cure. Even the diseased of other lands, who sincerely sought admission, were received, and welcomed, and had reason to rejoice in the healing process. True, the spiritual malady of the people had now assumed the most aggravated from-the patient was apparently approaching dissolution; but well the prophet knew that the Jewish institute retained all its remedial virtues unimpaired; that, if rightly employed, it could still ameliorate even their condition; that, confidently as they relied on their far-famed balm of Gilead as a specific for certain bodily ailments, still more confidently might they rely on the heavenly efficacy of this moral balm to restore them to political soundness and religious health; and knowing this, yet seeing them perish within reach of the remedy, he uttered the exclamation, in which all his soul came forth, "Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?"

This is the patriotism of true religion. How different from that plausible modification of selfishness which often assumes the name! While that occupies itself chiefly in forging fetters for other lands, this is principally intent on promoting the moral vigour and freedom of its own. That sees no cause for alarm except in a threatened invasion, a civil war, or some temporal form of national distress; in the absence of all these, this distinctly sees in the permitted existence and the silent increase of moral evils, the gathering of a foe more to be dreaded than any army which earth could muster. As long as the laws of the land are generally obeyed, that congratulates itself on the soundness of the nation's health: but if, notwithstanding this plausible sign, political expediency be allowed to carry it over truth and right-if the two extremes of society, the highest and the lowest, unite in the desecration of the Sabbath and the disregard of religion-if the great bulk of the people are left uninstructed in the laws of the Divine government, this beholds in such a state of things the certain symptoms

of a deep-seated disease, corroding the vitals of the political body, and threatening its dissolution. That relies for security and prosperity chiefly on its martial forces and its resources of wealth; but this, remembering how many a nation has perished while in the full possession of such expedients, regards a nation's morality as its greatest wealth, and a standing army of social and religious virtues as its strongest bulwark. And hence, in seeking the recovery of a nation's health, while the one confines its attention exclusively to temporal expedients, and expects every thing from them, the other still sees a refuge left in God after all these have failed, and instead of abandoning itself to despair, takes up the language of the tenderest expostulation, and exclaims, "Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?”

In reference to the nation primarily addressed, this language implies the following things: That there is a sense in which it was to be viewed as one collective being, and hence it is spoken of as a person, a single individual; that this moral agent was labouring under an alarming moral disease; that for this disease there existed an adequate remedy; that for the neglect of this remedy no justifiable reason could be assigned, so that the conduct of the nation was inexcusable, and involved the highest guilt; but that it was yet the duty of such as saw and felt these truths to seek the recovery of that patient to the last, pointing her to the remedy, and remonstrating with her on the guilt of her continued neglect.

But while the passage implies all this, its point and pathos consist chiefly in its remonstrative tone on the utter inexcusableness of the party addressed for persisting in the neglect of God's remedy. As if the prophet had said, That you require a remedy of some description is obvious; you know that the foe is gathering on your borders; the very fact of your seeking the alliance of Egypt proclaims your sense of weakness and danger, while the numerous vices which have be

come national, and which are the cause of the impending evil, proclaim "that the whole head is sick, and and whole heart faint." But, deplorable as our condition is, it is not hopeless. Is there any truth in our sacred books? Read them, and you will find that never have we been reduced to a state of exigency like the present, but by disobedience to God-never relied for deliverance on an arm of flesh, but we have been disappointed-never repented and returned to God, but we have been pardoned and have prospered. Is there any meaning in that temple? It is the residence of the Great Physician. Any blessing denoted by that sacrifice? It represents the very medium of our forgiveness, the balm which shall give life to the world. Why, then, while you admit that our state is perilous-why, when the great and only remedy is before you-when so many among you are divinely appointed to recommend and enforce it, and when you know that to neglect your office is to let the nation perish, to involve the name of God in dishonour before the heathen, to incur his dreadful displeasure, to destroy immortal souls-why, in the name of that God whose prophet am, why is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered ?”

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Brethren, this remonstrance did not lose its applicability with the occasion on which it was at first uttered. It continued to reverberate age after age in the ears of the Jewish people, till it reached its deepest pathos in the weeping lamentation of Jesus over Jerusalem; and till the impassioned desire of Paul to be made an anathema for their salvation, proclaimed that the sun of their dispensation had set in a long dark night. In the Christian Church it has gone on gathering emphasis and strength with the growing and guilty apathy of each successive age, till in our own times it has acquired a startling power, which has awakened numbers to a sense of their sinful neglect of the multitudes perishing around them, and which, by the Spirt of God still accompanying it, shall soon arouse the entire Church. It is addressed, indeed, to the people generally; but to

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those whose office it is, instrumentally, to instruct and save them especially. Such is the duty of every Christian, and of every Christian Church. Let them proceed to their respective posts; and, if there their message of salvation meets with neglect, they may remonstrate with the people in the spirit of the text. But till they themselves are thus alive to their duty, the prophet may be regarded as remonstrating with them. Oh, with what startling effect might he bring down the expostulation upon us-upon the Christians of this country-the Churches of this city! "You admit," as if he should say, that your lot is cast in the midst of multitudes perishing in their guilt-in your prayers to God you acknowledge it-in your conversations with each other you deplore it. You admit that for this disease in its most virulent form there is an infallible cure-that you yourselves are monuments of its efficacy. You admit that you hold this remedy from the great Physician expressly to administer it to the dying around you-and you admit that while such administration could not fail to be attended with the most salutary effects, the withholdment of it must as certainly be followed by the most fatal consequences-and believing all this, meeting together as you do from time to time avowedly on the ground of this belief-why, in the name of the Great Healer of immortal souls, why is not the health of the daughter of your people recovered ?"

I. Now to such a remonstrance what reply could be given? For, first, on your own admission, it could not be pleaded that the moral disease which pervades the hundreds of thousands around you is not very apparent, or, though apparent, not very alarming, in its nature and consequences. You have read of the dreadful pestilence which in 1665 swept off more than a hundred thousand of the inhabitants of this city. You have read of the appalling aspect of those dwellings which contained infected inmates-of the large red cross painted on their doors, together with the words, "Lord, have mercy upon us!"-there to con

tinue till the lawful opening of such houses. You remember that examiners, searchers, surgeons, and buryers, were appointed in every district-that a cart went its rounds every night and morning to receive the dead -that the driver, sounding his knell at the door of each infected dwelling, exclaimed, "Bring forth your dead" -that the dead, brought forth and cast into the cart, were then conveyed to pits of immense size and depth, where all lay shroudless and mingled together. You remember, that though at first the shrieks of women and children resounding from the abodes of the dying and the dead were so frequent as to appal the stoutest heart; yet, that, subsequently, when death had become familiar to their eyes, and despair had hardened their hearts, they felt little concern for the loss of friends, and often left them to perish alone—that though at the beginning of the pestilence the churches whre crowded with alarmed suppliants, latterly, they were comparatively deserted that multitudes, resorting to tav. erns and places of infamy, endeavoured to conquer their terrors by debauchery and drunkenness; while their riotous outcries and songs mingled fearfully with the sounds of lamentation and woe. The whole nation wept for the miseries of her metropolis.

Brethren, this is still "the city of the plague." As then, you will find its examiners and searchers, its surgeons and buryers, in its courts of law, its magistracy, and its army of police. As then, you will find its pits and receptacles for the dead, in your crowded jails and places of punishment. As then, you will find that while many of its churches and chapels are but thinly attended, resorts of an opposite character are thronged. In the pestilential air of your prisons, where the virtue which was only tainted almost invariably expires-in the impure atmosphere of your larger theatres, whose attendant licentiousness is so well known, and whose direct, stipulated profits from that licentiousness are so considerable, that one of them lately desisting from the infamous traffic, was praised as all but a martyr to morality—in the ruinous effects