THE

PROVIDENCE oF GOD,

TOWARDS

AMERICAN ISRAEL.

THE celebration of events, which have been replete with consequences beneficial to mankind, has long been practised among the nations of the world. A sacred festival, annually solemnized, kept alive in Israel the recollection of their deliverance from Egyptian thraldom, and an altar erected upon the banks of Jordan perpetuated the remembrance of the joyful day, when passing that river, they entered in triumph the promised land.

Hence probably arose the commemorating statues, festivals and anniversaries of the east. But however this may be, such memorials are doubtless rational, when instituted to preserve unanimity in a nation, and hand down the knowledge of important eras in its history.

Impressed with the truth of this sentiment, and led by the impulse of their own feelings, the citizens of America celebrate the day that gave birth to their independence.

At the recollection of this event, the pulse of joy beats high in a thousand hearts, and the song of joy sounds loud from a thousand tongues.

The hoary veteran is now ruminating the toils he has endured, and the battles he has fought for his country; and the matron of seventy-six is rehearsing the long tale of American independence.

The return of this auspicious day brings back the scenes and revives the emotions of former times.

Influenced by one common ardor, the patriots of America are assembling on the east and on the west, on the north and on the south, to review the perils and hardships through which they have struggled, and to celebrate the happiness and glory to which they have attained,

Called to lead your meditations on an occasion like the present, I should do violence to my own feelings, as well as insult the dignity of a Christian assembly, should I attempt to act the partisan, and thus lead you into the uncertain field of political discussion.

So obvious is the design of this anniversary, that methinks my audience must have already anticipated me in the choice of my subject, and assembled with minds prepared to review the wonders which GoD hath wrought for our fathers and for us:

With a view to this, I have chosen for my text the

8TH VERSE OF THE iii CHAPTER OF EXODUS.

"And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand

of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land, unto a good land and a large; unto a land flowing with milk and honey."

These words were spoken to Moses, at Horeb, out of the midst of the burning bush; and they contain a declaration of the designs of Providence relative to his suffering people, then in Egypt, and a gracious promise of speedy deliverance. They admit, however, of an application to American Zion. For "all these things happened unto them for ensamples; and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come."

Our deliverance from foreign domination may be not inaptly compared to the deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage-In the view of which, we may reiterate the sentiment of the text and say, surely the Lord hath been down, and delivered us out of the hand of the Egyptians and bro't us up out of that land, into a good land and a large; into a land flowing with milk and honey.

See thus, my hearers, the subjects and scope of the present discourse, subjects interesting to every American and correspondent to the purposes for which we are assembled.

In retracing the history of our fathers, from the first settlement of our country down to the revolu

tion, we find little else but details of hardship and suffering.

Few in number, and scattered over an immense territory, the greatest part of which was a howling wilderness, swarming with inhospitable savages, their wants, their perils and their enemies were many.

United to a foreign nation, they were necessarily entangled in her politics, disturbed by her broils, hated by her enemies and distressed by her wars.

Goshen soon became an object of contention..... France coveted the place assigned for Joseph's brethren to feed their flocks. For more than half a century she strove to obtain it. On the west she encompassed us with a chain of fortresses, and on the east our shores lay defenceless to her carnage. Nothing less was contemplated than the complete éxtirpation of the Protestants in America, and the establishment of the spiritual jurisdiction of the Ro

man see.

To accomplish the more effectually this nefarious purpose, she excited the jealousy of the natives against us, put into the hand of their warriors the instruments of death, designated the families to be butchered, and even rewarded their cruelty, when they had butchered them.

Thus hunted down on the one hand, by hordes of barbarous savages, and pressed on the other by the more barbarous troops of a sanguinary despot, every man's heart fainted, and every man's hands became weak.