it, who write it;" a quiet mind when the multitude rages, when the axe glitters, when the chains sound; a calm and elevated willingness to endure all hatred, and all persecution in the righteous cause. This, and not the wretched habit of sacrificing truth to peace, is the genuine spirit of Christianity; the very spirit which guards the barriers of human happiness, and sacrifices the tranquillity of the present moment, that it may place upon an unshaken foundation the peace and order of ages to come. 343 SERMON I. FOR THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL. 2 CHRONICLES, xxv. 4. The children shall not die for the fathers. IT has long been the custom, my brethren, with all the most important charities in the metropolis, to select one day in the year in which they may state the nature of their plan, refute the misrepresentations to which it may have given birth, and appeal to the charity of benevolent Christians, in behalf of the real merits to which it may lay claim. There is one title to distinction, and one argument for support, which this charitable institution can bring forward from the very length of time for which it has endured, and from that never-failing ordeal of experience by which it has been tried. More than half a century has now elapsed since it first began to operate to the relief of human misery, and since its patrons and founders have first invited every thinking man to reflect upon the evils which called forth their exertions, and upon every feeling man to relieve them. I mention this because it is so very difficult to foresee the effects of the best apparent charity, the iniquitous schemes, and unprincipled combinations by which it is frustrated are so many: it is so difficult to begin well, and to lay a solid and reasonable foundation for future operations, that to say of a great system of benevolence it has endured for the half of a century, is to say it has |