The National Preacher, Vol. 2. No. 6., Nov. 1827 | Page 9

prayer, he has endued you with a power well nigh omnipotent.
His condescending language is, "Concerning the work of my hands
COMMAND YE ME." I see among you men of wealth, who can count
your tens, your fifties, and your hundreds of thousands,--all of which
has been solemnly consecrated to God. I see among you men of
talent,--"capable of intimidating the collective vices of a nation or an
age." I see among you men of enterprise, and courage, and resistless
perseverance. I see among you men, who have strong confidence in

God. And shall these varied powers of resistance and aggression be
circumscribed by the walls of individual churches? Shall they not rather
be combined for raising a higher and higher tone of moral feeling, and
Christian enterprise? Shall they not send a strong, concentrated light
into every dark retreat of wickedness? Shall not the tide of dissipation,
and crime, that would overflow and mar every thing sacred, be met and
turned back? Shall not thousands and tens of thousands on our borders,
and in our midst, be rescued from the iron sway of the destroyer, and be
saved from going down to the pit? Shall not new temples be opened for
their reception? and shall not "God, even our God, be a wall of fire
round about them, and a glory in the midst of them?"
Do you ask more particularly, how this shall be done? Plant, for
instance, an able and devoted minister in the most degraded portion of
our city. Let him employ his time in the cultivation of one thousand of
these minds. Let him, by the aid of self-denying brethren, assemble
them in one place on the holy sabbath. Let him visit their houses, and
pray with them, every month. Let him collect the children and youth
into sabbath schools and bible classes. Let him encourage among them
every means of intellectual as well as spiritual elevation; and how
astonishing will be the change wrought, even in the course of one year.
Instead of being objects of pity, shame, and aversion; many of them
become pillars of light, and exert a purifying influence upon others. Is
not this elevation worth more than all the necessary expense, even
leaving out of the account all the eternal results? Let, then, another and
another degraded portion be selected, and in like manner be regenerated
and ennobled. Especially let no one who feeds at the table of our
common Lord, and lives from week to week on the provisions of his
house, refuse, promptly and vigorously to co-operate in the work of
mercy, while a soul is perishing in ignorance and sin!
In the mean time, let our civil fathers look well to the execution of laws,
which themselves have made, for the suppression of sabbath-breaking
and immorality. And let them inquire seriously, Whether all our
children and youth may not be brought under the influence of
instructors of good character, and other moral restraints, a
thousand-fold more efficacious, for preventing crime, than statutes, and

prisons, and chains.
Our hearts rejoice to see new blocks of buildings going up to decorate
our city. But what is that to the present and eternal elevation of these
thousand minds? Should we not then exult in the privilege of lifting all
the degraded portions of our city, and of our land, into intellectual and
moral grandeur? What object of ambition could there be, equal to that
of thus creating an empire of righteousness--a world of intellect? Such
monuments of glory shall remain, when earthly governments shall be
no more, and the earth itself shall have passed away.
Never, methinks, was the language of God more distinct, than at the
present crisis. To the rich he is manifestly saying, "Bring ye all the
tithes into the store-house, that there may be meat in my house, and
prove me now herewith, if I will not open you the windows of heaven,
and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to
receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes; and all
nations shall call you blessed." To the ministers of religion, and to all
his chosen, he is manifestly saying, "O Zion, that bringest good tidings,
get thee up into the high mountain: O Jerusalem, that bringest good
tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up; be not afraid; say unto
the cities; Behold your God! Behold the Lord God will come with
strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with
him, and his work before him." "When the Lord shall build up Zion, he
shall appear in his glory. He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and
not despise their prayer. This shall be written for the generation to