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it he makes a provision for eternity. He dwelt on the richness of the treasure which God's people are laying up. Suppose (said he) any of you were making money at the rate of fifty dollars an hour—(I dare say you do so sometimes, reflected I, when you get a good price for your "niggers,")—how rich you would soon be! and how anxious that not a single hour should be lost! But the child of God is laying up treasure at a faster rate than this. Every time he works for God, he is laying it up. The Christian's treasure is also of the right kind, and laid up in the right place. If any of you were going to emigrate to another country, you would be anxious to know what sort of money was current in that country, and to get yours changed into it. The Christian's treasure is the current coin of eternity. It is also in the right place. Where would you like to have your treasure? Why, at home. The Christian's treasure is at home—in his Father's house. Life is his also, because during it he fights the battles of the Lord. Here the preacher made an approving reference to the war against the Mexicans; and I strongly suspect that this view of the Christian's inheritance was dragged in for the very purpose. We fight (said he) under the eye of the General. We fight with a certainty of victory. Death too was, in the fourth place, a portion of the Christian's inheritance. To the people of God curses are made blessings, and to those who are not his people blessings are made curses. So sickness, persecution, and death are made blessings to the saints. Death to the Christian is like an honourable discharge to the soldier after the toil and the danger of the field of strife. But that illustration (said he) is too feeble: I will give you another. Imagine, on a bleak and dreary mountain, the humble dwelling of two old people. They are bending under the weight of years. Amidst destitution and want, they are tottering on the verge of the grave. A messenger comes, and tells them of a relative who has died, and left them a large inheritance—one by which every want will be supplied, and every desire realized—one that will, the moment they touch it with the soles of their feet, make them young again: he points, moreover, to the very chariot that is to convey them thither. Would this be bad news to those old people? Now, such is death to the child of God. The cord is cut, and the spirit takes its flight to the abodes of the blest. Or take another illustration. A stage-coach was once upset. Many of the passengers were in great danger. One man snatched a little babe from among the wheels, and laid it down in a place of safety on the roadside. Twenty years after the same man was travelling in a stage, on the same road, and telling those around him about the accident which had taken place a long time before. A young lady, sitting opposite, was listening to the narrative with eager interest, and at last she burst out with rapture, "Is it possible that I have at last found my deliverer? I was that little babe you rescued!" Something like this will be the disclosures that death will make. Having thus illustrated the inheritance of the people of God, let me ask you (said he) who are not his people—what will all these things be to you, if you die without Christ? The living ministry? The world? Life? Death? Having spoken briefly, with power and pathos, on each of these particulars, he very coolly and deliberately turned to Rev. xxii. 17, and read, "The Spirit and the Bride say, Come; and let him that heareth say, Come," &c., &c., and closed abruptly, with neither an Amen nor an invocation of any kind.
Such was the first sermon I heard in the United States. It was thoroughly evangelical and good; but I listened to it with mingled feelings. It was painful to think that such a ministry could co-exist with slavery. The creed it is evident may be evangelical, while there is a woful neglect of the duties of practical piety.
