his heart, that he may be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh him a reason of the hope that is in him; remembering the awful declaration of our Saviour"Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels."

there "the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose."

It is not the Bible, as has been impiously asserted by the infidel, that brutalizes mankind; but the neglect of the Bible, the neglect of its holy admonitions and precepts. The seven nations of Canaan had no Bible to brutalize them-they were not indebted for their impurities, their injustice, their cruelty, to the Bible. Great as the vices and crimes are which exist among many of those who bear the Christian name, what are these when compared with the mass of corruption and iniquity now prevalent in India, among those nations. where the Bible has but lately commenced a partial and much-obstructed influence? Are the idolatries, the impurities, the cruelties, the horrid immolations among them, to be attributed to the Bible? It is only by the Bible, by disseminating its holy precepts, that the flood of ungodliness can be checked. This is the light that must lighten the nations.

Let it, then, be the endeavour of every one, whose faith is established on the Holy Scriptures, by a frequent perusal of their important contents, to fortify his mind against those sophistries which would shake his confidence in them. Let him sanctify the Lord God in

his heart, that he may be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh him a reason of the hope that is in him; remembering the awful declaration of our Saviour"Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels."

}

SERMON II.

THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT.

Let us hold fast the profession of our faith, without wavering; for he is faithful that promised. -HEB. X. 23.

AN acknowledgment of the existence of God, necessarily includes a belief in those attributes which we cannot but suppose to belong to the greatest of all beings. The very idea of God implies a Being possessed of infinite power and wisdom, unchangeable in his nature, and in his plans and counsels. But if infinite wisdom is an attribute of the Deity, it cannot be imagined that he would ever deviate from what he has once purposed-that he would ever alter any decree which he has once made. Such a degree of uncertainty is more applicable to the weakness of human nature. "God is not man, that he should. lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent. Hath he not said, and shall he not do it?"

The wisdom of the Almighty is apparent in the works of his hands.-The visible things