prevails in every part of it, I am persuaded that love is to be taken in the same sense here which it manifestly bears in the Apocalyptic prophecies; where it denotes not brotherly love, but a much higher principle, the root of brotherly love, and of all the Christian virtues, the love of God and of Christ, or, which is much the same thing, a devout attachment of affection to the religion of Christ, and a zeal for its interests. This will naturally decay under the discouragement of the abounding of iniquity: because many will grow indifferent about a religion which seems to have no permanent good effect. Whatever opinion they may retain in their own minds of its truth, they will think it of no consequence to be active in the support and propagation of it: their love, therefore, will grow torpid and inactive.

Such will be the conduct of many; but since religion (by which I mean the Christian religion, for no other has a title to the name) is the only sure remedy against the growth of iniquity, the wise conduct would be the reverse of this. The more iniquity abounds, the more diligent it becomes the faithful to be in calling the attention of mankind to religious instruction for sin never could abound if the attention of men were kept steadily fixed upon their eternal interests. Eternal happiness and eternal misery, the favour and the wrath of God, are things to which it is not in the nature of man to be indifferent, when he seriously thinks about them. The success, therefore, of instruction is certain, if man can be made to listen to it. It is the more certain, because we are assured that the Divine mercy interests itself in the conversion of every individual sinner, just as the owner of a large flock is solicitous for the recovery of a single stray;

and because there is something in the doctrine of the Gospel particularly adapted to work upon the feelings of a sinner, - insomuch that publicans and harlots were found to be readier to enter into the kingdom of God than the scribes and Pharisees.

But here lies the great difficulty, that in seasons of a particular prevalence of iniquity, those who the most need instruction, being the most touched with the general infection, will be the last to seek it or to bear it. General public instruction at such times will never prove an effectual remedy for the evil: means must be found of carrying reproof and admonition home to the refractory offender, who purposely absents himself from the assemblies where public instruction is provided for him, and refuses the general invitation to the marriage-feast.

It is the singular praise of the charitable institution of which I am this day the advocate, that the founders of it have been the first in this country who have endeavoured to meet this difficulty, and to supply the necessary defects of general instruction, by an immediate special application of the benefits of a sober godly education to those miserable outcasts of society the children of convicted criminals and of the profligate poor, accidentally picked up in the public streets of this metropolis, or industriously sought out in the lurking-holes of vagrant idleness and beggary, and the nightly haunts of prostitutes and ruffians. Such children had been too long, indeed, overlooked by the virtuous; but in no propriety of speech can it be said they had been neglected. Under the tuition of miscreants old and accomplished in the various arts of villany, they had been in training, by a studied plan of education, well contrived and well directed

to its end, for the hopeful trades of pilferers, thieves, highwaymen, housebreakers, and prostitutes. From this discipline of iniquity they are withdrawn by this Society, and placed under proper masters, to reclaim them from the principles instilled by their first tutors, to infuse the contrary principles of religion, and to instruct them in the mysteries of honest trades. The utility of the undertaking is so evident, that its merit would be injured by any attempt to set it forth in words: it conduces to the security of the person and property of the individual; it conduces to the public prosperity, by the diminution of vice and the increase of industry; and it is directed to the noblest purposes of humanity and religion.

Such are its ends for the efficacy of its plan, the appearance here before you best may answer for it. These are its first-fruits, these are they whom its first efforts have rescued from perdition. Wretched orphans! bereaved or deserted of your parents, -disowned by society, refused as servants in the poorest families, as apprentices in the meanest trades, cluded from the public asylums of ignorance and poverty! your infancy was nourished to no better expectation than to be cut down in the very morning of

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your days by the unrelenting stroke of public justice! By the mercy of God, working through these his instruments, your benefactors, you are born again to happier hopes, -you are acknowledged by society, -you are become true denizens of your native land, -you are qualified to live in this world with comfort and credit to yourselves and with advantage to your country, you are brought back to the great Shepherd's fold, -you are become children of God and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven!

Men and brethren! countrymen and fellow Christians! it is not for me, it is for your own feelings, to commend to your support and protection the interests of this Society, this work and labour of love. Christ our Lord came into the world" to seek and to save that which was lost:" this Society, we trust, are humble imitators of his example, -labourers under Christ. To the extent of their ability, they seek what was lost, and bring it to Christ to be saved by him. Public liberality must supply the means of carrying the godly work to perfection. Buildings must be erected, where the children may be kept secure from any accidental interviews with their old connexions. To this purpose, so essential to the attainment of their object, an object so important to the individual, the public, and to the church of God, the present funds of the Society are altogether unequal. But public liberality in this country will not forsake them; nor will the blessing of God forsake them, while they trust in him, and lose not sight of the first end of their institution.

Those illustrious persons who with a zeal so laudable condescend to direct the affairs of this charity, "will suffer from their brother and fellow-servant in the Lord" the word of exhortation. Remember, brethren, that piety is the only sure basis of even a moral life, that religious principle is the only groundwork of a permanent reformation; nor can any thing less powerful than the grace of God infused into the soul eradicate evil principles instilled in childhood, and evil habits contracted in that early part of life. Your own experience hath shown you with what success religious principle may be instilled into the most depraved mind, and with what efficacy

the grace of God counteracts evil principles and evil habits; for you have found that "the situation of infant thieves is peculiarly adapted to dispose their minds to the reception of better habits." Remember, therefore, that if you would be true to your own generous undertaking, religious instruction must be the first, not a secondary object of your institution. Nor must the masters of the different trades be suffered so severely to exact the children's labour as to defraud them of the hours that should be daily allotted to devotion, nor of some time in every week, which, besides the leisure of the Sundays, should be set apart for religious instruction. To educate the children to trades, is a wise, beneficial, necessary part of your institution: but you will remember, that the eternal interests of man far outweigh the secular; and the work of religion, although the learning of it require, indeed, a smaller portion of our time, is of higher necessity than any trade. While your work is directed to these good ends, and conducted upon these godly principles, the blessing of God will assuredly crown your labours with success; nor shall we scruple to extend to you the benediction, in its first application peculiar to the commissioned preachers of righteousness, "Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, and send forth the feet of the ox and the ass."