Page:Address to an emigrant.djvu/7

 suitable provision for your family, have prompted you to emigrate; but what will it profit you, or your children, if you could gain all the wealth of a colony, or of the world, and lose your own souls? Better live in poverty, and die, as did Lazarus, at the rich man's gate, with the comfort of gospel ordinances, than to live and die in their neglect, with all the advantages that earth and time could afford!

It is an important consideration, that your conduct will have an influence for good or for evil, not only on the persons who may surround you; but on the people of the next succeeding generations. This is the case with every person in every land; but it is pre-eminently the case with the early settlers of a colony. They labour, and others will enter into their labours; they sow, and others will come and reap. The first settlers in any land lay the foundation of the social edifice, and the building of after ages much accords with the foundation. Your principles and conduct will produce a more powerful impression in a thinly peopled territory than in the dense population of home. Everything, then, in your personal and relative situation conspires to prove the great importance of your honouring God, of your going forth in his fear, and of aiming at the promotion of his glory.

And now, voyager, farewell! Many tongues have lately faltered out this word of separation, and many an aching heart and weeping eye have attended the utterance. Its sound has been to you like the knell of departed joys, and the remembrancer of past endearments. You feel painfully at parting from friends, relatives, and home, and your heart is softened by a review of the past, and by an anticipation of the future. May the emotion you now feel lead you to the throne of grace, and cause you to cast your care on Jesus, who careth for you! May the presence of God go with you,