and religious institutions, with a solemn injunction that you should be faithful to this charge. Sad presage will it be of coming evil, should prosperity ever make the people of this country blind or indifferent to the sources, whence that prosperity has been derived.

It is a melancholy reflection, that we can have no certainty of the continuance of any earthly blessing. Governments, even the best governments often contain in them the seeds of decay and death. It is by no means impossible, that our own may ere long be numbered among the republics, that have been. Let us then learn to put our trust in Him by whom nations rise and fall; and as we have no abiding city here, anxiously look for one hereafter which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.