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Again, by devoting this institution to the cause of Christ, the moral influence of the truths of the gospel will have an important and salutary effect even upon its purely intellectual and temporal departments, and the government of the pupils. -- Truth is often said to be omnipotent. It is the instrument which the Father of spirits employs to enlighten the minds and purify the hearts of His intelligent creatures. But truth is one, and there is probably a real connexion between all kinds of truth both human and divine; for the Author, of those operations of nature which furnish the data from which physical truths are derived, and of those dispensations of providence and grace from which moral and religious truths are derived is One and the same Almighty Being, directing and controlling the vast movements of His power, and the mysterious processes of His wisdom, and the inflexible dispensations of His justice, and the engaging displays of His goodness, upon one harmonious plan, all tending to one result, the brightest illustration of His glory, and the best good of all who love and serve him. - Now in this plan, moral truth holds a higher rank than intellectual, and has a nobler influence on the mind; and I apprehend that the youth whose understanding is early opened to the reception and influence of the truths of the gospel in all their beauty and simplicity, will make the fairest and most rapid progress, even his attainment of merely human knowledge. Sin darkens the understanding as well as debases the heart. Had man remained in his primeval state of innocence, probably much of that very obscurity which attends the researches that philosophy has been attempting to make, forages, in the discovery of physical truth, and which has been attributed simply to the limited powers of the human facilities, in this imperfect state of being, would never have existed, and much that now appears mysterious, would then have been clear. -- But there is a view of this subject somewhat more practical, which gives it, if not a more elevated, at least, a more heartfelt interest. -- How much of the successful education of youth in any department of knowledge depends upon the docility of the pupil, and on the influence which the instructor has over him. How is this docility best to be cultivated? How is this influence to be maintained so as to combine respect with love? No precepts like those of the gospel diffuse over the opening character that tender ingeniousness of feeling which is so lovely in youth; it is like the dew of heaven, whose mild lustre sheds a fresher charm over the budding flower, refreshes its infancy and nurtures its growth into all the fulness of its maturer beauties. -- The faculties of the child expand in their most desirable form, nay its very acquisitions of knowledge are most rapid, when the affections of its heart are properly cultivated, and they cannot be so without making use of the doctrines, and precepts, and example of that Saviour who was the friend of the young and helpless. - Education, could it be conducted upon strictly gospel principles, would soon prove by actual experiment, that the influence of the religion of Jesus Christ, in fact elevates and ennobles all the powers of the understanding; while it purifies and hallows all the affections of the heart. -- And, in the same way, it would not be difficult to show, that if it is to be one of the leading objects of this institution to form its pupils to those habits of useful employment which will qualify them to contribute to their own future support, and to prepare them to sustain the various relations, and discharge the various duties, of life, with credit to themselves and comfort to their friends, that this is best to be accomplished, by leading them to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then all these things shall be added unto them. I have been led to these reflections, my Brethren, from considering what appeared to me to be the real nature of the occasion which has brought us together. It is to dedicate this Asylum to Almighty God. It is not simply to consecrate this building, or any particular part of it, to the services and ceremonies of religious worship, although we indulge the hope that this will form an important feature of the establishment, and give the pupils the opportunity of enjoying this privilege in a manner adapted to their peculiar situation. But we rather assemble here to dedicate the whole institution, in all its departments and with all its benefits, to the service and honor of Him who has so kindly reared and cherished it and to invoke His blessing and protection upon it.

On such an occasion, so solemn and so interesting, it is becoming, it is safe, nay we are under the strongest obligations, to surrender this whole institution into the hands of Him, who retains a property in every gift which He bestows upon us, and, under whose direction, and by the guidance of whose precepts, we can best secure and enjoy all our blessings. -- Hence I have endeavoured in this discourse to show that it is both the duty and interest of those to whom the guardianship of this Asylum is entrusted, to keep its original and leading design steadily in view, to make the religious welfare of the pupils its great object, and to conduct all its other departments, not upon worldly or merely humane principles, but under the wholesome laws and maxims of the gospel of our Saviour. Let us then, my Brethren, all of us who expect to be engaged in its affairs, or who are interested in its prosperity, now, in the presence of Almighty God, and with a humble reliance on His aid, proceed to dedicate this Asylum, in all its departments, and with its interests and concerns, to the service of the Father of mercies, to the honor of the Redeemer's name, to the grace of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, invoking the continuance of the Divine blessing upon it, that it may prove a rich, a lasting, an eternal benefit to the suffering objects of its care. Thus built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone, it will be established upon the rock of ages; and when these walls, which the hands of man have erected, shall have mouldered into ruin; when nothing but the winds of heaven, shall sigh in melancholy murmur through the desolation of these goodly scenes which surround and embellish it when the last memorials of its founders and patrons and friends, the lonely tombstones of their grass-grown graves, shall have crumbled into dust and ceased to preserve even their very names from oblivion; when its present and future inhabitants, the cherished objects of its care, shall have left, one after another, this earthly house of their tabernacle; we will indulge the delightful hope, that it will have proved to each of them, the preparatory entrance, the outer court, of the building of God, the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. -- And that this may prove the happy lot both of them, and of all who now surround them, and shew this interest in their welfare in God of his infinite mercy grant. Amen.