ministers, and far and wide enjoyed their confidence and esteem. His influence and opinions were highly valued by them. To his own pastors he was ever a stay and helper, doing his utmost to promote their usefulness and salutary influence, as my brethren who have preceded me will bear me witness. And in these things, with which a stranger intermeddleth not, they alone can fully appreciate my meaning. For the bereaved and estimable lady, who is now suddenly left solitary after having been so long cheered by his presence, and the helper of his joy, this occasion has the deepest, tenderest interest. It is our hope and prayer, that in this sorrowful crisis she will be supported by that gospel which she has so long received, and which was the sufficient stay of her departed husband in the still more trying hour of death; and that she will be enabled so to improve this melancholy dispensation, that it shall work out for her a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; and that when her summons also shall come, she may go to her rest as a shock of corn ready in its season. Great, peculiar mercies are mixed in this cup of affliction. Indeed, all that in the character of her bereaved husband which renders his loss peculiarly great, is of God's peculiar mercy. Let me exhort this church and society, together with his public associates, professional brethren, and personal friends, particularly, and all this great assembly generally, to lay this dispensation to heart. It is a great, a solemn, a mournful event. How are the mighty fallen! The fathers, where are they? One of our strong pillars is shattered and torn from underneath the temple. He must be scarcely a man who is not softened and humbled by it. As human helps fail, let us go to the Lord Jehovah, in whom is everlasting strength. Although men die, he ever liveth; and because he lives, his church shall live also, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Let us then be moved to especial and extraordinary prayer, that God would supply what he has taken from us. "Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth, for the faithful fail from among the children of men." It is exhibited as a sign of a degenerate and sinking race, to be unaffected by the deaths of God's servants. The prophet sounds the alarm, because the righteous perisheth and no man layeth it to heart. Let then those that survive, ponder these things, and be subdued and chastened. Let them consider, that to them are now passed the burdens and responsibilities hitherto borne by God's servants, whom he has taken to their eternal rest. Let them manfully, and in dependence upon God, meet the crisis, and discharge the high trust he has confided to them. Let them put their two talents to use, and he shall give them other two. Let them come up to the help of the Lord, the help of the Lord against the mighty. And the set time to favor Zion will come, because his servants take pleasure in the stones and favor the dust thereof.