GENTLEMEN,

I HAVE received, with much sensibility, your communication, presenting the unanimous thanks of the two houses of the Legislature for my discourse delivered before them on the twenty-fifth instant, and requesting a copy thereof for publication. The kindness and indulgence, and I will add the serious attention, with which this effort to serve them has been received, demand my respectful acknowledgments; and I venture to offer them, as for myself, so also in behalf of Religion and of the Country—both being equally benefited by every act of homage toward the Governor of the Universe, proceeding from those who are in authority. Though generally reluctant to commit occasional discourses to the Press, I do not feel myself at liberty to decline a request presented as yours is. In acceding to it, I can only pray that words spoken with simplicity and sincerity may, through a higher agency, become words of power.

DISCOURSE.

GENTLEMEN OF THE SENATE,

AND OF THE ASSEMBLY:

IN confiding to one of your chaplains, rather than to one of your own number, the duty which I rise to attempt to discharge, I have supposed that you intended to intimate your wish, that the discourse to be pronounced might be of a religious, and not of a political or historical character; that in considering the bereavement under which the nation mourns, prominence might be given, not so much to the person as to the event. Acquiescing in a view of this exercise, which accords so well with my own tastes and feelings, I shall not repeat what you already know much better than myself, of the services and the worth of a departed PATRIOT, SOLDIER and STATESMAN, but endea

vor, by some very simple reflections, to turn your thoughts toward Him from whom this national monition proceeded. And O Thou, in whose presence we now appear, unto whom all hearts are open, pardon our sins, tranquilize our spirits, and help us to profit by the lesson which thou art giving us; we ask it for Christ's sake.

Hear the words of a royal preacher, recorded in the book of Ecclesiastes, first chapter and second verse:

"VANITY OF VANITIES, saith the preacher, VANITY OF VANITIES; ALL IS VANITY."

You will perhaps demand of me, why I come before you with a sentiment so trite, and yet so paradoxical—so far removed from those practical views of life, which are generally prevalent, and which, it may be thought, are alone worthy of the attention of Statesmen and Rulers. I can only lay my hand upon my mouth, and declare that I say nothing of myself; that I do but echo the voice of God as it speaks to us emphatically in his Word, and, if I may venture to say so, still more impressively in his Providence. If ever there was a dispensation in which it was the manifest design of God to teach us, that "every man living, in his