By the daring spirit, the vigorous efforts, and the ingenious cunning so industriously exerted on the one hand, and the smooth and gentle benevolence so softly profest on the other, multitudes have been, and you easily may be, destroyed.  The mischief has indeed been met, resisted, and overcome; but it has the heads and the lives of the hydra, and its wounds, which at times have seemed deadly, are much more readily healed than any good man could wish, than any sober man could expect.  Hope not to escape the assaults of this enemy:  To feel that you are in danger will ever be a preparation for your safety.  But it will be only such a preparation; your deliverance must ultimately and only flow from your Maker.  Resolve, then, to commit yourselves to Him with a cordial reliance on His wisdom, power, and protection.  Consider how much you have at stake, that you are bound to eternity, that your existence will be immortal, and that you will either rise to endless glory or be lost in absolute perdition.  Heaven is your proper home.  The path, which I have recommended to you, will conduct you safely and certainly to that happy world.  Fill up life, therefore, with obedience to God, with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and repentance unto life, the obedience to the two great commands of the gospel, with supreme love to God and universal good-will to men, the obedience to the two great commands of the law.  On all your sincere endeavors to honor Him, and befriend your fellow men, He will smile; every virtuous attempt He will bless; every act of obedience He will reward.  Life in this manner will be pleasant amid all its sorrows; and beams of hope will continually shine through the gloom, by which it is so often overcast.  Virtue, the seed that can not die, planted from heaven, and cultivated by the divine hand, will grow up in your hearts with increasing vigor, and blossom in your lives with supernal beauty.  Your path will be that of the just, and will gloriously resemble the dawning light, “which shines brighter and brighter, to the perfect day.”  Peace will take you by the hand, and offer herself as the constant and delightful companion of your progress.  Hope will walk before you, and with an unerring finger point out your course; and joy, at the end of the journey, will open her arms to receive you.  You will wait on the Lord, and renew your strength; will mount up with wings as eagles; will run, and not be weary; will walk, and not faint.

ROBERT HALL

MARKS OF LOVE TO GOD

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Robert Hall, Baptist divine, was born at Arnesby, near Leicester, England, in 1764.  Destined for the ministry, he was educated at the Baptist Academy at Bristol, and preached for the first time in 1779.  In 1783 he began his ministry in Bristol and drew crowded congregations of all classes.  The tradition of Hall’s pupit oratory has secured his lasting fame.  Many minds of a high order were fascinated by his eloquence, and his conversation was brilliant.  His treatment of religious topics had the rare merit of commending evangelical doctrine to people of taste.  Dugald Stewart declares that his writings and public utterances exhibited the English language in its perfection.  He died in 1831.