habitually indulged in binds the whole soul, and like a manacle on one limb, it fetters the entire spirit in our approaches to God. Those who cannot live well to-day will be still less fitted to live well to-morrow, and we have the evidence of all those who have tried the pleasures of this world in their most sinful excesses, that they soon produce satiety and weariness, but never bring permanent happiness. The best and wisest of men, on the contrary, have declared that they find it truly, permanently, and in a daily increasing degree, by cultivating a constant, unhesitating will to do right, and in the assured hope of a better life, wherein they shall rise to the full glory and felicity of which we are capable. By those who experience in this world the peace and happiness derived from established habits and feelings of religion, it is constantly and most credibly declared that all the greatest enjoyments of this world, that feasting and amusement, or even loving and being beloved, are not equal in true pleasure to the shedding of one truly penitential tear in the sight of God; and shall we not on that subject believe those who are worthy of belief on every other?

Whatever path they took, by hill or vale,
By night or day, the universal wish,
The aim and sole intent, was happiness;
But, erring from the heaven-appointed path,

Strange tracks indeed they took through barren wastes,
And up the sandy mountain climbing toil'd,
Which pining lay beneath the curse of God,
And nought produced. Yet did the traveller look
And point his eye before him greedily,

As if he saw some desolate spot, where grew
The heavenly flower where sprung the well of life,
Where undisturb'd felicity repos'd,

Though wisdom's eye no vestige could discern,
That happiness had ever pass'd that way.

POLLOK.

S

CHAP. XXI.

A BELIEF IN THE FALL OF MAN ACCOUNTS FOR ALL HIS INCONSISTENCIES.

The storms of wintry time will quickly pass,
And one unbounded spring encircle all.

THOMSON.

IT would be degrading the importance of our nature, not to assert that man is a fallen creature, seeing that the utmost dignity of the human race consists in having been originally created superior to what we are, and in being destined hereafter for a restoration to better things again. Like an imprisoned eagle, the soul of man is kept from soaring to the high destiny that awaits him, but as we originated from the will of our father in heaven, to him we are invited to return, first in spirit and then in person.

The greatness contrasted with the littleness obvious in the mind of man might prove, without more evidence, that he is indeed fallen from the pristine nobility of his nature, and he can no more restore himself than he could add a cubit to his stature, but our only hope of being delivered from our sins is that the sinless Saviour died for them, and the only sure evidence that we are

indeed enlisted among the selected servants of God, is when we are enabled to lead a holy life.

When the French ambassador visited Lord Bacon in his last sickness, finding the illustrious statesman in bed with the curtains all drawn round, he said in a tone of the most fulsome adulation, "You are like the angels of whom we hear and read much, but have not the pleasure ofseeing them." "If," replied Bacon, "the complaisance of another compares me to an angel, my infirmities tell me I am a man.'

Considering human nature as fallen and degraded, it is a more melancholy object than Nineveh or Babylon in ruins. We can plainly trace corruption and deficiency in others, yet when we turn to the contemplation of our own character and conduct, we do so with the doting partiality of a foolishly indulgent parent towards his only son. Each man has a tendency to idolise his own talents or influence, his taste or reputation, but perhaps the most hopeless case is that of him who indulges in spiritual pride, the very canker-worm of all true religion in our souls.

Those who would build high for the future must lay their foundation in the lowest humility,

not the humility which is to be worn merely like a cloak externally, and for going into society, but as an every-day garment, much more for real

use than for show. Unless our foundation be laid indeed on Christ's merits, we can have no other, and truly men are happy in proportion as they are humble. When true humility reigns in our souls, we are not wounded by the indifference of others, because conscious of being still treated as well as we deserve; neither do present afflictions overwhelm us, because we feel that there is still much more cause for gratitude than for complaint. Those who would die well must live in humility always, in solitude often, and in repentance habitually, pitying the sorrows of all around, and sharing the calamities of those they love, judging leniently of others and strictly of themselves, in order wisely to anticipate the judgment of God. As we are told that when the face of Moses shone with glory, every one became aware of it except himself, thus should it be in respect to the brightness of character in a Christian. Any pride nourished by man in this life will become, in another world, the source of his deepest humiliation, for truly, as the old proverb declares, “ quarrelsome man has no neighbour, a suspicious man has no friend, a discontented man has not himself, he who has no seats to sit on but those of the scornful has no safety, but a man of humble piety has all.”

a

It is strange, as Sidney Smith remarked, "to see a creature of a span's duration perched upon