having her mind agitated in her expiring moments, by any reference to the necessity of repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, they will cautiously exclude the Minister of reconciliation from the dying chamber, deeming his presence an intrusion which the laws of humanity forbid. But you cannot. You regard your friend as a candidate for immortality, and believe that her future state will be decided according to her character. If in the days of health you see her absorbed in trifles, though you may lament your inability to expel the infatuating charms, by which she is held captive, yet you will not neglect to expose their vanity, and to direct her attention to nobler objects and pursuits. Should affliction seize her, and threaten to take her away in the midst of her days, you will not through a false delicacy, allow her to expire under a mental delusion, which will prove fatal to her eternal felicity. You will watch for her soul, as one who must give an account, that you may "do it with joy and not with grief." But your benevolence will require a wider range than the limited circle of mere private friendship. Looking round on the scene of desolation which the moral world presents, you will feel anxious to join the "holy band" who are endeavouring to repair it. In former ages this department of christian duty was generally occupied by the opposite sex. We were einployed as the accredited agents of mercy, and the honour of dispelling the clouds of ignorance, which hover over the human intellect, of implanting the incorruptible seed which liveth and abideth for ever, of saving the soul from death, was almost exclusively reserved for us. But the period is now come when the great Husbandman is calling you into his vineyard, and we are waiting to hail you as fellow-workers, in the cultivation of the soil. In our Sunday Schools an important station is assigned you. The female population of the British Empire, on "the dawn of the Sabbath," are standing at "the posts of the doors," to receive instruction from your lips. Aware of the vast importance of early impressions in the formation of the character, step forward and attempt to impress on the opening mind, the principles of virtue and religion. To sit at home in inglorious ease, or attending merely to your own personal enjoyments, whilst the more hamble daughters of Zion are teaching her young disciples to celebrate the praises of the Redeem er, must excite the astonishment of the celestial inhabitants, when they look down on such inactivity. The perishing heathen claim your sympathy, and the Missionary Society, as on bended knees, implores your co-operation. Whilst some of your Brethren leave the land of their nativity to carry the glad tidings of Mercy to distant climes, and are endeavouring to usher in that glorious day, "renowned in ancient song," when truth shall spring up out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven; when the symbol of the divine presence shall hover over the mosques of superstition, and the altars which are now stained with human blood shall bear the mys tic emblem of the Redeemer's death; when the Oriental Moloch shall be seen weeping over the ruins of his splendid temple, and the charm shall be dissolved which now, as by magic power, perpetuates the horrid crimes of obscenity and murder; "when the mystery of iniquity shall no longer maintain its tremendous usurpations" but One song employ all nations, and all cry, .You, within the hallowed inclosures of the closet, can wrestle for the effusion of that sa. cred influence on which their success depends. But to restrict your co-operation to prayer, would be fixing a limitation to your agency which the ardour of your passions and the signs of the present times, imperiously forbid. Your influence is great. By instituting weekly sub.scriptions amongst yourselves, your friends, and your dependants, by emulating those Jewish women who worked with their hands for the hangings of the tabernacle, and brought bracelets, and ear-rings, and jewels of gold, for the service of the sanctuary, you will be able to supply the increasing demands which are made on the Missionary funds. By employing your resistless eloquence in pleading the cause of the widow, who is doomed to perish in the flames which consume the remains of her departed husband, or the deluded devotee* who hopes to expiate his crimes by sufferings which make * Maurice, in his Indian Antiquities, says, that the patient Hindoo smiles amidst unutterable misery, and exults in every dire variety of voluntary torture. He passes whole weeks without the smallest nourishment, and whole years in painful vigils. He wanders about naked, and suffers every vicissitude of heat and cold, of driving ! the feelings of humanity recoil; and by diffusing your spirit in the circles in which you move, you will become the honoured instrument of awakening general attention to the final destiny of man, and of giving a degree of popularity to a Society which has stronger claims on public assistance than any to which this generation has given birth, sary If ever you have been present at the anniverof our Meetings, you cannot be insensible to the effects which your ardour and perseverance have on our minds. We are delighted and enraptured. By taking some of the higher parts in that lovely song, which the heavenly messengérs once sung over the plains of Bethlehem, you complete the bold and seraphic harmony. Whilst we, more robust and hardy, defend the out-works of our common faith, or storm the camp of the enemy, you, like the females of Sparta, will animate our courage and secure the victory by contending by our sides. 2 An eloquent writer has observed that, "in pursuing his gratifications, man is apt to look storm and beating rain. He stands with his arms crossed above his head, till the sinews shrink and the flesh withers away. He fixes his eye upon the burning orb of the sun, till its light be extinguished and its moisture entirely dried up. |