or elegance; if in indolence ye so dissipate and blunt your faculties, as to grow incapable of tasting the power and the wisdom of the Gospel; or if by any course of study or discipline of the mind, however excellent and useful it may be in itself, ye fall away from the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, -ye are sinful still, and shall give an account of your intellectual wickedness before the judgment, seat of Christ. I say not that all unbelievers are equally guilty before God, neither do I presume to measure the several degrees of their evil and their punishment. But this I do say, in justice, that, if God be merciful and powerful enough to give wisdom liberally to them that ask it of him in faith and nothing wavering, then none who err can be without their guilt. This I say in justice, and this also I add in mercy, that the least guilty would appear to be those, who have never been instructed in the knowledge of the truth of the Gospel, nor been brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

And, Oh, my Fathers, what a contemplation does this present to us, to whom the instruction of others is committed under God, if, because we have neglected to give them the knowledge of the rudiments of Christian wisdom, they fall into the error and condemnation of disobedience or disbelief. They, indeed, shall have their own burthen

of woe to bear, but we too shall accompany them to the shades of darkness, and have opened for ourselves a fountain of never-failing tears. For, if the despisers themselves shall behold, and wonder, and perish, of how much sorer punishment, think you, shall not we be counted worthy, if by our neglect or folly we have made them so. Seriously and solemnly then, let us put the question to our hearts, and ask our consciences, whether we are or are not guilty as concerning this thingwhether we have or have not directed our endeavours to promote to the utmost of our power the cause of that religion by which so many of us live here, and by which we must all of us live hereafter? If with sincerity the answer be returned, I fear that we shall scarce be able to rise up altogether unpolluted with blame. As individual instructors, I trust we have little to lay to our charge as neglecting to give encouragement to the knowledge and practice of piety; and in the government of those particular Colleges over which we preside, or in which we participate, I know that much has been done to carry the mind and the heart to the studies which lead unto everlasting blessedness. But have we consented or refused to set the public seal of our University, as a body, to religious pursuits? Have we or have we not given a public testimony to the world of the attention with which we cultivate, and the reverence with which we regard

those spiritual things, for whose propagation and improvement our privileges were granted, and our rights conferred? Is it, or is it not possible, that one most ignorant in all the necessary erudition of a Christian may yet receive uncensured the highest of the honours we bestow, whilst one most deeply imbued in the principles of sacred science may pass away unpraised from the trial? If these things be so-if neither the rudiments of our holy faith, nor even the language in which its records. are written, form any portion of our public and authorized examinations for degrees; if neither reward nor disgrace attend our knowledge or ignorance of the pages of the Gospel at that period at which our proficiency is finally tried-be it yours to judge how far, as a public and most important body, we can be said to encourage the studies of religion, or give a pledge to our country that we are fulfilling the duties for which we exist-the duty of raising the national character upon the basis of the national faith, and building up the rising generation upon the immutable foundation of Jesus Christ.

I urge not these considerations in ignorance of the sacrifices which some, perhaps erroneously, may suppose that it will be necessary to make in other things, in order to introduce so essential and extensive a subject of inquiry with

in the sphere of our accustomed course of studies; neither do I look forward with a fanciful enthusiasm to any mighty revolution in the state of the religious world as the immediate result of the change. I urge the subject as it stands connected with your duty. I press it upon your thoughts as it affects your own eternal happiness or misery in the world to come. To treat it upon the ground of mere present expediency is a narrow and unbecoming view of its awfulness, ministering perpetual cause of sophistry, and questions which may serve for strife, but not to godly edifying. What if there be some sacrifice to be made (though it may fairly be doubted whether any sacrifice at all will attend the measure); what if some portion of scientific glory may be lost, or some region of earthly and abstract knowledge be less cultivated? Is there nothing to make up for the sacrifice, nothing to compensate the loss? Meet the question as Christians. Meet it, as it only can and ought to be met, upon broad and Scriptural grounds-the ground of your duty to God's glory, your country's welfare, and your own salvation. Think not only of the sacrifice to be made, but compare it also with the advantages to be had in return-advantages as far superior to any other consideration, as the enduring blessedness of eternity is above the fading interests of time. If there be learning, it shall fail; if there

be sciences, they shall cease; if there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. But the word of the Lord endureth for ever; and that word hath proclaimed the decree, that every man should "be ready always"-and ready he cannot be unless he be able, and able he cannot become unless he be taught, "to give an answer to every one that asketh of him a reason of the hope that is in him," What then shall be our reward in the great judgment of God, if we have fulfilled this decree, and what our fearful punishment if, either as a body or as individuals, it has been by us despised? “When the son of Man shall appear in his glory, and all his holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory," and divide the sheep from the goats, the faithful from the faithless, and place them on the right or the left hand of his throne. Into one of these folds we must enter. On the right hand or on the left hand of the Lord all that are around me must stand; and melancholy as it is to form the thought, it must needs be, perhaps, that some of those who now rejoice in the innocence and ingenuousness of youth, may find their final destiny amongst the faithless and perverse. For with all the energies which we may put forth, with all the diligence we may employ, with all the anxiety we may feel, with all the prudence we may exert, it is scarce possible but that some may fall away from virtue,