Call number
Publication
Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, Printers to the State.
Physical description
44 p.; 25 inches
Notes
Holographic signatures on the front cover include "Nath. Crosby" and "Rev. Sam'l Williams" and in the same hand, what appears to be "A. H. Norwood."
Sermon text: Rev. xxii. 2. - "And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."
Opening words:
This is a great and auspicious day. It beholds the Fathers of the Commonwealth assembled to exercise its sovereign powers; to devise the means to perpetuate its liberties, and promote its order, and its happiness. It sees them bending before the throne of the Supreme Being, in grateful acknowledgment of his past protection and beneficence, and in humble supplication for his continued guidance and care. No attitude could be more suitable. None more truly dignified. Where is the community on which the sun looks down, equally pressed with the delightful debt of gratitude, as ours? Where is the community distinguished by the Almighty Governor of the world, with such an immense aggregate of privileges?--privileges to be continued and extended by his favor, or blighted and lost by his frown.
Does the question arise; How may the first of these issues be secured, and the other averted? This question has already received its response from the HEAVENLY ORACLE. The passage which has been recited, points, indeed, directly at the spiritual and immortal salvation of man; and this, as effected by the religion of Christ. Still, as this religion, the only hope of man for eternity, looks with the kindest aspect on his present state of being; since it sheds an influence not less benign on his social and political, than his individual condition, to consider the subject principally in this view.
I invite, then, the attention of my respected audience, to RELIGION, as THE SUPREME BLESSING OF COMMUNITIES; as the most powerful of all agents in effecting their best prosperity, and in eradicating or controlling the evils to which they are liable. The discussion, though somewhat general in its aspect, will keep in particular view our own Commonwealth and Country.
Sermon text: Rev. xxii. 2. - "And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."
Opening words:
This is a great and auspicious day. It beholds the Fathers of the Commonwealth assembled to exercise its sovereign powers; to devise the means to perpetuate its liberties, and promote its order, and its happiness. It sees them bending before the throne of the Supreme Being, in grateful acknowledgment of his past protection and beneficence, and in humble supplication for his continued guidance and care. No attitude could be more suitable. None more truly dignified. Where is the community on which the sun looks down, equally pressed with the delightful debt of gratitude, as ours? Where is the community distinguished by the Almighty Governor of the world, with such an immense aggregate of privileges?--privileges to be continued and extended by his favor, or blighted and lost by his frown.
Does the question arise; How may the first of these issues be secured, and the other averted? This question has already received its response from the HEAVENLY ORACLE. The passage which has been recited, points, indeed, directly at the spiritual and immortal salvation of man; and this, as effected by the religion of Christ. Still, as this religion, the only hope of man for eternity, looks with the kindest aspect on his present state of being; since it sheds an influence not less benign on his social and political, than his individual condition, to consider the subject principally in this view.
I invite, then, the attention of my respected audience, to RELIGION, as THE SUPREME BLESSING OF COMMUNITIES; as the most powerful of all agents in effecting their best prosperity, and in eradicating or controlling the evils to which they are liable. The discussion, though somewhat general in its aspect, will keep in particular view our own Commonwealth and Country.