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.

LETTER V.

First Religious Service in America (continued)—­A Collection “taken up”—­Rush out—­Evening Service—­Sketch of the Sermon—­Profanation of the Sabbath—­The Monthly Concert for Prayer.