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logued. In a judicious plan, industriously pursued, there is a time, and a place, for every thing. The parts of knowledge have a kindred with each other. The mind is as expansive as it is immortal. It "grows, by what it feeds on." And its true stores of real knowledge are no more felt to be a burden, than the resistance of the ever present, ever pressing, atmosphere retards the sky-ward eagle. "The mathematical sciences," says Dr. Barrow, in his Sermon on the calling of a Scholar, "how pleasant is the speculation of them to the mind! How useful is the practice to common life! How do they whet and exalt the mind! How do they inure it to strict reasoning and patient meditation ! "Natural philosophy, the contemplation of this great theatre, or visible system, presented before us; observing the various appearances therein, and inquir ing into their causes; reflecting on the order, connection, and harmony, of things; considering their original source and their final design: how doth it enlarge our minds, and advance them above vulgar amusements, and the admiration of those petty things about which, men cark and bicker! How may it serve to work in us, pious affections of admiration, reverence, and love, toward our great Creator, Whose eternal divinity is dimly seen, Whose glory is declared, Whose transcendent perfections, and attributes of immense power, wisdom and goodness, are conspicuously displayed, Whose particular kindness towards us men, doth evidently shine in those, His works of nature!" "The perusal of history, how pleasant illumination of mind, how

useful direction of life, how sprightly incentives to virtue, doth it afford! How doth it supply the room of experience, and furnish us with prudence at the expense of others; informing us about their ways of action, and the consequences thereof, by examples, without our own danger or trouble! How may it instruct and encourage us in piety, while therein we trace the paths of God in men, or observe the methods of divine Providence; how the Lord and Judge of the world, in due season, protecteth, prospereth, blesseth, rewardeth, innocence and integrity; how He crosseth, defeateth, blasteth, curseth, punisheth, iniquity and outrage: managing things with admirable temper of wisdom, to the good of mankind, and the advancement of His own glory!"

iv. It is our design, at Burlington College, to bring up PATRIOTS. There never was a country which had such need of this. Never a country had such trust, for men, from God. Never a country held it with such exposure, and at such risk. There is no justification of the right of universal suffrage, but in the access to universal intelligence, and the encouragement of universal virtue. To say, "all men are equal," is to claim for every man the fitness to sustain and exercise equality. Το suppose it possible to keep them so, is to deny, alike, the lessons of history, the teachings of revelation, and the conclusions of experience. In every government, there must be governors. In all communities. there will be leaders. If these be ignorant, if these be venal, if these be vicious, where may we look for safety, how can we hope for freedom? As oil will

any

swim on water, so the intelligent and capable, in nation, will secure the ascendant. What such security, as that their intelligence be a wise intelligence, and their capability a well-principled capability? We are but infants, yet. We have not rounded, as a nation, yet, our century of years. Brief as our past is, it is full of warnings and of lessons. No warning more alarming, than the ascendency of party spirit, as the test of strength, and passport to all power. No lesson more emphatic, than the necessity of a return to the simpler manners, and sterner virtues, of the first and purest days of the republic. What hope of this, but in the training of our children, in the love of man, and in the fear of God? What hope that he can rule a nation, who has never ruled himself? What hope, till waters learn to rise above their source, that public manners will be pure, and public virtue elevated, while hearths are unblessed by prayer, and altars are desecrated or deserted? Nothing truer, in the word of perfect and unerring truth, or written on the face of nations, with a broader, deeper, track of blood and fire, than, that, while "righteousness exalteth a nation, sin is a reproach to any people!"

v. Therefore, as that, without which all the rest were vain, it is our design, at Burlington College, to bring up CHRISTIANS. The Word of God is daily read, at morning and at evening. At morning, at noon, and at evening, we kneel in daily prayers. The precept of the wise man is continually regarded, "Catechize a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he

will not depart from it." The means of grace are constantly employed. The hope of glory is steadfastly proposed. The pastoral feet are constantly in motion, in our sacred fold. The pastoral eye is constantly alert, to watch and guard our lambs. The pastoral voice, in admonition and reproof, in encouragement and consolation, is never still. And every yeanling in the flock is made to feel, in constant acts and offices of love, the beatings of the pastoral heart. We have set up the Cross before us, as the magnet of our souls. We bend before the Holy One, Who died upon it, to beseech Him, that He will draw us, by it, to Himself. It is our constant "heart's desire and prayer to God"—and He has promised both to hear and answer it-that "our sons may grow up as the young plants, and that our daughters may be as the polished corners of the temple;" and, that, serving Him "without fear, in holiness and righteousness, before Him, all the days of our life," we may be "a people prepared for the Lord."

I.

SONS OF WASHINGTON.

*THE FIRST FOURTH OF JULY ORATION AT BURLINGTON COLLEGE.

ANNIVERSARY celebrations are instinctive to us in our moral, social, and immortal nature. They are of the heart. They are heart-links. They are heart-links, between the future and the past. They are of the heart. In point of fact, one day is just like every other; so many hours, so many minutes, so many seconds. Arithmetic, chronometry, chronology, see just this; and no more. But, now, the heart comes in. This day, a year ago, made two hearts one. This day, a year ago, a firstborn smiled. This day, a year ago, a mother died. What joys, what sorrows, cluster round it, now! And, in the calendar, which the true heart preserves, among its deepest folds, what light, what gloom, invests this charmed day! It is the proof, this heart-world, that there is a soul in man; its triumph over time and sense, its pledge of immortality and heaven. They are heartlinks. Man was not made to be alone. His heart is social. It seeks other hearts; and lives in them, and

* A. D. 1847.

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