A SERMON.
Numbers i. 1, 2, 19.
“And the Lord spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tabernacle of the congregation, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying, take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel . . . As the Lord commanded Moses, so he numbered them in the wilderness of Sinai.”
The reading the words of the text, dear brethren, will make it obvious, that I desire this evening, to direct your attention to thoughts connected with the great national act now taking place, the numbering the people, the census. Whilst the preacher of the Gospel should be exceedingly careful, not to allow the things of time and sense to form the burden of his ministry, yet there is much wisdom and profit, in making use of those temporal matters which are engaging men’s thoughts, as vehicles for reminding them of spiritual and eternal verities. By such a course a fitting direction is given to the minds of believers; their contact with worldly duties is made a means of promoting their spiritual life. By such a course also the attention of the still unconverted is arrested, and those startling truths which tend to the awakening of the soul, find sometimes, by God’s blessing, a lodgment in the memory, because of their association with topics of worldly interest. I pray that my endeavour this evening to improve the occasion of this important national act—the taking of the census—by suggesting a few thoughts in connection with it, may be blessed of the Holy Spirit to the honour of our God, and the good of our souls.
I would classify my remarks, because I wish them to form the material of much afterthought on your parts, under these divisions:—
1st. The propriety and uses of a national census, and our duty with regard to it.
2nd. The thoughts which arise from the questions of the census paper.
3rd. An omission in the census paper suggesting an important line of thought.
4th. The final census.
(I.) The propriety and uses of a national census, and our duty with regard to it.
Enumerations of the people, more or less complete, have found place in almost all nations. They seem an obvious necessity in all collections of men pretending to a national existence. Without them all legislation for the internal welfare of a country and for its external defence must be mere hap-hazard work. Those to whom is committed the heavy burden of ruling a great people such as this, have I think, a positive right to all that information from the governed which may help them in the discharge of their onerous and responsible duties. It is not patriotic, to use no loftier term, to look upon our government with the jaundiced eye of suspicion, more especially when it exercises no undue inquisitiveness, and pledges itself, as the government of our day does by the terms of the census forms, that “The facts will be published in general abstracts only, and strict care will be taken that the returns are not used for the gratification of curiosity.”