the evils which it prevents.-We are at present enjoying these blessings ;-the time, however, is not long past since we foreboded the opposite evils. The present season of plenty followed, as we know, a season of more than common apprehension, and to the calamities of war, and to the burdens of the people, we feared that the vengeance of the Almighty was about to add the miseries of famine! We have found, however, that he threatened merely to recal our wandering attention, and to teach us, that it is to Him in the hour of distress, that "all flesh must "come," and to Him alone in the hour of joy, that praises and thanksgivings are due. Grateful for this unspeakable benefit, which has arisen from the bosom of our fears, let us acknowledge with the Psalmist, that God is the "hear"er of prayer;" and henceforth, let our "praise wait for him in Sion, and unto "him" let us "perform the vow" of obedience. It was our hope, my brethren, that on this day of thanksgiving and gratitude, we should have assembled in the House of God with hearts free from every affliction. We hoped that, while we rejoiced in the prosperity of our country, we should have had no feelings of sorrow for Him who is at its head, or, if it was to be our lot to sympathize with him in his parental afflictions, we yet trusted that the service of this day, in which, like the royal Psalmist, he would enjoy the feelings dearest to him, as the Father of his people, would have assuaged his private griefs; and when he thought on the goodness of God, "dropping fat"ness on the pastures of the wilderness," and "covering the valleys" of his land "with corn," we knew that his benevolence and his piety would have swelled B b VOL. II. even his breaking heart with the transport of patriotic exultation. It was in such a spirit, that, in the prospect of that heavy loss which has since befallen him, he yet recollected the happiness of his people, and called them together to express his and their gratitude for that Divine goodness which has "crowned the year." The day of this solemn assembling has arrived, and in every church throughout the land, the Hymn of Praise is rising to Heaven! But he, alas! cannot appear at the head of his people, nor be gratified with the sounds of the universal joy.— -At no distant period, my brethren, we may remember, that he called us to join him in thanksgiving on another occasion, when, like the King of Israel, looking back upon the long period of his reign, he felt his mind impressed with the sense of that protecting Providence, which, while surrounding nations have been more tumultuous than the stormy seas, has rendered him for fifty years the guardian of a quiet and loyal people. When we were then offering our grateful praises for the blessings of his paternal reign, we felt our hearts warm with the hope, that his setting sun would be permitted to go down in unclouded brightness.-- "O thou that hearest prayer," unto thee we now come, amid the gloom which has suddenly spread around us. To thee he ever directed us to apply in the seasons of sorrow, no less than to acknowledge thy hand in the hour of prosperity. Thou knowest, his Piety,—and his care for his people, and if it be thy good pleasure, thou yet canst remove the clouds that darken his benevolent spirit. But if thou hast otherwise determined, let not the memory of his virtues speedily perish; fix the throne for all future generations on the same strong foundations of duty to thee, and of zeal for the public good; and when that awful hour shall at last arrive, when the voice of flattery and the murmurs of faction shall equally cease, may the tears of a grateful people be accompanied with the firm resolution to preserve in themselves and their children those principles of pious obedience, which they have so long beheld and venerated in their Sovereign! |