This indifference to their highest interests, this apathy so injurious to themselves and so inconsistent with their usual habits, convinces me that we are all under a sort of enchantment, and that the spell cannot be broken by anything short of a divine power. Otherwise, how could it be possible for men to see everything around them going to ruin, and to feel the worm gradually devouring their own strength, without forseeing and preparing for their latter end?

How could "all men think all mortal but themselves," if it were not that the god of this world had blinded their eyes in order to make them his certain prey. I am convinced, then, that nothing short of divine power-that no weaker influence than heavenly grace-that no agent inferior to the Holy Ghost can break the spell and dissolve the incantations beneath which we lie. Nature and revelation point, indeed, to the fallen foliage which now lies scattered around your dwellings, and say in a solemn tone," thus you fade;" but as this admonition has proved unavailing in years past, so it will prove, I am persuaded, in years to come, unless the God of nature and revelation bring it home irresistibly to the human heart. We have heard men talk sentimentally enough of the fallen leaf, of its striking analogies, its affecting lessons, and wholesome warnings. We have seen men weep bitterly enough over the body and the grave of a departed friend. But where is the evidence that this is real? We see it not. Sentiment is nothing, and the lessons of affliction are soon forgotten. What we want, is not to be persuaded that the leaf fades, or that our friends fade, but that we are fading ourselves. I admit that it is a gloomy fact; but when the neglect of a gloomy fact is dangerous, we must look it in the face. If there were any antidote against disease, any refuge from decay, any escape from death, it would be different-but since they are inevitable, inconsideration can only make them come upon us unawares. And do you ask me what danger will arise from neg. lecting this fact? I answer that there is the death of the soul as well as the death of the body, and that he who is unprepared for the first death, will be sure of incurring the second. Not, as it has been well observed, "not a death which consists in the extinction of consciousness, for the consciousness of guilt will keep by us forever--not a death that implies the cessation of feeling, for that feeling will continue to the last, though the feeling of intensest suffering-not a death by which all sense of God will be expunged, for the sense of God's offended countenance will prey upon us and agonize us forever," but a living death, my hearers, an endless death, which the poor soul shall have as little prospect of escaping after the lapse of ages as it had at first. This is the danger, and the melancholy thing is not that we must die and return to dust, but that, forgetting that fact, we trifle away the short space assigned us to prepare. The flowers, so to speak,

have been made to fade, and the leaves have been made to fall, and the grass has been made to wither in order that we might be reminded every autumn, that we have so much less time to prepare for eternity. And how are you to do this? In the first place by recovering the image you have lost. This leaf can never regain its beauty, but the soul of man which was created in the image of God, can be renewed. Sin has defaced the image-disobedience has marred the resemblance, but there is such a thing as being made a new creature-there is such a thing as being "created anew in Christ Jesus"-there is such a thing as obtaining, through faith, an imputed righteousness and a real sanctification, and if you will be transplanted from this wilderness world into the paradise of God, you must, by being spiritually transformed, recover that image which has been lost through sin, and so be made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. I acknowledge that you have no strength of yourselves to do this. Spiritually as well as physically, this leaf is an emblem of your weakness; but as God preserved the leaf upon the tree, until it had fulfilled the end of its existence, so, if you are in earnest about your salvation, he will secure its accomplishment. But if you go about the work in dependence upon anything less than divine strength, you will fall, be assured, to the ground and perish.

Again, you must have the life of God in the soul, and "this is life eternal to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent." We are, indeed, poor dying creatures; "all flesh indeed is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field." But if you have Jesus as your Saviour, your body will rise again-" if it be sown in corruption, it will be raised in incorruption; if it be sown in dishonor, it will be raised in glory; if it be sown in weakness, it will be raised in power; if it be sown a natural body, it will be raised a spiritual body." There is implanted in the child of God an immortal principle, an imperishable seed! United to Christ as his head, death cannot dissolve the union! It may dissolve, and does, all earthly relations-husbands and wives, parents and children, brethren and sisters must say farewell. But the union of the believer to his Lord is indissoluble; his present body being earthly and mortal must die; it has in it the very element of dissolution, sin-and who would not be freed from sin, although he must die to obtain his freedom? But this body Christ "shall change and make like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself." And thus the believer, secure of immortality, both in body and soul, has nothing to fear either from death or the grave. He can challenge the first with, "Oh! death, where is thy sting?"-he can smile at the last with, "Oh! grave, where is thy victory?" and he can triumph over all with, "Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ."

And now, my hearers, will you allow me to ask, then, what preparation you have made for death? Have you experienced the beginning of God's work in the soul of man in your scals? Have you been counseled by the decay of nature to prepare for your own decay; to seek after that new birth and that sanctification which can alone fortify you against the fear of death, and take away the terrors of the grave? If not, what time have you to lose? "We all do fade as a leaf."

Let not nature, then, hold up in vain this emblem of mortality. She is now burying her fair sons and daughters and summons you to the funeral. May the affecting spectacle lead you to seek an interest in Him who "is the resurrection and the lite in whom whosever believeth, though he were dead, yet shall be live, and whosoever liveth and believeth shall never die."

And now, to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, be ascribed all praise, might, majesty and dominion, for ever and ever. Amen.

SERMON DCLXI.

BY REV. EDMUND NEVILLE, D.D.,

RECTOR OF ST. THOMAS' CHURCH, NEW-YORK.

THE DUTY OF THANKSGIVING.*

"Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise be thankful unto him, and bless his name."Ps. c. 1, 4.

THE annual observance of a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God, may now be regarded as an established custom of the American people; nor am I aware that it is adopted by any other. For the commemoration, indeed, of great political-events all countries have days set apart in their respective calendars, but a day of thanksgiving is our peculiar and honorable charac teristic among the nations. How solemn and affecting is the contemplation of an entire people thus offering up unitedly their acknowledgments to the Supreme Being. The public worship of Almighty God at other times is less imposing. It is associa ted in our minds with sectarian selfishness, party feuds and denominational animosities. Although men are so evidently sprung from a common parentage, yet such is the effect of surrounding influences, that even among the inhabitants of the same country

* Preached at St. Thomas' Church, New-York, Thursday, Nov. 24, 1853.

we find creeds so various as almost to induce the belief that there was a separate Adam and Eve for each sect. God is accordingly worshipped on most occasions, rather as the God of mountains and plains, and rivers, than as the God of the human race. But we worship Him to-day as "the father of us all." Our common brotherhood is recognized, our common obligations are confessed, our common dependence is admitted, and our praises no longer uttered by discordant tongues, harmoniously unite in the ancient song, "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands. lands. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise."

1. The duty of thanksgiving arises from the nature of man. It is the expression of gratitude. Suppose, my friends, that when God created Adam, he had neither given him a heart to feel, nor a tongue to speak, could he have claimed from man in such a case the language and sentiments of gratitude? He would have produced a being as incapable of acknowledging his power and goodness as the beasts which roamed the groves of paradise. But it is fortunate that it is otherwise; that man is intensely susceptible of attachment to his benefactor; that his affections respond to kindness like harpstrings to the touch; that he has feelings of admiration for the beautiful, and feelings of awe for the sublime. Being thus qualified to be grateful, that he ought to be so is sufficiently apparent, because God intimates by the nature of his gifts, how he would have them employed. The design of our affections is as plain as that of our limbs, and it would be as absurd to say that a man with a heart was not intended to feel as that a man with feet was not intended to walk. Another proof that the duty of thanksgiving arises from the nature of man, may be found in the common consent of mankind. Why do we expect it from the objects of our benevolence? From brutes it is unlooked for. The spectators were amazed when upon the Roman amphitheatre he who had extracted a thorn from a lion's foot was spared and recognized. But in man the absence of gratitude astonishes us as much as its presence in a brute, because it is in accordance with the constitution of his nature to be grateful. Even among barbarians the obligations imposed upon them by kindness are religiously observed. See how the Arab or the Indian will protect his friend! The lapse of time-the threats of enemies the risk of life cannot make them forget his benefits. They will give all they possess to save him from the torture or the stake. And yet all this is done by the light of nature. Some nations have classed ingratitude with murder, and punished it with death. In short, there is no crime on earth more universally detested, more reluctantly confessed, or more bitterly inveighed against. "Ingratitude is monstrous," says the dramatist, and the death of Cæsar, he tells us, was caused less by the stroke of the assassin, than by the ingratitude of Brutus; for

"When the noble Cæsar saw him stab,

Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,

Quite vanquished him. Then burst his mighty heart."

2. Another truth, also, must be attended to in regard to gratitude. The warmth of its expression should always be proportioned to the amount of our obligations. The subject matter of our present thanksgivings are the mercies of God. And what kindnesses between man and man can compare with these in number and magnitude? The world literally groans beneath the burden of his gifts, and this is continually accumulating by fresh donations. They are not only conferred daily but momentarily. Every pulsation of life for example is equivalent to its original gift. We owe God therefore as many lives as we draw breaths. Every moment by preserving our life he bestows upon us the innumerable blessings which life involves. Can our gratitude be too profound or our praises of such a being too loud? There are thousands in the world, however, who return thanks for the least benefit which man bestows, and yet receive the richest gifts from their Creator without acknowledgment. So long as their benefactor is man, their gratitude rises with their obligations; but when claimed by the transcendantly higher obligations which they owe to God it falls to zero. Some say that this is owing to the fact that by the continual recurrence of his gifts they lose their force. I know that the intensity of light diminishes in proportion to its removal from the sun. I know that heat decreases as you travel from its source, but I have yet to learn that there is a point where gratitude is extinguished by the very means calculated to set it on fire.

Is gratitude blunted by the repetition of kindness between man and man, or do we not look that men who are overwhelmingly obliged, should be overwhelmingly grateful? If because God is always giving, we withhold our thanks, then the very cause of gratitude to a fellow creature is assigned for ingratitude to our Creator. Some men there are, too, in the world, who only praise God for what he is not always giving, for what he rarely gives, and gives to few, such as wealth and eminence. Their mercury is always at the freezing point except on the application of boiling heat. The common benefits of God, though the most important and valuable, cannot raise it an inch. Now this is unnatural. As the glass rises and rises with the heat so should the tem perature of gratitude with our obligations; and that its culminating point should be the Great Being whose gifts admit of no comparison with any other, is manifest. Thanksgiving from man to man is a lower duty than thanksgiving from man to God. Whilst the feelings and affections of the heart respond to kindness from below, they should ascend to kindness from above; like the oak whose lower branches may touch the ground whilst its upper ones climb to heaven.