which has greatly been improved against you in your late trial. You have been sensible of this, and to your credit I mention it, you have promised to reform. The apostle James, in relation to the tongue, says, "Behold what a great matter a little fire kindleth!" The goodness of God in sparing you is a sure pledge that he is willing to pardon and restore you to his favour. Oh! reflect on the wretched state to which twenty days more would have introduced you, had you died in your sins. A more awful prison awaits the ungodly, where hope never comes. The sentence pronounced against you will doubtless soon be reversed; yet, should you be found impenitent, the court of heaven still holds you a prisoner condemned, and the more awful execution may take place before the 28th of January. This day may form a kind of anniversary in your life: you will always remember it; and oh! may it, during your abode on earth, be a day of thanksgiving to God for the signal display of his mercy towards you!

In this remarkable providence you can see judgment and mercy, chastisement and benignity. Affliction in subjecting you for months to a dark and gloomy prison in chains-in being reputed a murderer-cut off from society, your family, and lying under the sentence of death. But here is divine wisdom and goodness displayed in reversing the sentence, retrieving your character, &c. Had you been exonerated by the court, or if the process had never commenced, 'tis probable that Colvin would never have been discovered, and a stigma might have been fixed on you and unborn posterity. But God has effectually wiped away the reproach. The prisoners released will be under peculiar temptations to indulge a hard and bitter spirit towards some who have appeared in evidence against them. A perfect adherence to propriety in all things, amid such a series of events, could not be expected. If you have in any instance been injured, it is God's prerogative to avenge

the wrong, and not yours; as it is written, "To me belongeth vengeance and recompense.-Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto

wrath for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord," Deut. xxxii., 35; Rom. xii., 19. You see by what has taken place in your late trials, that God can conduct matters best even for you. Commit all to him. Be of a peaceable, forgiving temper. Suppress every unruly passion, and all evil speaking. Let God's goodness, so wonderfully displayed, excite you to be merciful, as our Father who is in heaven is merciful. The general and unusual joy manifested by this and the neighbouring towns on the return of your deserted brother-in-law, will, I think, incline you to believe that they were not hostile to your life, and did not thirst for human blood. Every countenance expressed gladness, and every tongue hailed the auspicious day. Shouts and rejoicing resounded from house to house, and from town to town. All seemed anxious to drink deep with you in the cup of your deliverance.

However great you may prize your escape from prison, how much more ought you to value and seek acquittance and freedom from the fatal bondage of sin and death! This would excite singing of a more sublime and ecstatic nature. All heaven would exult in songs that would never, never end! Luke xv., 10. Since the Lord has in so wonderful a manner spared your lives, oh! what obligations are you under to devote the remainder to God. You cannot expect another call so powerful and alarming; and, should this be misimproved, may you not consider it an awful presage of inevitable ruin? Prov. xxix., 1: "He that, being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy."

The aged parents who have for months been groaning under the heavy hand of the Almighty, may greatly rejoice. You have been mourning children, devoted to a shameful and untimely death. Had it taken place, perhaps it would have brought down your gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. The miseries that come upon our children should lead us to examine whether our unfaithfulness to the concerns of their souls has not had influence in the calamities to which they are incident.

Every day, especially the shadows of evening, did not fail to waft your imaginations to the doleful mansions that contained your unhappy children, while horrible and frightful scenes of a disgraceful death disturbed your nightly repose. Every enjoyment of life was imbittered, and every walk became solitary. The yearning of the bowels of tender parents over their children, bound in chains, doomed to the gibbet, is taught only by experience. Could you not say with the broken-hearted Jacob, "All these things are against me?"

The dwellings of a brother and sister become a Bochim, and their responsive cries enter the walls of distress. At home, abroad, in the house of God, grief lies heavy on their souls; while every tender feeling of the heart swells the tide of anguish and distress. Could an affectionate sister hear of the fatal destiny of two brothers, and not sink beneath the heart-rending tidings!* Oh the bitter reflections, the painful sensations among friends, whose mingled sorrows absorb all the pleasures of life!

But why should I harrow up the soul by too minute a detail, or dwell too long on those days of tribulation? They are passed and gone. God has turned your mourning into dancing. Although weeping endured for a long and wearisome night, yet joy came in the morn ing. Let Jehovah-jirah, the Lord will see and provide, be written on the posts of your door, and on the fleshy tables of your hearts. Let this motto be inscribed in legible and indelible characters on all your deportment, that he may run that readeth-The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.

I trust this and the neighbouring towns have, in a degree, by their conduct, exemplified that inspired injunction, "Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep." Their readiness to afford pecuniary relief to the distressed family, is a practical demonstration. It has for months past been a time of peculiar

* Mrs. Richardson, sister of the prisoners, being on a visit to a neighbouring house, on hearing that the sentence of death was pronounced against her brothers, fell prostrate on the floor.

mourning and distress, to see our fellow-creatures in wretched confinement, awaiting an awful execution. I trust our prayers have been ascending to heaven for Divine interposition, and the Lord in a mysterious way has granted us deliverance. Through the faithfulness and vigilance of our fellow-citizens (under God), the town of Manchester is delivered from the public censure of blood-guiltiness, which otherwise would have cleaved to them to the latest posterity. All who read and hear this mysterious event, even generations yet to come, will be constrained to exclaim, "Verily there is a God, whose judgments are unsearchable, and his ways past finding out."

I can scarcely persuade myself to quit the subject, although it will be a kind of repetition, without adverting to that ecstasy and delight with which we beheld the devoted man quit his direful abode. He was waiting between hope and fear, until the glad tidings were proclaimed, the prison door opened, the chains unriveted, and he welcomed to the light. May it not reprove such who are under the sentence of God's law; prisoners of hope, and will not come out. Oh! that I could with success proclaim in your ears this day the expostulatory declaration of the great deliverer, Isa. lxi. "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted; to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." Let me say to the prisoners, "Go forth "" To you that are in darkness, "Show yourselves." The door is thrown wide open-Jesus is ready to break your bonds asunder. Angels inviteyea, all Heaven stand ready to shout your deliverance through the streets of New-Jerusalem. The nature of our inability can be inferred by seeing the prisoner escape when the door is unlocked, that it is of the moral kind, being bound only with the cords of our sins, unwilling to depart. We are not convened this day to witness the awful death of a fellow-mortal, suspended between the heavens and the earth-nor to hear the

bitter sighs, or behold the distorted visage of a dying malefactor; but to hear the jubilee trumpet proclaiming salvation. Turn ye to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope. May the arm of the Lord be revealed.AMEN.

STATE OF VERMONT.

Supreme Court, adjourned term, November, 1819.

Present Hon. DUDLEY CHASE, Chief Justice; Hon. JOEL DOOLITTLE, Assistant Judge.

A bill of endictment for murder was found by a grand jury, at the September term of the Supreme Court, against Stephen Boorn and Jesse Boorn, for the murder of Russell Colvin; but, as the court did not consist of the requisite number of judges, the trial was adjourned.

The endictment was in the usual form, charging the prisoners as "being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil;" and that they "feloniously, wilfully, and of their malice aforethought, did, kill and murder" Russell Colvin, upon the 10th day of May, A. D. 1812. The state's attorney appeared in support of the pros

ecution.

Messrs. Skinner, Wellman, and Sargeant as counsel for the prisoners.

Before the introduction of any testimony, Mr. Skinner made a motion, that as the prisoners had pleaded severally "Not guilty," they might be allowed separate trials.

The court ruled that Stephen and Jesse Boorn should be jointly tried for the murder of Russell Colvin.

About fifty witnesses were successively examined; but, as they were only corroborative of each other, all tending to prove the leading facts in the case, and too voluminous for this brief sketch, none but the principal testimony will here be introduced.