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I have seen the affecting spectacle of an immortal spirit, exhibiting the possession of every energy of thought and feeling which mark the most exulted of our species; inhabiting a body arrived to its age of full and blooming maturity; speaking through an eye, whose piercing lustre beamed with intelligence and sparkled with joy at the acquisition of a single new idea; -- I have seen such a spirit, oh! it was a melancholy sight, earnestly contemplate

"the boundless store
Of charms which Nature to her yields,
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore
The pomp of groves and of fields;
All that the genial ray of morning
And all that echoes to the son of even;
All that the mountains sheltering bosom shields,
And all the dread magnificence of heaven."

-- while such an amphitheatre of beauty, and order, and splendour, raised not in this mind which viewed it the notion of an Almighty Hand that formed and sustained the whole.

I have asked such an one, after a few glimmerings of truth had begun to dissipate the mental darkness in which it had been shrouded, what were its meditations at the sight of a friend on whom death had laid his icy hand, and whom the grave was about to receive into its cold and silent mansion. -- "I thought I saw," was the reply, "the termination of being; the destruction of all that constituted man. I had no notion of any existence beyond the grave. I knew not that there was a God who created and governs the world. I felt no accountability to Him. My whole soul was engrossed with the gratification of my sensual appetites; with the decorations of dress; the amusement of pleasure; or the anticipations of accumulating wealth, and living in gaiety and splendour."

I have seen, it was a vision of delight, the same spirit, when it first received the notion of the Great Creator of the universe. I dare not attempt to describe its emotions, at such an interesting moment. For I believe, my brethren, it is impossible for us, who have grown up in the midst of a christian people, and who were taught in our tenderest years the being and attributes of God, to form any just estimate of the astonishment, the awe, and the delight, which the first conception of an invisible, immaterial, omnipotent, omniscient, and infinitely wise, just, benevolent and holy Being, is calculated to inspire, when it breaks in upon a mind, that in the range of all its former thoughts, had never once conjectured that there was a Maker of this visible creation.

With what mingled emotions of wonder and rapture must the bosom of Columbus have been agitated, when the new hemisphere burst upon his view; opening to his imagination its boundless stores of beauty, wealth, and plenty. And yet how does such an event, magnificent and sublime, indeed, compared with all sublunary affairs, dwindle into insignificance, when contrasted with the first conception that an immortal mind is led to form, not of a new world -- but of the God who created all worlds.

I have seen the same spirit agitated with fearful solicitude at the prospect of meeting that God, at whose bar it was taught, we must all appear; -- and anxiously enquiring what must be done to secure the favour of so pure and holy an Intelligence.

I have seen the same spirit bowed beneath a sense of sin, and casting itself upon the mercy of God through a Redeemer whose character and offices it had just begun to understand. And I have seen it, as I fondly trust, consoled and soothed and gladdened with the hope of an interest in Jesus Christ, and of being made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.

A little while ago this immortal mind had its vision bound by the narrow circle of temporal objects; now, its ken embraces the vast extent of its immortal existence, with all the momentous realities of that unseen world whither it is hastening. -- Then, oh! what a degradation! it was kindred to the beasts of the field! Now; what and exaltation! we hope that it is allied to the spirits of the just made perfect, that it is elevated to communion with its God!

And, now, my brethren, will you deem my plea too urgent, when I call upon you to imitate the example of the Apostle of the Gentiles; when I solicit your sympathy for those who as truly sit in darkness and in the region of the shadow of death, as those did among whom Paul laboured; or as those heathen of the present day, to whom missionaries and bibles are sent? For the moral waste-ground is alike desolate, whether it lies beneath an Asiatic or African sun, or whether it is found near at home, sadly contrasted with the gospel verdure which surrounds it.

Paul, was constrained to preach to those among whom Christ had not been named. Oh! aid us, then, while we long to make the same Name precious to the Deaf and Dumb.

It is encouragement needed in so generous a work? Let me present to your view the same sources of support which animated the efforts of the Apostle, -- I mean the encouragement of prophecy.