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which, others were perplexed with doubts, and agitated with apprehensions.

To alleviate the wants of the poor, during the late severe scarcity, the wages of labor were raised, in a degree of proportion to the necessaries of life. Whatever the occupation, the artisan, the manufacturer, the laborer, though he perceived his expences increasing, was each, from his increase of wages, enabled, by severe frugality, to support them. But the aged and infirm they who live on a small stated allowance-the handicraftsman, and the persons of little trade, and small capital, deriving their subsistence from the retail of trifling articles; ashamed, it may be, to beg, suffered more than might at first be conceived, and more than their sensibility would, perhaps, allow them to expose to public observation.

There is another description of men, they, who form the connecting link in the chain of society, between the highest and the lowest, whose support arises from settled incomes, and which, whatever be the complexion of the times, admit of no advance; these feel the effects of the dearness of provisions, all originating in the high price of corn, with force almost beyond what the pen can describe, or the imagination can paint. Many of this description, accustomed, from circumstances unnecessary to be here enumerated, to little elegances and certain indulgences, which their situation in life allowed, and their respectability in society sanctioned, have been, lately, compelled to make a total sacrifice of indulgences and elegances, in order that they might be the better enabled to purchase bread and provisions for their families."

VOL. III.

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When

posed, can we contemplate, without astonishment and reverence, the means by which Providence has rescued us from ruin, and established us in peace? It is God then who "maketh peace in our borders," and every national record reveals to us the protection of Heaven, visibly declared, more than once, in ouf favor.

Will any one say, that we are indebted for peace to our maritime strength, which is formidable to every foe? or to the nature of our Constitution, which embraces the welfare of the very lowest classes of society, as the blood circulates through every part of a healthy body?

These, it is acknowleged, are some of the means which the merciful goodness of our Protector hath himself directed to bless us with the blessings of peace, But let us learn to pierce through the cloud of second causes, there to discover the invisible God who ordains them.

Is it not by His gracious goodness that we have been enabled to provide a navy; and is it not He who giveth to our commanders skill to plan, and to our mariners courage to execute?

Is it not the wisdom of heaven which has directed our Legislature, by whose counsels we have been hitherto preserved counsels which have preserved us from the frenzy of revolution?'

In fine, is it not God, who, holding the hearts of kings in His hands, and inclining thent, as rivers run in their beds, hath defeated the projects of those who were meditating our entire destruction?

Notwithstanding the modes of defence on which, with audacious rashness, presumptuous man'sometimes

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reckons; should our sins be so many, and so aggravated, as to provoke the Almighty to forsake us, by what a variety of means, and by what unexpected and unforeseen events might we not be brought to destruction? He might permit a spirit of faction and of discord to diffuse its pernicious poison both throughout the mighty and the mean, and we might be overwhelmed in ruin even by ourselves. How many other circumstances, which we can neither foresee nor prevent, might disturb our domestic repose, endanger our personal liberty, and annihilate our civil existence? By acquainting ourselves, thoroughly, with the history of other states, we may acquire the conviction, that we have, without the divine protection, more to dread than we, commonly, imagine. How many celebrated empires, of which we know no more than by historic records! How many states, enjoying a prosperity which appeared to promise them a duration coexistent with the world, are, through external, and internal, causes, fallen into entire decay! teaching us that it is, solely, in the protection of Heaven that we are to expect our security, and place our confidence: in a word, that it is God who giveth peace to every country.

These blessings of Providence should lead us to bless God by the piety of our thanksgivings, to obey Him through a spirit of love, to implore His mercy through a sense of our dependence: such are the duties. which I am, lastly, to lay before you,

III. Convinced that it is to the protection of Heaven that we are indebted for all the advantages accruing from peace, we ought, after the example, and according to the direction, of the author of the

Psalm

When we consider the evils endured by the middling and the lower classes of the community, in consequence of the high price of corn, our hearts melt within us. But we were all threatened with heavier calamities. The privations to which we were compelled to submit were made the foundation of a pretext to exasperate the poor to acts of violence, and to scenes of tumult. And is it not believed by every man of reflection, that such acts of violence, and scenes of tumult, were designed as "the beginning of "sorrows?" as the general signal for an attempt to be made by desperate men, to overthrow, by one desperate effort, the Constitution both of Church and State? Should the Country be oppressed AGAIN and AGAIN should the tempers of the poor be a SECOND and a THIRD time tried by such cruel engines of oppression, who can say what may be the result of such shameful monopoly-what the consequence of such iniquitous speculations? He who shall devise with wisdom, and execute with resolution, a plan by which such extortionate rapacity may be restrained, will be considered as having rendered a more essential service to his country, than the General who hath exterminated its rebellious sons, and vanquished its foreign foes.

The subject on which I am now addressing you, hath, as is well known to every person in this assembly, been invariably considered, as inseparably connected, not only with the present, but the future welfare of the community-nay, perhaps with the preservation of the Constitution. But it behoves us to consider further, that unless the Lord keep the city,

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"the watchman waketh but in vain :" unless our conduct be such as to induce Him to behold us with an eye of mercy, our Constitution in Church and State, the Fabric upon which a Briton looks with religious veneration, will tumble into ruins.

I will, therefore, beg the continuance of your attention, whilst I enforce upon you the words of the text. "When thou hast eaten, and art full, then thou shalt "bless the Lord thy God for the good land which "He hath given thee.-Beware that thou forget "not the Lord thy God, in not keeping His com"mandments, and His judgments, and His statutes, "which I command thee this day."

The abundant harvest with which we have been blessed, and the very favourable season with which it was attended, demand our warmest acknowlegements, our most devout thanksgivings to Him, who looketh with compassion on the works of his own hands. Supplied, as we are "with bread to eat without scarce"ness," and permitted, such is our happy lot—whilst other nations are harrassed with the calamities of war, smarting under the scourge of oppression, or stricken with the rod of revolt-to sit in quiet, and without apprehension, each "under his own vine, and under his "own fig-tree;" how powerfully are we summoned by the warning voice of gratitude, by the solemn call of duty, to beware that we forget not the "Lord our God in not keeping His commandments, and His judgments, and His statutes !" I will not intermingle with the piety of thanksgiving, the description of our national character; contemplated through the medium of morality and Religion; but you will allow me earnestly to exhort

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