overflow and mar every thing sacred, be met and turned back? Shall not
thousands and tens of thousands on our borders, and in our midst, be
rescued from the iron sway of the destroyer, and be saved from going
down to the pit? Shall not new temples be opened for their reception?
and shall not "God, even our God, be a wall of fire round about them,
and a glory in the midst of them?"

Do you ask more particularly, how this shall be done? Plant, for
instance, an able and devoted minister in the most degraded portion of
our city. Let him employ his time in the cultivation of one thousand of
these minds. Let him, by the aid of self-denying brethren, assemble them
in one place on the holy sabbath. Let him visit their houses, and pray
with them, every month. Let him collect the children and youth into
sabbath schools and bible classes. Let him encourage among them every
means of intellectual as well as spiritual elevation; and how
astonishing will be the change wrought, even in the course of one year.
Instead of being objects of pity, shame, and aversion; many of them
become pillars of light, and exert a purifying influence upon others. Is
not this elevation worth more than all the necessary expense, even
leaving out of the account all the eternal results? Let, then, another
and another degraded portion be selected, and in like manner be
regenerated and ennobled. Especially let no one who feeds at the table
of our common Lord, and lives from week to week on the provisions of his
house, refuse, promptly and vigorously to co-operate in the work of
mercy, while a soul is perishing in ignorance and sin!

In the mean time, let our civil fathers look well to the execution of
laws, which themselves have made, for the suppression of
sabbath-breaking and immorality. And let them inquire seriously, Whether
all our children and youth may not be brought under the influence of