There are _religious_ claims—and these occupy, and deserve to occupy, the first rank. The Christian world is at length awakening to some perception of the wants and the miseries of man—to the purposes of the divine mercy, and the freeness of the divine promises—to the fulness of time, the lapse of ages, and the great crisis so long foretold, and so rapidly approaching. The voice of more than six hundred millions of the human race, rises at last above the collision of human passions, and rouses professors of religion from their criminal slumbers. The obligations which we owe to that scattered and despised people, from whom we derive the oracles of truth, and all the hopes of immortality, begin to be better understood, and more powerfully felt. The moral wastes spreading around us, even in this highly-favoured country, this Eden of the world, have attracted the eye, and moved the heart, of Christian benevolence; corresponding instrumentality is employed—and exertions, not indeed commensurate with the work, but proportionate to our ability, are called into complete and effective operation. Bible Societies are multiplying throughout Europe and America, having lighted the torch of scriptural knowledge, from the fire which burns on the altar of Great Britain—and the divine blessing upon human industry, applied to a cause so sacred, has almost supplied the absence of the miraculous gift of tongues. Men of God have been found, fired with apostolic zeal, who, after having prepared themselves so far as human effort could extend, have given themselves wholly to the sublime work, of “preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ,” to unenlightened nations, and heathen countries. They have sacrificed country, home, family, personal ease and distinction, every thing that men most esteem, for this arduous, this laborious undertaking. Some of them have fallen martyrs in the cause—they have fallen under the effects of an unhealthy climate, or the oppression of wicked men—but their graves are watered with the tears of strangers, and their memory is cherished in the hearts of their countrymen—foreign eyes have wept their departure—foreign hands have prepared their sepulchre—and an unknown tongue has recorded their disinterested and successful labours. At home, the education of the poor has occupied the public attention, throughout all classes of society, and all denominations of Christians—it has called forth the most astonishing exertions—and been crowned with the most unexampled success. Corresponding efforts have been made, in preaching the gospel—_that_ scriptural and divinely authorized mode of diffusing religious truth—and the increasing spirit of hearing, and the multiplication of our sanctuaries of every description and denomination, prove that these things have not been in vain.