which I believe will impart happiness, and security to so many human beings.

I dare say there are few here present, who are unacquainted with the great progress which has been lately made, in the art of recovering persons apparently dead; it appears, from the reports of the society established in London, that men have been restored to life, nearly an hour after every sign of animation had disappeared, and after they had been given up, by common observers, as completely dead; it appears also by the records of the same society, that under their exertions, and by the means they have recommended, more than three thousand persons have already been restored to life, whose preservation, but for the skill diffused by the society, would have been considered as impossible. It is of the greatest importance to remember this, because it shews the enormous extent of those accidents which are fatal to life, and the high degree of perfection to which this art of resuscitation is already carried-four thousand human beings rescued from sudden death: Let any man of common humanity, reflect upon the rapturous happiness which

this mercy has excited; the tears which it has dried up; the broken hearts which it has healed; the tender relations of life which it has restored; the dreadful thoughts of everlasting separation which it has spared; think of this, and there is not a man, whose, heart, and whose understanding would not urge him to take part in so noble, and interesting a charity: Four thousand human beings, won, with labour, and difficulty, from the grave; an hour of war, would have overwhelmed twice their number, so easy it is to destroy, so difficult to save; God be thanked that this latter is our task; that while all Europe is again rushing into arms, we are met together in the name of Christ to see how we can increase the security of life, and diminish the victory of the grave.

We may consider such sort of institutions as the sure signs of the prevalence of good laws, sound morals, and of a general state of prosperity; it is not so much an object, that there should be many people, as that those who are, should exist in the greatest attainable

comfort, and be exposed to the least possible degree of peril, and disturbance. In a savage state, man is so often destroyed by the sudden excesses of passion, and subjected to destruction from so many causes, that life is there of less consequence, and men never think of entering into any schemes for its preservation: In poor countries, no institutions of charity can flourish; the attention of mankind cannot rise above their daily wants; and though life may be respected by their habits, and laws, they cannot make any considerable sacrifices for its preservation: In despotic countries, it is not life in general, which is of importance, but only the life of the rich, and great; there are countries even, in Europe, where a plan for saving the lives of the lowest classes of society, would carry with it an air of ridicule, and hyperbole. Such kind of institutions can only exist in a country where a just administration of just laws, has made the life of man of supreme importance; they can only take place in a country, where christianity, in its best form, is universally diffused; they can only take ́ place in a country, which industry has raised above the common wants of life, and

which can afford to be munificent in its goodness; such an attention to human life, is the united result of piety, of justice, and of opulence.

This

scheme of benevolence has also a peculiar interest, as it connects itself with a knowledge of the human frame, and of the most important laws by which it is regulated: Let no man think that knowledge ever can be impious, or that it has any other limits, but the limits of possibility; whatever secrets of nature man can discover, he is permitted to discover; whatever could not be entrusted to him, is placed beyond his reach; his efforts may be fruitless, but they cannot be criminal; for it is only by experience he can find out those boundaries which Providence has fixed, and those rewards which it has assigned to his labours. It may happen, then, that the science, which this charity patronises, may be yet in its infancy; that it may have new resources for the calamities of life; fresh consolation for the bitterness of grief; that it may go as far beyond the present art of resuscitation, as that art exceeds what was

believed to be possible, in the times which preceded its invention.

It must be remembered too, whatever be the degree to which this art is carried, that the institution of an humane society in this neighbourhood, secures the pratice of that art, in its utmost present perfection; in case of any dangerous accident, you can command all the resources which mechanical, or medical aid can supply; and, really, I cannot well conceive what an unhappy man can hereafter say to his own heart, who, when such a mean of obviating some of the greatest calamities of life is placed before him; when it is insisted upon, and earnestly pressed upon his attention, hears it with indifference, or rejects it as frivolous, or insignificant. Can any person, here present, who may think the object, upon which I am employed, to be trifling, and inadequate? can any man pretend man pretend to say, before another sunday summons him to church, that he may not be crying over the dead body of his child; and lifting up from the ground, its poor miserable mother? and if a man has no children of his own, still, is