Sons of the mighty dead! Oh! can it be,

Ye seal your hearts to lessons to you taught In characters of blood? What made ye free?

What struck the fetters from expansive thought?
The enduring constancy with which they wrought
The work of liberty! and left a page
In annals of the Church, which, fearless sought
With reverent love of Truth, must you engage
To rise the emancipators of a future age!

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Universal Restoration.

MOORE the Poet, in his last published and interesting work, entitled the Epicurean, has the following note on the grand doctrine of Universal Salvation:

"This benevolent doctrine-which not only goes far to solve the great problem of moral and physical evil, but which would, if received generally, tend to soften the spirit of uncharitableness, so fatally prevalent among Christian sects-was maintained by that great light of the early Church, Origen, and has not wanted supporters among more modern theologians. That Tillotson was inclined to the opinion, appears from his sermon preached before the Queen. Paley is supposed to have held the same amiable doctrine; and Newton, the author of the work on the prophecies, is also among the supporters of it. For a full account of the arguments in favour of this opinion, derived both from reason and the express language of Scripture, see Dr. Southwood Smith's very interesting work" on the Divine Government." See also Magee on the Atonement, where the doctrine of the advocates of Universal Restoration is thus briefly and fairly explained:

Beginning with the existence of an infinitely powerful, wise, and good Being, as the first and fundamental principle of rational religion, they pronounce the essence of this Being to be love, and from this infer, as a demonstrable consequence, that none of the creatures formed by such a Being, will ever be made eternally miserable, since God, they say, would act unjustly in inflicting eternal misery for temporary crimes; the sufferings of the wicked can be but remedial, and will terminate in a complete purification from moral disorder, and in their ultimate restoration to virtue and happiness.'

999

A New-Year's-Day Discourse.
(Continued from page 246.)

THE first observation that suggests itself, is the urgent necessity that exists, that we should seize the present moment, as the commencement of a determined and persevering endeavour to emancipate ourselves from the bondage of any sinful habit, by the power of which we may be enslaved. The formation of habit, is the frequent recurrence of certain acts, united together by a particular tendency or desire, strengthened by indulgence; and it is this influence which one act of indulgence exerts over the mind, prompting to a repetition of a similar act. It is this connection that exists between the several divided acts—this almost moral necessity-that a frequently gratified propensity should be followed, by a recurring indulgence, that invests habit, when sinful, with its most appalling characteristic— its despotic controlment. Were every desire, and every train of thought, and every volition, and every action, an unassociated one-unconnected by the laws of causation, to a previous or subsequent indulgence, then should we, in the lack of self-discipline, be removed from the field of our most arduous duties, and most obstinate conflictsthen should we be enabled to put forth a more efficient power in the act of quelling the rebellious movements of our hearts-then should we be enabled to discipline our will to a more entire subjection, and yielding of itself up with a more generous and absolute devotement, to the requirements of the Gospel-then should we be enabled to free ourselves, with a more effectual weaning, from the clinging and grasping hinderances of worldlymindedness-then should we be enabled to send forth the cry of a most resolute and determined defiance to the menacing attitudes of the fleshly appetites-then should we be enabled to exert a more refining influence upon the stubborn coating of the mind, and clear away the heavy and polluting fumes of spiritual pride and uncharitableness -then should we be enabled to prosecute a mightier cru sade against the tumultuary outbreakings of unbridled passion, that quench the spirit, and separate between ourselves and our Creator! It is the concentrated energy of many previous successes, that invests the adversary, in the hour of trial, with his most imposing array, and his most efficient power. It is the debased tone that the

moral feeling has imbibed from former imbecility and inefficient resistance, that prevents the heart from responding in harmonious numbers, to the fine touch of native sensibility. It is the yielding and capricious barrier opposed to sinful indulgence in its rise, that, instead of resisting, only chafes and lashes up the stream to frenzythat impels the passions to so fierce a round of desolation, and a usurpation so tyrannous and biting.

Now, as sin obtains over us its hold and ascendancy, through the influence of a succession of indulgences, so is it eradicated by a like succession of resistances. It is not to be disenthroned from its supremacy by any one act of the will. It is not to be intimidated by the loud, obstreperous outcry of a single impetuous and indignant note of defiance. The heart is not to be purged of its alloy, by an act of heated and impassioned zeal, thrown out from the dying embers of exhausted passion. The criminal inclination, that has strengthened with the strength, and grown with the growth, is not to be brow-beaten by the querulous complainings of remorse-raising her voice of anguish, in the languid interval of gratified indulgence. Oh, no!The casting off the slough of defilement, must be, the working of a slow and continued course of self-discipline; it must be the result of a long and arduous struggle, maintained with determined fortitude, and supported by spiritual influences. It requires the peculiar agency of an entire regenerative process-bringing the proud will into subjection to the teaching of the Gospel, and raising the tendency of the desires, from the things which are seen and temporal, to those which are unseen and eternal! It needs, that the perishable vanities of the creature should be removed from all the avenues of the heart, and that the Creator should be the one prominent object of contemplation. It calls for the sacrifice of worldly mindedness, and worldly tastes, and worldly affections, upon the altar of Christian obedience. It demands that the soul should be brought in patient waiting and submissive confidence, and with the humility of a little child, to sit at the feet of Jesus, and look for all its enjoyments, and all its elevations, and all its rapturous excitements, from the feeling conviction of having yielded up all its perversities, and all its carnal appetites, and all its inordinate cravings, in entire devotion to his teachings and his requirements; and above all, that the spirit should be trained to earnest, habitual, and un

wearied prayer; that it should, at all times, and in all seasons, seek guidance, and direction, and assistance, and refreshment, from above, in the fervent breathings of humble and contrite supplication; that the homage which we render to the Creator, should not be confined to the periodical returns of stated and formal observance, but the spirit of devotion and ardent piety should be infused into the every occupation of our day-entering into our every thought, and our every contemplation, and our every desire—purifying our affections in their every movement -exalting our imagination in its every conception. You will be ready to exclaim, that this is of difficult accomplishment, arduous in its undertaking, and unpromising in its aspect. My Christian friends, I will not deceive you, it is an arduous undertaking—it is of difficult accomplishment. It requires the exercise of a most trying faith— of a most resolute self-denial-of a most heart-sifting mortification. But it is not of impossible attainment. No: blessed be God! It is not without the sphere of our appropriation. It is not raised beyond the grasp of our endeavour. It is not beyond the influence of an attractive faith. What then should be the determination of our souls? What the resolve of our understandings? Shall we shrink in pusillanimous dismay before so high-minded an achievement? Shall we recoil from the ennobling warfare, and hug the chains that gall us? Shall we relapse into heartless indifference, and enervating indolence, and stony obduracy, till we hear the fearful cry, "Behold the bridegroom cometh?" Or, shall we not rather determine with promptitude, to cast from us the sin that doth most easily beset us, and execute with vigour our holy purposes of amendment? Shall we not banish indecision from our minds, and disdain every compromise with our unrighteousness, and incline us to the mark of our high-calling with undeviating constancy, in defiance of any opposition that may discourage, or any obstacle that may impede our progress? Shall we not, as "wise men that discern both time and judgment," "awake from our sleep, and arise from the dead," confiding in the gracious promise of the Apostle, that "Christ shall give us light?"

The next method I shall offer for your consideration, for improving the passing time, viewed in relation to judgment, is the acquiring the habit of habitual watchfulness over the processes of our hearts and understandings.

Since the manifold attractions of the world, and the perishable vanities of time, are entering by the every avenue to our souls-if we would live unspotted from the world, the necessity is urgent upon us, that we keep a vigilant and mistrustful eye upon the nature of the reception their claimants meet with from our affections, and the influence that they exert over our wills. The first rising of sinful inclination, is the foe that we are called upon to grapple with and subdue. We should rather seek, at closing the gate of our hearts to the admission of danger, than run the risk, by a criminal negligence, of having a rebellious outcry circulated throughout the camp. The beginnings of evil are often in their character so insignificant and so apparently inadequate to the production of any serious and alarming mischief, that, too often, they are removed from under the eye of a very observant regard; but experience fatally verifies the insidious nature of corruption, and should prevent us from considering the smallest inroad of purity, as ng too insignificant to have a claim upon our moral vigilance, or too contemptible to call forth the application of an immediate antidote. If, then, we are desirous of preserving our innocence, in the freshness of unspotted infancy-if we are solicitous of protecting our integrity from being shaken from its hold over our conduct-if we are striving earnestly to fortify ourselves impregnably in uprightness and moral principle-if we are seeking to keep the "temple of God, which temple are ye, holy and undefiled,”-it must be effected, not by waiting till the enemy have concentrated their forces, and made a lodgment in the citadel of our affections—not by disdaining the conflict, under the mistaken idea that no honour is to be acquired by subduing the rebellious movement in its infancy-not by underrating the magnitude of the evil, till it threaten to bury us in its ruins.

The mountain that now reposes in sombre and tranquil majesty, all its cliffs, and caves, and rocks, with their thousand echoes slumbering in silence, girdled with abundance and vegetable splendour, and glowing beneath the effulgence of the noon-day sun, as though it were the spot on which he delighted to repose his diadem of glory— may, ere the twinkling of an eye, emit from her womb thunder and fire, volumed smoke, and midnight gloom, enveloping earth, sea, and sky, in the blackness of darkness, divided by the blood-red stream of boiling lava,