bounded wifh for that of others! By thee the good man, patriarch, prophet, apostle, martyr, is taught to triumph over poverty, over calumny, over tortures and death! Thou leadeft him by the hand in humble confidence through the perplexities of this earthly labyrinth! Safe under thy conduct, he knows no fear but infamy, and his ruling hope is immortality!

SERMON XXXVI.

The Value of Learning.

GOD, from thee proceed intelligence and wifdom; from thee proceed all the knowledge and sciences which lead and direct mankind; which blefs and rejoice them in numberless ways. From thee, who dwelleft in inacceffible light, and art thyfelf pure light, pure truth and perfection, from thee flow light and truth and happiness on us and on all intelligent beings! Thou haft planted in us all an ever active curiofity, an ardent thirst for the knowledge of truth; given us capacities and powers for seeking and investigating it; opened to us various fources for affuaging our thirst. And how many benefits, how many refreshments, how many fatisfactions, how many felicities have thy children of mankind, already drawn from thefe fources; and how much bleffing and delight do they not daily and hourly draw from them! Thanks and praise be to thee, author of all beings, father of all fpirits, for having made us rational, intelligent

creatures,

creatures, capable of knowledge and wisdom, and afforded us so many motives and means for constantly more unfolding these our noblest capacities, and for proceeding ever farther in knowledge and wisdom! Still indeed in various refpects veiled and oppreffed by night and darkness; ftill often deceived by fenfuality and error; ftill only lifping children, ftill only feeble novices in the fchool of wisdom; yet capable of an inceffant progrefs, of an always increafing perfection! And what does not this allow us to hope! What profpects does it not open to us in all future times and eternities! Yes, the truth that comes from thee and leads to thee, fhould be ever dearer and more dear to us, its investigation and its knowledge be increasingly more important; and nothing should render us dispirited and flothful in our pursuits after higher attainments in wifdom and perfection! And the more perfect here our knowledge is, the less we here can quench our thirst for truth and our longing after thee, its eternal fource; the more ought we to rejoice in the fun of righteousness that has rifen to us and poured its radiance on the path of immortality to which thou haft raised us through Jefus Chrift; the more zealously ought we to strive, by the beft, the most faithful ufe of the light thou haft now caufed to fhine upon us, to render ourselves capable and worthy of a far greater and brighter light from that full tide of glory, that one unclouded blaze which overflows thy courts,

in the future world to explore the fecrets of thy eternal empire. Teach us thyfelf, o gracious God, ever to appretiate more juftly the advantages thou haft at prefent in this refpect vouchfafed us, ever to prize them higher, and to apply them more and more to the greatest poffible promotion of human happiness. Bless to this end the confiderations we purpose now to begin upon this fubject, and let our prayer be well-pleafing in thy fight, through Jefus Chrift, our lord, in whose bleffed name and words we fum up all our petitions, faying: Our father, &c..

I KINGS, X. 8.

Happy are thy men, happy are thefe thy fervants, which and continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom.

LEARNING, like the other privileges and endowments of mankind, is feldom judged of with ftrict propriety, is feldom taken for what it actually is. It has its panegyrists, who exaggerate its value, as well as its ignorant or haughty defpifers, who refuse it the importance it deferves. Confidered in its univerfal extent, to speak impartially, it has occafioned fo much good and fo much harm; has fo frequently appeared under the most venerable afpect, and fo frequently in the most ridiculous figure; and confifts in fact of fuch a curious parcelled medley of important and unimportant

matters:

matters: that, in regard to the various fides it has, and the various effects it produces, as well as to the various perfons that profefs it, it must neceffarily experience various and oppofite opinions, one while deferving applaufe and admiration, and at another cenfure and contempt. Upon the whole, it seems to have been more highly prized, and more honoured, in the early ages of antiquity, than in modern times. Probably because it was lefs common; probably because the neceffity and utility of it were in many respects more immediately felt, and the helps it afforded were more indifpenfable; or perhaps, because it wore a more venerable or more mysterious countenance, and was attributed to a fublimer origin. Accordingly, the queen that we read of in our text, as coming from the wealthy Arabia to converse with Solomon, had a very high opinion of its value. She left her throne and her people, to hear and to improve by the wifdom, or, which in the language of those times is juft the fame, the learning of that monarch. Report having brought the fame of it into thofe diftant regions, it at once excited her appetite for novelty and instruction; and now, on finding the truth of the matter to exceed even what report had made it, fhe exclaims in admiration, "Happy are thy men, happy are these thy fervants, which stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wifdom!" Thus fhewing that fhe preferred the erudition of Solomon before all his treasures, before all the splendour and magnificence

of