mands of nature; by leaving off, as soon as she is satisfied. All beyond this is injurious to health; and with health every pleasure will Ivanish. The man, therefore, who observes the rules of Christian moderation, most evidently enjoys the best part of the gifts of God.

Therefore, I most earnestly exhort you all, and in particular the rising generation, to form yourselves to habits of temperance. I warn the younger part of my audience against hidden, lurking dangers, which await the unwary gratifiers of the sensual appetite. Alas! my young friends, you often accuse religion of unsufferable severity, in prohibiting certain enjoyments and your parents, when they offer their prudent admonitions, are upbraided by you with having forgotten that they once were young themselves. But, after all, to what do the restraints of religion, and the counsels of the wise, with respect to sensual pleasures, to what do they amount? Why simply to this: not to hurt yourselves, and not to hurt others by an inordinate pursuit of them. Within these bounds they are lawful; beyond them they become criminal. Why? because they are ruinous. Ah! if you now foolishly throw off these trammels, you will one day wish, in bitterness of soul, that you had strictly imposed them on yourselves. You will then know by melancho

ly experience, that we did not call on you to renounce all pleasure, but to enjoy it in innocence and safety; and that we proposed to you measures for securing its possession, and prolonging its duration.

2. Having retrenched from your meals whatever is inordinate, you will be able to make an action so common as that of taking your corporal nourishment an act of piety; an act of gratitude; a holy action; an action pleasing and meritorious in the sight of your heavenly Father. Our Redeemer, in this day's gospel, shews you how you can do this. Taking the bread, he blessed it, gave thanks, and then ordered it to be distributed to the people. After his example, when you are about to share the blessings which Providence has set before you, be it your first care to lift up your eyes and hearts to Heaven, praising and honouring your bountiful benefactor, the giver of all good gifts, from whom every comfort is derived to you. Can you be so wanting in gratitude, the most amiable of virtues, so lost to every generous sentiment, as to use the gifts of God, without making any acknowledgment of his goodness? Can you stretch out your hand to receive them without any manifestation of respect, or feeling of affection? It is a disgrace to the age we live in, to see the pious practice of adoring the divine

Being before and after meals so lightly treated, and so much neglected. In many families it is entirely laid aside in others it is done in such a way, that they seem ashamed of it. At tables which are covered with a profusion of delicacies, prepared with exquisite nicety, and served up with the utmost pomp and magnificence, while so many in hard circumstances are eating only the bread of sorrow, a bread watered with tears, men refuse to pay a tribute of thankfulness to the Source of good from whom all this abundance has flowed in upon them.

But they say, they are not met there to pray, but to enjoy themselves. To enjoy themselves certainly. I have no wish to abridge their innocent pleasures. The Lord bestows on them his blessings, that they may enjoy themselves; that they may rejoice: but let them rejoice always in the Lord: let their moderation be known to all men; for the Lord is nigh. Yes, my beloved friends, consider your Redeemer is present at all your meals, and then you will take them in the spirit of a Christian. Then there will be no longer heard those dissolute conversations, by which they have been so often profaned; those corrupt maxims of the children of this world, concerning the use of this life, as if it were only given us for the enjoyments of voluptuousness; and concerning the em

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ployment of time, as if we received it only to pass it away in amusement and dissipation. When Balthassar, the king of Babylon, made a great feast for the lords of his court, he and his princes, his wives and his concubines, praised the gods of gold and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood and of stone; but, in the same hour, he saw a hand writing on the wall, the decree for his destination. Oh! Christians, if the Deity do not thus manifest himself to us in the time of licentious festivities, still his eye is fixed on us, and his hand writes down the sentence of condemnation for every abuse and excess. Therefore, let us keep up in our minds a constant, habitual sense of his divine presence; and we shall never forget, that we have too noble a destiny allotted to us, that we are filled with hopes too great and exalted, to be sacrificed to the irregularity of our carnal desires. We shall spurn at the idea of permitting this perishable tabernacle, in which we reside, to engage the principal attention of a soul, which is formed for the possession of pure and infinite delights, in the bosom of the Divinity.

SERMON XXXVI.

SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER
PENTECOST.

ON TRUE PIETY.

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. By their fruits you shall know them.-Matt. vii. 15.

THERE is scarcely any character more odious and more despicable, than that of the Pharisees, who were the wolves in sheeps-clothing, to whom our Saviour, in this gospel, particularly alludes. They were men of a sanctified appearance, wearing the garb of piety, to attract the notice, and impose on the credulity of the multitude; while interiorly they had nothing of the spirit of true religion. They made clouds of incense ascend from the altar of the Deity: but it was to themselves they referred that homage, which they pretended to pay to his supreme majesty. Strenuously and obstinately attached to their own ideas, they observed cer