which would have drawn them forth, and of that competence which is necessary to cherish genius. There have been multi. tudes that would have added to the sum, or have embellished the form of human knowledge, if their youth had been taught the rudiments, and their life allowed them leisure to prosecute the pursuit of it. The attention that would have been crowned with splendid successes in the inquiry after truth, has been all expended in the search of bread. The curiosity, that would have penetrated to the secrets of nature, have explored the recesses of mind, and compassed the records of time, has been choked by the cares of want. The fancy, that would have glowed with a heat divine, and made a brilliant addition to the blazing thoughts and the burning words of the poetical world, has been chilled and frozen by the cold winds of poverty. Many a one, who cannot read what others wrote, had the knowledge of elegant letters been given him, would himself have written what ages might read with delight. He that ploughs the ground, had he stu. died the heavens, might have understood the stars, as well as he understands the soil. Many a sage has lain hid in the savage, and many a slave was made to be an emperor.