is divided from brother; even our successes shed mourning and sorrow through our families, and we are forced to weep over our own victories. Whence comes this? Ah! it is that the prayers of the church, the only sources of the favours which God sheddeth upon kingdoms and upon empires, are no longer listened to; and that you force the Lord, through the irreverence with which you accompany them, to avert his ears, and to turn his attention from them, and which thereby renders them useless to the earth.
But, not only ought you to appear here as suppliants, and in a spirit of prayer, since it is here that the Lord dealeth out his favours and his grace; as it is here, likewise, that every thing renews to you the remembrance of those already received, you ought also to bring hither a spirit of gratitude and of thanksgiving, seeing that, on whichever way you turn your eyes, every thing recalls to you the remembrance of God's blessings and the sight of his eternal mercies upon your soul.
And, first, it is here where, in the sacrament by which we are regenerated, you have become believers: it is here that the goodness of God, in associating you, through baptism, to the hope of Jesus Christ, hath discerned you from so many heathens who know him not: it is here that you have engaged your faith to the Lord; your written promises are still preserved under the altar. Here is the book of the covenant which you have made with the God of your fathers: you should no longer then, appear here but to ratify the engagements of your baptism, and to thank the Lord for the inestimable blessing which hath associated you with his people, and honoured you with the name of Christian; you ought to feel all the tenderness and respect of a child, for the blessed womb which hath brought you forth in Jesus Christ, and the glory of this house ought to be your glory.
What are you then, when, in place of bringing your thanksgivings to the feet of the altar for so singular and so distinguished a blessing, you come to dishonour it by your irreverences? You are an unnatural child, who profane the place of your birth according to faith; a perfidious Christian, who come to retract your promises before the very altars which witnessed them; who come to break the treaty on the sacred spot where it was concluded; to blot yourself out of the book of life, where your name was written with those of the faithful; to abjure the religion of Jesus Christ on the very fonts where you had received it; to make a pompous display of all the vanities of the age, at the feet of the altar where you had solemnly renounced them; and to profess worldliness where you had made professions of Christianity.
Nor is this all; for, secondly, it is here that Jesus Christ hath so often said to you, through the mouth of his ministers, "My son, thy sins are forgiven thee; go and sin no more, lest a worse thing befal thee." It is here, that, melting in tears, you have so often said to him, a Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee." Now, my brethren, on the very spot where you have so often experienced the grace of forgiveness, not only you forget the blessing,
