ed to afford us a new motive to prize
and to cherish that animating faith, which could form, in an age like
the present, a character so wonderfully entitled to the veneration of
the world? The spirit of Christianity is so visible in the conduct of
HOWARD, that the prime objects of his attention might be thought to have
been suggested to him by the very words in which our blessed Lord
announces to the heirs of eternal glory the source of their
beatitude--'Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from the foundation of the world; for I was an hungry, and ye
gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and
ye took me in; naked, and ye cloathed me; I was sick, and ye visited me;
I was in prison, and ye came unto me.'

"Is it possible for us, my Brethren, to recall to our memory these holy
words without feeling at the same time, in the most forcible degree, all
the Christian merits of HOWARD? Can we fail to admire and to venerate
the unexampled ardour, purity, and perseverance, with which he exercised
the peculiar virtue so distinguished by our Lord?--While we behold him
sublimely pre-eminent in this Christian perfection, shall we not cherish
the delightful idea, that his heavenly rewards will be finally adequate
to his unrivaled labours on earth? Shall not those who have loved him
exult in the persuasion, that in that great and aweful day, when the
living and the dead are to receive their everlasting doom; when the
princes and the great ones of the earth may be confronted with those
whom they have persecuted and oppressed, or whom they have failed to
relieve; when the proudest Sons of Learning, Genius, or Wit, may shrink
at the superior lustre of those whom they have ridiculed and reviled;
HOWARD will shine encircled by thousands, who will gratefully plead for
his beatitude in those blessed words of our Redeemer, 'I was in prison,
and he came unto me!'

"Yes, my Brethren, the day will assuredly come, when the servant so
signally faithful will be called to a reward, surpassing the utmost
reach of our conception, by the voice of his Righteous Master--then, and
then only, will praise be fully proportioned to his transcendant merit;
when this consummate Christian is raised to glory by the glorified
Messiah, when his pure spirit exults in the commendation of his GOD.

"The imperfect efforts, that mankind may make to do honour to such a
Being, cannot, indeed, so much promote hi