the proud and the sensual and the selfish go down in one wild wreck, we shall be found in "the haven where we would be;" on that "sea of glass like unto crystal," which St. John saw spreading before the throne of God and of the Lamb.

SERMON II.'

CHRISTIANITY THE GUARDIAN OF HUMAN LIFE.

ECCLESIASTES Vii. 12.

"The excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it."

It will readily be admitted, that we interpret this passage consistently with the other writings of Solomon, if we understand by knowledge, knowledge of God, and by wisdom, "the wisdom that is from above." It will also be allowed, that we do not propose any strained application of the text, if we understand by knowledge and wisdom what those terms represent under the Christian dispensation, as distinguished from that beneath which Solomon lived. If these preliminaries be conceded, the text appears specially applicable to the present occasion. For it may be said to claim, as one great charac

1 Preached before the Corporation of Trinity House, on Trinity Monday, 1840.

teristic of the Christian religion, the being the giver or guardian of human life: what then can be more appropriate to the assembling of an illustrious corporation, which, bearing on its banner the great mystery of the Godhead, sets itself to preserve thousands who could scarcely escape death, were it not assiduous in firing the beacon and fixing the buoy?

Such, then, is the point of view under which we have to display Christianity. Christianity is the dispenser of life to the human body and soul. Let other knowledge vaunt itself on this or that excellency we claim for "the wisdom that is from above," the giving "life to them that have it."

Now we may unhesitatingly charge upon Heathenism, even if you keep out of sight its debasing effect upon morals, and think of it only as a system of religious ceremonies and observances, the having a direct tendency to the destroying men's lives. It commonly represents the Deity as delighting in the sufferings of his creatures, and therefore seeks to propitiate him through slaughter. It has not been merely amongst the more savage of Pagans, but also amongst those who have advanced far in civilization, that the custom has prevailed of offering human sacrifices. Writers the best qualified by learned research for delivering an opinion, assert that there is no nation mentioned in history whom we cannot reproach with having shed the blood of its citizens, in order to appease the Divinity when he appeared

angry, or to rouse him when indolent.

The Grecians

made great progress in sciences and arts; yet it would seem to have been a rule with each of their states, to sacrifice men before they marched against an enemy. The Romans, who emulated the Grecians in civilization, appear not to have been behind them in the cruelties of their religion: even so late as in the reign of Trajan, men and women were slain at the shrine of some one of their deities. As to the heathenism of less refined states, it would be easy to affix to it a yet bloodier character: nothing, for example, could well exceed the massacres, connected with religious rites, which appear to have been common among the nations of America: the annual sacrifices of the Mexicans required many thousands of victims, and in Peru two hundred children were devoted for the health of the sovereign. What a frightful destruction of life! But Christianity owns only one human sacrifice, and, through that one, death itself was abolished.

We need

But we should vastly underrate the influence of Christianity in saving human life, were we merely to compute from the abolition of the destructive rites. of heathenism. The influence has been exerted in indirect modes yet more than in direct. hardly tell you that Christianity has proved the great civilizer of nations, heightening the morals, and enlarging the charities of communities, so that, beneath its righteous sceptre, animosities have subsided, and happiness has been increasingly diffused. And whilst

it has thus, in the general, polished and compacted society, it has spread, in a hundred ways, a shield over human life. It has gradually substituted mild for sanguinary laws, teaching rulers that the cases must be rare which justify the punishing with death. If it have not yet exterminated war, it has greatly softened its horrors. It has made warriors-who can withhold his admiration?-who never sullied victory by cruelty, who never wantonly caused a tear, who were always as eager to protect the unoffending as able to subdue the opposing, and who never vanquished without studying to make defeat a blessing to the conquered.

And what but Christianity, giving sacredness to human life, ever taught men to erect asylums for the sick and the aged? Hospitals and infirmaries are among the most splendid of the trophies of Christianity. They were never found in heathen times and lands. Monarchs never reared them, though half a world stood ready to execute their bidding. Warriors never planned them, though the carnage which they wrought might have suggested their necessity. Philosophers never demanded them, though the virtue which they praised was but a name without compassion. But there came "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," and at his word, the earth was covered with homes for the afflicted.

Add to this the mighty advancings which have been made under the fostering sway of Christianity in every department of science. It matters not what