your journey, you have seen every day the shades of the evening fall, and every year the clouds of winter gather. But you have seen also, every succeeding day, the morning arise in its brightness, and in every succeeding year the spring return to renovate the winter of nature. It is now you may understand the magnificent language of Heaven;-it mingles its voice with that of revelation ;-it summons you, in these hours, when the leaves fall, and the winter is gathering, to that evening study which the mercy of Heaven has provided in the book of salvation: And, while the shadowy. valley opens which leads to the abode of death, it speaks of that Hand which can comfort and can save, and which can conduct to those " green pastures, and those ❝ still waters, where there is an eternal

spring for the children of God.

SERMON XVII.

ON

THE JUBILEE, APPOINTED FOR THE

50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE KING'S ACCESSION, OCTOBER 25, 1809.

GENESIS, xliii, 27, 28.

And Joseph asked them of their welfare, and said, Is your father well? The old man of whom ye spake, is he yet alive? And they answered, Our father is yet alive. And they bowed down their heads and made obeisance.

THESE were the words of the patriarch Joseph, one of the most distinguished personages whom we meet with in the early

history of the world, and from whose pathetic story the infant mind receives its first impressions of genuine greatness. In the preceding part of the narrative, we feel all the interests which arise from adventure and success. We rejoice in that event by which the inhumanity of his brethren is leading to the punishment it deserves; and while we contemplate, with satisfaction, the hand of Providence which is conducting this interesting story, we yet tremble, as we proceed, lest the conceptions we had formed of the character of Joseph, may be lost in his accomplishment of the dread revenge which was then placed in his power. It is the simple, but pathetic question of the text, which resolves all our doubts. The words

"is your father yet alive?" let us at

once into his heart. We see a mind which neither injury could harden nor prosperity corrupt; which looks back with undi

minished affection to its first and its purest attachments;—which hails with thankfulness the intelligence, that that father now lives, who, amid all his distance, and all his greatness, has never been forgotten; and in these workings of nature in his uncorrupted bosom, we readily anticipate all the exquisite virtue which he is afterwards to display.

It is with a sentiment similar, I trust, to the grateful joy of the patriarch, that we, my brethren, and all the people of this land are now assembled. The beneficence of Heaven has permitted us to witness an event which it is rarely given to the brevity of human life to see; and it has been met with feelings which exalt patriotism into devotion.Amid the calamities of war, and the sufferings of nations, the majestic multitude of the British people are, in this moment, prostrated in thankfulness before that

God, by "whom Kings reign, and Prin

ces minister justice;" and while coëval thrones are deserted of their possessors, or are trembling to their fall, the grateful spirit of this country approaches with firm step the throne of its Sovereign, and places upon his gray hairs the crown of patriot glory.

Twice only, and that in the dark and distant ages of our history, has the eye of the citizen opened upon a spectacle so sublime; and ere it can again return, the eye of every one that lives will long have been closed in the grave. In a moment of such deep and various sensibility, I feel that it becomes me to limit myself to a few simple observations,-happy only in being permitted to unite my humble voice with that of my country, and in being able to bow my head in obeisance "before the King of Kings," while I say, with the affectionate gratitude of