Many of the observations, which I now intend to offer to your consideration, have arisen out of your own behaviour; while the remainder owe their existence to a lively feeling of humility in my own breast, and of dependence upon the Author of all good, lately elicited by a sick bed. I refrain from adverting to the cause of my recent illness, because I am unwilling to give any of you unnecessary pain even for a moment, and because your behaviour since that time convinces me, that most of you are sorry for the error you then so thoughtlessly committed[15]. On a sick bed the mind is forcibly led to the contemplation of a future state; and a question, of the first degree of importance, will very frequently present itself to the languishing sufferer, which, if I may judge from my own feelings, he will find extremely difficult, if not quite impossible, to get rid of, unless the actions of his past life furnish him with an answer. The question, as it forced itself upon my mind, is this—“Should it please Heaven to remove me from this sinful world, what is to be my lot in the next?” I here take it for granted that you all truly believe in a future state beyond the grave, and in a just God who will punish the wicked and reward the righteous. Indeed, I think it would be a mere waste of words and time to urge any arguments on this subject; for there is no fact, either moral or physical, of which I am more firmly convinced than this, that there is not a human being this day living, who in his heart sincerely doubts the existence of an all-protecting Deity. Although the contrary of this has sometimes been asserted by learned men, who have only disgraced the human shape and character, yet I firmly believe in my soul, that not one of them ever succeeded in deceiving himself into a belief of the gloomy doctrines he had so long and so zealously laboured to propagate. It would be no very difficult task to expose the weakness, and entirely refute the principles, of this false philosophy; but the argument would be uninteresting to you, and a victory over those who have degraded the dignity of the human character so low as to consider themselves no better than a dog or an ass, and like them entirely to perish with death, would, in my opinion, afford but a puny triumph.