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or followed their flock; and when I left that parish we were, with scarcely an exception, and those few exceptions in name rather than reality, as brethren dwelling together in unity, serving God in one spirit and in one mind.

NOTES OF AN ADDRESS

DELIVERED

ON BOARD H.M.S. "RATTLESNAKE,”

ON NOVEMBER 29, 1846,

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BEING THE SUNDAY BEFORE THE DEPARTURE OF H.M.S. RATTLESNAKE" FOR

AUSTRALIA AND NEW GUINEA,

UNDER THE COMMAND OF THE LATE CAPTAIN OWEN STANLEY, R.N.

(See Memoir, p. 89.)

This Address, like the preceding, is printed from the Notes from

which it was preached, and contains in many parts the substance rather than the words into which it was expanded in the course of its delivery.

NOTES OF AN ADDRESS,

&c.

&c.

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I go down to hell, thou art there also. If I take the wings of the morning, and make my dwelling in the remotest parts of the sea; even there also shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall protect me.— Ps. cxxxix. 6-9.

HAVING read to you the Services of the day, I shall request your attention and occupy your time for a short space only in giving a few parting words of advice before you leave the shores of your native land. It is not my wish, it is not my intention, to address you at any great length, believing that I shall best accomplish the object I have in view by offering a few remarks bearing upon your position, in language plain and simple, which the most unlearned of you may understand, and which, if you will but receive it into your hearts with a desire to profit by it, may be of incalculable use to you wherever you may chance to be, and in whatever circumstances, whether of trial, or temptation, or danger, in which you may be placed. Attend, then, to me for a few minutes -listen to what I am about to say-and when the service is over, and when I have ceased to speak, endeavour to imprint it upon your memories, that it may be ready for your souls' use in the time of your need. The text is chosen from the Psalms of the day, and, had I searched the Bible through, I could not have

selected a passage more beautiful, more true, or more applicable to your case. It touches on the foundation of every man's religion; it speaks of God, that Almighty, all-powerful Being who is around and about us at all times and seasons, who neither slumbereth nor sleepeth, whose eye is ever upon us-in a word, that Great Spirit in whom we live, and move, and have our being. I will not suppose it possible that there is one single man before me who does not believe in a God. Who is it who is mentioned in the Scriptures as the unbeliever? It is the fool. The man who never thinks the man who is without understanding the man whose eyes are dark and blind to all around him, whose ears are deaf and closed to all he hears. For a moment let us hear what those unbelievers, whom the Bible so fitly describes as fools, have to say. Suppose, my friends, that there was a solitary man amongst you who declared that there was no God, and to assign for his reasons that we could not see Him. I would at once ask him whether he disbelieved in everything that he could not see? Should he incautiously answer "Yes," I would ask him whether he believed in such a thing as the existence of air and wind-for they are alike invisible and unseen. But I need not ask those whom I am now addressing whether they would not set down such a reasoner as indeed a fool, or something worse, who could speak so idly and so foolishly. We do not see the air, we do not see the wind; but we are sure and certain of its existence as we are of our own. As far as we are concerned, we know that our lives from hour to hour depend upon it; as far as the things around us are concerned, we are equally

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