ADDRESS. How lovely, how honorable is the service of God! How full of dignity and beauty, the cause of Religion! To be obedient, even in the affairs of this world, to the wise and the good, is justly esteemed a source of pleasure and of praise. Yet, what comparison is there, between the nature, and the importance of the duty, which bound their followers to Alfred, Gustavus or Washington, and those which constitute the relation between God and Man! We contemplate with delight, the cause of ancient Freedom in Greece and Rome. We behold with a feeling more lofty, pure and rational, the nobler cause of British freedom. We dwell with an admiration, still more grateful and virtuous, with an awe more sacred and elevated, on the cause of American freedom, more dignified and momentous, than aught, which the Patriot of Ancient or Modern Europe can boast. And yet, what comparison can exist, between the perishable cause of civil and political liberty, and the eternal cause of that liberty, wherewith Christ hath made us free? How shall we liken our deliverance from the captivity of war, or from the slavery of civil and political institutions, to our deliverance from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God? What shall we say of him, who pleads, or suffers, or dies, a patriot victim, when compared with those, who plead, and suffer, and die, as Christian martyrs? Our minds are filled and exalted, in contemplating the great subjects that involve the happiness, security and improvement of nations. Questions of Peace and War, of Treaties and Confederacy, of Revolution and Reform, of ordaining a Constitution, "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty," are full of interest, dignity and importance. Yet, who would attempt a parallel between them, and the beauty, the grandeur, the sanctity of the cause of religion? How do they sink into utter insignificance, when compared with the sublime and holy subjects, which angels desire to look into: with the Being, and Attributes, and Works of God; the Fall and Redemp tion of Man; the character and offices of Angels; the scheme of Patriarchs, and Judges and Kings? of Prophets and Apostles and Martyrs; the character of the Church Universal, suffering on earth, triumphant in heaven; the restoration of the Ancient People of God; the conversion of the Gentile World; the banishment of error and persecution, of fraud and violence, of folly and corruption; the glory and beauty of the Millenial Church; the Day of Resurrection and the last Judgment; the new heaven and the new earth; and that far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, which shall be revealed, in the spirits of just men made perfect, the inhabitants of the new Jerusalem! How lovely, how honorable then, is the service of God! How full of dignity and beauty, the cause of Religion! This service, this cause, have assembled us this evening. We come in the fear of God, and in the spirit of love to our fellow men, to dedicate this building to his honor, and to their good. Humble indeed is the offering, for we boast no prodigal expenditure of wealth, no splendor and beauty of decoration, no triumphs of architectural science. Simple and unadorned, it engages our attention only by its objects. These we know to be in harmony with the glory of God and with good will to Man. That is our noblest inducement, as fellow servants of the same Master; this, our most affecting, endearing motive, as children of the same Parent. Be it our duty thus to serve that Master, and our joy thus to bless those children. The building which we dedicate with this evening's solemnities of prayer and praise, is then to be counted as nothing, as the small dust of the balance, in comparison of its use. This and this only, constitutes its real beauty, dignity and value. Taste and Science may lavish on the Theatre all the treasured riches of architecture, sculpture and painting; yet while the institution is such as the Christian dare not approve, how must he mourn over the prostitution of genius, the prodigality of wealth, and the waste of human labor! The ancient world boasted its Seven Wonders. Of most of them, as of the princes and nations that constructed them, we may say, in the language of truth, though of poetry, "Not e'en the ruins of their pomp remain, Of Omnipotence offended, hurled Down to the bottom of the stormy deep." Enough remains, indeed, "to point a moral and adorn a tale;" but we look in vain for their usefulness, either in their own day, or in succeeding ages. And with what feelings of shame and regret must we regard them, when we reflect, that the only one, whose object we can approve,* lasted but seventy years, while the most useless, extravagant, and criminal, have endured more than three thousand. Let us go to the cities, once so proud of those miracles of architecture and sculpture. Let us inquire, not of the mighty dead, whose glory lay in wasting the life and happiness, time and labor of their subjects or fellow-citizens; but let us inquire of those subjects and those citizens, what advantage they derived from these costly and magnificent works? Let us * Allusion was here made to the Colossus and the Pyramids, under the impression, that the image held in one hand a light, to serve as a beacon for vessels. But even this redeeming quality, I have been unable to verify, in any of the authors, whom I have since consulted. It is worthy of remark, that this giant statue is a singular proof of the pigmy character of Greek navigation. Ex pede Herculem is reversed here.. The Colossus was 105 feet high. Allow 56, not to cavil at a few feet, to be the height from the base to the hips, which would be reduced to about 50 for the inner line of the legs. Consider these, when extended, as forming, with a third side from foot to foot, an isosceles triangle, having a base of 45 feet. We might suppose an equilateral triangle, but the admirers of Chares, Phidias and Praxiteles, would revolt at such an angle (45 degrees) as an outrage on taste. Here, then, is an elevation of about 40 feet. Place the statue on Pedestals, elevated 50 feet above the water, and we have the hight of 90 feet. Thus no vessel could enter the port of Rhodes, except through a narrow passage of 35 by 90 feet, or rather of 35 by 70: for no vessel, whose mast reached above the knees, would venture in. We say nothing of the mathematical accuracy of navigation, indispensable to a vessel's passing under, as the books say, in full sail, nor of the servile passiveness of being always towed in, (not even by a Steam-Boat,) nor yet of the impossibility of entering at those very times, when the safety of the vessel would most require it. Suffice it to remark, that the trade of the Rhodians, (for years the most commercial people of antiquity, and the founders of the only ancient code of maritime laws) could have been carried on in vessels scarcely equaling in size, our coasting sloops and schooners of the better class! The Trade indeed, of the Ancient World, whether we regard the art of Ship-building or the Science of Navigation, the enterprize of the merchant and the mariner, or the value and variety of the subjects of trade, is to that of the modern world, like the Mediterranean lake, compared to the Pacific ocean. ask the Roman, how the Coliseum benefited him; the Greek, of what avail to him were the statues of Jove and Minerva, the Parthenon and the Ephesian temple, the Mausoleum and the Colossus? Let us ask the Cretan, the Assyrian, the Egyptian, to say, whether the Labyrinth, the hanging walls and gardens of Babylon, or the Pyramids, were blessings to them? Would they arise, as one man, to invoke benedictions on the monarch and his ministers, on the sculptor and the architect? Not so; for a voice, as the sound of many waters, would come forth from the cities of Dead Nations, to curse their deceivers and oppressors. Let us survey, in imagination, ere yet the corner stone was laid, the spot once adorned by the Ephesian temple. Let us behold the architect, preparing its spacious site, gathering the giant blocks of marble, arranging his army of workmen, and watching, with all the anxiety of genius, all the sensibility of taste, and all the skill of science, the ascending fabric. Let us behold the wealth of kingdoms lavished, to provide its imperial columns. Let us gather into one view, the lapse of more than two centuries, and look upon it, when the architect had finished the labors of two hundred and twenty years. The day of dedication has come the whole city is poured around it, rejoicing in its magnificence and beauty; sacrifices are offered on many an altar; hymns of adoration are swelling within and without; while at intervals, thousands and tens of thousands of voices, send up the shout, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians." And why this prodigal display of wealth and art, this host of enthusiastic admirers and worshipers? To honor an imaginary being, a cruel, polluted goddess, whose character would fill a Christian family with shame and mourning; and even in the fashionable circles of our own country, would kindle indignation and horror. Not such are the wonders of the Christian world, in our day and our nation: not such the objects, for which we build. Millions upon millions are not lavished on palaces and amphitheatres, on the statues and temples of false gods, vile, cruel and deceitful. But it is our glory, that while we have no Coliseum, no Labyrinth, no Pyramids, we have blessed our country, adorned our age, and honored our species by institutions, whose beauty lies in their simple, practical character, in their purity, usefulness and wisdom. We boast not here of our civil and political improvements; the admira |