Father hath said, "Go unto Joseph; what He saith to you, do without Him shall no man lift up his hand or his foot in all the land."

Let us adhere to this great Saviour! How firmly men attach themselves to a patron of known goodness and established credit, especially when no other can be found capable of affording full protection! Let us follow Him by practicing His religion and obeying His truth! Let us not, like the Israelites, grow weary in the way. Be of good courage, Christian travelers! Let us follow Him who is "the way, and the truth, and the life." "He that followeth Him shall not walk in darkness." "He that believeth in Him, though he were dead, yet shall he live." Yes, Jesus is "the life." You know it, ye happy spirits, who are exalted to sit with Him on His throne; and we shall one day know it too! We know it already, by faith, and hope; and soon we shall know it by enjoyment and glory! God grant us all this grace! Amen.

liever, and in all these respects he deserves esteem. The passionate man turns away his eyes from all these advantageous sides, and attends only to the rest. Is it astonishing that he hates a person in whom he sees nothing but imperfection? Thus a counselor opens and sets forth his cause with such artifice that law seems to be clearly on his side; he forgets one fact, suppresses one circumstance, omits to draw one inference, which being brought forward to view, entirely change the nature of the subject, and his client loses his cause. In the same manner, a defender of a false religion always revolves in his mind the arguments that seem to establish it, and never recollects those which subvert it. He will curtail a sentence, cut off what goes before, leave out what follows, and retain only such detached expressions as seem to countenance his error, but which in connection with the rest would strip it of all probability. What is still more singular is, that love to true religion, that love which, under the direction of reason, opens a wide field of argument and evidence, engages us in this sort of false judging, when we give ourselves up to it through passion or prejudice.

This is what the passions do in the mind, and it is easy to comprehend the reason St. Peter had to say in this view, "fleshly lusts war against the soul." Certainly one of the noblest advantages of a man is to reason, to examine proofs and weigh motives, to consider an object on every side, to combine the various arguments that are alleged either for or against a proposition, in order on these grounds to regulate our ideas and opinions, our hatred and our love. The passionate man renounces this advantage, he never reasons in a passion, his mind is limited, his soul is in chains, his "fleshly passions war against his soul."

Having examined the passions in the mind, let us consider them in the senses. To comprehend this, recollect what we just now said, that the passions owe their origin to the Creator, who instituted them for the purpose of preserving us. When an object would injure health or life, it is necessary to our safety that there should be an emotion in our senses to affect a quick escape from the danger; fear does this. A man struck with the idea of sudden danger has a rapidity which he could not have in a tranquil state, or during a cool trial of his power. It is necessary, when an enemy approaches to destroy us, that our senses should so move as to animate us with a power of resistance. Anger does this, for it is a collection of spirits-but allow me to borrow here the words of a modern philosopher, who has admirably expressed the motions excited by the passions in our bodies. "Before the sight of an object of passion," says

the preacher by their murmurs and exclamations of terror and despair It is proper to add that while the translation above referred to is the basis of that here given, it has been necessary to recast many of the sentences, and greatly modify the general rendering. It is believed that the sermon, as here given, retains somewhat of the freedom, ease, and vivacity which it bore as it fell from the great orator's lips.

THE SMALL NUMBER OF THE SAVED.

"And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian."-LUKE, iv. 27.

Every day, my brethren, you continue to ask of us, whether the road to heaven is really so difficult, and the number of the saved really so small as we represent? To a question so often proposed, and still oftener resolved, our Saviour answers you here, that there were many widows in Israel afflicted with famine; but the widow of Sarepta was alone found worthy the succor of the prophet Elias; that the number of lepers was great in Israel in the time of the prophet Eliseus; and that Naaman was only cured by the man of God.

Were I here, my brethren, for the purpose of alarming, rather than instructing you, I had need only to recapitulate what in the holy writings we find dreadful with regard to this great truth; and, running over the history of the just, from age to age, show you that, in all times, the number of the saved has been very small. The family of Noah alone saved from the general flood; Abraham chosen from among men to be the sole depositary of the covenant with God; Joshua and Caleb the only two of six hundred thousand Hebrews who saw the Land of Promise; Job the only upright man in the Land of Uz-Lot, in Sodom. To representations so alarming, would have succeeded the sayings of the prophets. In Isaiah you would see the elect as rare as the grapes which are found after the vintage, and have escaped the search of the gatherer; as rare as the blades which remain by chance in the field, and have escaped the scythe of the mower. The Evangelist would still have added new traits to the terrors of these images. I might have spoken to you of two roads-of which one is narrow, rugged, and the path of a very small number; the other broad, open, and strewed with flowers, and almost the general path of men: that every where, in the holy

writings, the multitude is always spoken of as forming the party of the reprobate; while the saved, compared with the rest of mankind, form only a small flock, scarcely perceptible to the sight. I would have left you in fears with regard to your salvation; always cruel to those who have not renounced faith and every hope of being among the saved. But what would it serve to limit the fruits of this instruction to the single point of setting forth how few persons will be saved? Alas! I would make the danger known, without instructing you how to avoid it; I would show you, with the prophet, the sword of the wrath of God suspended over your heads, without assisting you to escape the threatened blow; I would alarm but not instruct the sinner.

My intention is, therefore, to-day, to search for the cause of this small number, in our morals and manner of life. As every one flatters himself he will not be excluded, it is of importance to examine if his confidence be well founded. I wish not, in marking to you the causes which render salvation so rare, to make you generally conclude that few will be saved, but to bring you to ask yourselves if, living as you live, you can hope to be saved. Who am I? What am I doing for heaven? And what can be my hopes in eternity? I propose no other order in a matter of such importance. What are the causes which render salvation so rare? I mean to point out three principal causes, which is the only arrangement of this discourse. Art, and far-sought reasonings, would here be ill-timed. O attend, therefore, be ye whom ye may! No subject can be more worthy your attention, since it goes to inform you what may be the hopes of your eternal destiny.

PART I.-Few are saved, because in that number we can only comprehend two descriptions of persons:-either those who have been so happy as to preserve their innocence pure and undefiled, or those who, after having lost, have regained it by penitence. This is the first cause. There are only these two ways of salvation: heaven is only open to the innocent or to the penitent. Now, of which party are you? Are you innocent? Are you penitent?

Nothing unclean shall enter the kingdom of God. We must consequently carry there either an innocence unsullied, or an innocence regained. Now to die innocent, is a grace to which few souls can aspire and to live penitent, is a mercy which the relaxed state of our morals renders equally rare. Who, indeed, will pretend to Balvation by the claim of innocence? Where are the pure souls in whom sin has never dwelt, and who have preserved to the end the

sacred treasure of grace confided to them by baptism, and which our Saviour will redemand at the awful day of punishment?

In those happy days when the whole Church was still but an assembly of saints, it was very uncommon to find an instance of a believer, who, after having received the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and acknowledged Jesus Christ in the sacrament which regenerates us, fell back to his former irregularities of life. Ananias and Sapphira, were the only prevaricators in the Church of Jerusalem; that of Corinth had only one incestuous sinner. Church-penitence was then a remedy almost unknown; and scarcely was there found among these true Israelites one single leper whom they were obliged to drive from the holy altar, and separate from communion with his brethren. But, since that time the number of the upright diminishes, in proportion as that of believers increases. It would appear that the world, pretending now to have become almost generally Christian, has brought with it into the Church its corruptions and its maxims.

Alas! we all go astray, almost from the breast of our mothers! The first use which we make of our heart is a crime; our first desires are passions; and our reason only expands and increases on the wrecks ef our innocence. The earth, says a prophet, is infected by the corruption of those who inhabit it: all have violated the laws, changed the ordinances, and broken the alliance which should have endured forever: all commit sin, and scarcely is there one to be found who does the work of the Lord. Injustice, calumny, lying, treachery, adultery, and the blackest crimes have deluged the earth. The brother lays snares for his brother; the father is divided from his children; the husband from his wife: there is no tie which a vile interest does not sever. Good faith and probity are no longer virtues except among the simple people. Animosities are endless; reconciliations are feints, and never is a former enemy regarded as a brother: they tear, they devour each other. Assemblies are no longer but for the purpose of public and general censure. The purest virtue is no longer a protection from the malignity of tongues. Gaming is become either a trade, a fraud, or a fury. Repasts-those innocent ties of society-degenerate into excesses of which we dare not speak. Our age witnesses horrors with which our forefathers were unacquainted.

Behold, then, already one path of salvation shut to the generality of men. All have erred. Be ye whom you may who listen to me now, the time has been when sin reigned over you. Age may perhaps have calmed your passions, but what was your youth? Long and habitual infirmities may perhaps have disgusted you with