390 LIFE AXD CORRESPONDENCE OF THE [l793 



many of your age have in that short period been called to an eternal 

 world, and what a mournful cry would have been heard, what earnest 

 calls to repentance and sorrow for time misspent would have resounded 

 through this city, had it pleased God then to withdraw the veil, and 

 permit them to behold their sudden destiny. 



Ye sons of pleasure, ye who glory in your health and strength, ^\■ho 

 laugh at sobriety, temperance and chastity, who count many days to 

 come, and set death not only at a distance, but even at defiance — if 

 any such can indeed remain among us after the late awful warnings — 

 think of these truths and suppose it possible, nay probable, that on 

 some day, not far distant, you may be called upon with all your unre- 

 pented sins about you, laid gasping in the burning heat of a mortal fever, 

 and make your shameful exit, a martyr to false pleasure, under the 

 dreadful curse which heaven has entailed upon intemperance. 



With the impression of these truths, leaving the devotees of pleasure 

 and worldly joys among the young and gay for the present, I shall pro- 

 ceed in my next discourse to estimate the bliss of those of higher ranks 

 and ages, hoping the young also, if they hope for rank and age, will 

 continue among the number of patient hearers. Amen ! 



The next sermon was preached December 12th, 1793, on the 

 day which we have already spoken of as that for which Dr. Smith 

 drew a Proclamation at the request of Governor Mifflin, appoint- 

 ing it a day of general humihation, thanksgiving and prayer for 

 the public deliverance from the rage of the late calamity. 



The text, which the preacher remarks is changed for the day's 

 solemnity, while the subject is not changed, is from Psalm Ixxviii. 

 verse 34, passim to verse 50 : 



When He slew them, then they sought Him ; and they returned, and inquired early 

 after God : and they remembered that God was their Rock, and the High God 

 their Redeemer. Nevertheless, they did but flatter Him with their mouth, and they 

 lied unto him with their tongues : For their heart was not right with Him, neither were 

 they steadfast in His covenant. They turned back and tempted God — they remembered 

 not His hand, nor the day when He delivered them from the enemy. Wherefore He 

 cast upon them the fierceness of His anger, wrath and indignation and trouble, by send- 

 ing evil angels among them. He made a way to his anger, and spared not their souls 

 from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence. 



"That there is a particular as well as a general providence," the 

 preacher remarks in this discourse, "over the affairs of individual 

 men, as well as whole nations; and that the Almighty holds their 

 fate subject to his own controlling power, and weighs it in the 

 tremendous balance of his unerring wisdom and justice, is a truth 



