Wesley Corpus

Are our countrymen more effectually reclaimed when danger and distress are joined ? If so, the army, especially in time of war, raust be the most religious part of the nation. But is it so indeed? Do the soldiery walk as those who see themselves on the brink of eternity? redeeming every oppor tunity of glorifying God, and doing good to men, because they know not the hour in which their Lord will require their souls of them P So far from it, that a soldier's religion is a by-word, even with those who have no religion at all; that vice and profaneness in every shape reign among them with out control; and that the whole tenor of their behaviour speaks, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” Have those who are exposed to still more danger, the Eng lish sea-forces, more religion than those at land? It is said they were once remarkable for this; and it is certain Sir Francis Drake feared God, as did most of his Commanders, and, we have reason to believe, his mariners and sailors too. But what shall we say of the navy that now is, more particu larly of the ships of war? Is religion there,--either the power or the form? Is not almost every single man-of-war a mere floating hell? Where is there to be found more consummate wickedness, a more full, daring contempt of God, and all his laws,--except in the bottomless pit? But here description fails; and the goodness of God endureth yet daily But “shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord? Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?” O that the prospect of national judgments may suffice that we may remember ourselves, and turn unto the Lord our God, before his long-suffering mercy is at an end, and he pours out the vials of his wrath upon us! But how small ground have we as yet to hope for this! for, who will now “suffer the word of exhortation ?” How few will “endure sound doctrine,” and the honest, close applica tion of it!