dissect them as for the purposes of comparative anatomy, and shew them up as the curiosities, or monstrosities rather, of a museum. There are then, three classes of them, including-Sceptics, who believe nothing; Atheists, who believe there is no God; and Deists, who, admitting there is a God, deny a revelation.

First. Sceptics, who profess universal uncerainty, not knowing what to believe, form one class of infidels. I suspect that they all, at times, take refuge in this chaos. Many, however, declare that this is their fixed region, their adopted, if not their native home. They sometimes frankly confess that they are bewildered, and know not what to think. Well, if we can give them credit for this, we must very heartily pity them for it. But why, we take liberty to ask, attempt to give others the vertigo? They might surely keep their giddiness to themselves, and not, like children, take hold of our hands, to compel us to dance in their ring, that the whole world might seem to reel, because our heads are dizzy. When we were children, this was sport; but since we have become men, we like to stand steady, and not to feel the world reel beneath our feet. If they cannot help it, and need to be cupped, that is no reason why the blood should be forced to our heads.

For let us tell you, that real scepticism is torment, active scepticism is contradiction, and thorough scepticism is madness.

Real hearty sceptics are in a state of torment. By this description of the persons it may be seen that

I conceive of an opposite class who are not as sceptical as they pretend to be. For infidelity has its hypocrites. There is a left handed hypocrisy, that pretends to more thorough paced wickedness or ignorance, than it has been able to reach. If you watch narrowly those who profess to be sceptics, you will find that not one in ten of them have reached the mark and prize of their low calling. Like men pretending to madness, who cannot prevent the symptoms of reason, in some unguarded moments, from peeping out; these hypocritical sceptics often shew that they believe more than they like to confess. The evidence which they spurned as good for nothing, when adduced in behalf of religion, they will embrace as if it were as strong as we think proofs from holy writ, when they want a support for some temporal interest, or a sanction for some sensual lust. The same men will regard the same proofs as both strong and weak, wise and foolish, worthy of philosophers, and beneath children or fools. Such is the consistency, such the sincerity of the greater part of the scepticism in the world.

But if there are any real sceptics, they must exist in a state of torment. They do not fully believe there is no God; for if they did, they would be, not sceptics, but atheists. No; they only say, we cannot be satisfied that there is a God. Then they must be tortured with what may be called an infinity of uncertainty. "Is there," they must continually cry, "one eternal, infinite, almighty, omniscient Being, who made me, and therefore holds

me in his hands, subject in the most abject degree, to his sovereign pleasure? Or is there, instead of this infinity of being, a pure, absolute, eternal nothing? Sometimes, I say, Suppose there should be a God! And then the overwhelming idea seizes me like a giant, takes possession of my whole being, and absorbs all my powers, compelling me to exclaim, If deity is any thing, it is every thing. Then I shake off the notion again, and find, instead of the vast idea, a blank; and my spirit, which I hoped would exult at its escape from the giant grasp, does but shudder at the solitude created by the disappearance of the eternal All; and I feel myself in a vacuum where I cannot draw my breath. But I am soon hurled back again to the other pole. Thus I am tossed from infinity to nihility, from nihility to infinity; from the plenum to the vacuum, from the vacuum to the plenum; from the supposition of a being who demands all the homage of my soul, to the contradictory cry,

What if instead of this there should benothing?' Oh! that I could come to some fixed satisfactory conclusion, and know which of these two opposites is true! For though I tremble at the possibility that I may find there is a God, lest I should find, too, that I do not stand right with him; yet as long as I admit that I am not sure, and therefore may, some day or other, be compelled to come to the conclusion that there is such a being, the possibility is to me almost as tormenting as the certainty. Tired of the boundless uncertainty, sometimes I fly to one conclusion and sometimes to the opposite.

Now my restless spirit, as a wretched orphan that would fain open its arms to embrace a parent, yields for a moment to the thought, that I have an intelligent Creator; but, then, instantly I think I see him frown, and feel that I shrink back from the idea, and what I once thought was too good to be true— a smiling God, I now hope to find too bad to be true-a frowning God. But to what do I fly, when I fly from God? To a horrible vacuity. To an emptiness that makes even a sceptic shudder. Thus, while my mind is distracted with contrary opinions, my heart is torn by conflicting emotions. Often I say, I wish I could believe there is a God; but more often exclaim, I wish I could prove there is none. Yet this latter wish recoils upon my soul as a thunder bolt, and compels me to exclaim, 'and what should I gain by the extinction of deity?' Infinite loss! Nay, I reply, then there would be none to punish me. No, replies conscience, nor to reward you neither. Suppose you were to find a pardoning God, would not that be a discovery worth making, at any cost?

"Oh that I knew where I could find him! For inquire after him I feel I must, if not with honest research and a willing mind, still amidst the torments of infidelity and the self-condemnation of a prejudiced heart. If, for a moment, I set myself to sincere investigation, I say, If there is a God in the universe, I will find him. Were there a spot where he demonstrates his being to full conviction, I would crawl upon my hands and knees to reach it, though it were at the utmost distance. But then,

I hear the believers in a God say, “they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us, for in him we live and move, and have our being."

Such would be the torment of a sincere sceptic, with regard to the being of God.

Think, next, what would be the state of such a one on the question of Divine Revelation. He would say, In my distracting uncertainty about the existence of a God, I exclaim, if there is such a being, why does he not shew himself, that we may be sure of him? But then I felt the question flung back upon me, why do not you examine whether he has or not? What is that Revelation which you spurn, but at least a profession of that for which you say you long? Would not this, if true, be a summary settlement of the question, which has so long tormented you? Examine the Bible, and if that prove true, there is a God." But the true sceptic indignantly replies, Oh the Bible! Who can tell whether that is true or false? Who but children or fools would take all that for certain ? Yet a voice within says, but do you not make that an excuse for never examining it? And so, because you are uncertain, you never inquire. But were you sincere in your search after God, you would I will go thoroughly into the claims of this book; for here I shall shall do two things at once: I shall come to a conclusion concerning both deism and atheism. Here I may find, if the book should prove true, the God after whom I sought in vain. Here I may dis

say,