Orations and Occasional Discourses (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1850. Excerpt: ... DISCOURSE ON THE DEATH OF WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, LATE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMEEICA. PRONOUNCED IN THE MORNING OF APRIL 11, 1841. PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 17 DISCOURSE. There is no teacher of unerring truth but the Lord our God, and our meditations in his House of Prayer should ever be upon lessons which He hath given. It is not only from his written Word that those lessons may be learned. He speaks to us by the voice of Nature, for all his works are eloquent of instruction; and by the doings of his Providence for every event is ordered, to remind us that " He is God, and beside Him there is none else." "There are diversities of operations, but it is the same God, which worketh all in all." Each is a revelation of that Divine Wisdom, in which the awakened soul may hear "deep calling unto deep." Yes often, -when the Bible seems written for the careless heart in vain;-when Nature, with all her varied wonders, fails to lead us upward to her Maker and ours; God, by some stupendous act of Providence, compels us to tremble before his mysterious Presence, and own the majesty of his resistless Might. At such a time, we need not search his holy pages for a theme. God gives the text, and it becomes us humbly to bow, and learn as " God the Lord doth speak." His terror is upon us now. As though an archangel had blown his trump, an oracle has come forth to us from the high place of our land. A wail of lamentation, like that of all Israel weeping in Ramah, when they buried Samuel the Lawgiver; a cry of dismay, such as burst from their despairing hosts when the Ark was lost, has gone up from this vast nation. The storm-cloud, whose portentous shadow suddenly darkened all our borders with fear, has broken upon our heads. Our many-hearted prayer has not been hea...