the extreme of folly: yet thus is Christianity disregarded by millions of our race; and the regenerating application of the doctrine of the resurrection resisted, or treated with contempt. Had such an important truth been in the power of man to reveal, there is every reason to believe that it would have been listened to with eager and influential attention delivered by God, it is heard with backwardness and mistrust. Notwithstanding, however, the little readiness evinced by mankind to adopt the evangelical law for its renewing and life-giving efficacy, the secret influences of it are felt throughout the world. The darkness has been broken through which kept us enslaved to ignorance and superstition; and the Gospel, making the profoundest maxims of eternal truth the common property of the world, has given the mind a new atmosphere to breathe in; and reason new confidence in its efforts. Nor is it to be doubted but that the moral atmosphere, thus cleared of its impurities, is itself, mysteriously and secretly, often imbued with some portion of the light which ever follows the track of the divine Spirit, and announces his presence: for though the Lord deny this precious gift in its converting strength to those who seek not for it, yet hardly can the kingdom of heaven, which is full of its splendour, exist amid the nations, without some portion of those lustrous rays of truth scattering their light beyond its bor

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ders-the dew of heavenly blessing overflowing the full vessels; the sound of heavenly harpings, heard outside the mansion. Thus the world becoming imbued with a certain degree of knowledge, through the work and the presence of Christ, which could have been derived from no other source, he is, in a very general sense, the light which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world; it being utterly impossible now to separate, or distinguish that knowledge which a man may seem to acquire by his natural ability, from that which, intimately mixed up with it, though unknown probably to himself, he entirely owes to the silent operations of the Lord, and the unobserved progress of his kingdom.

But while a benefit of vast importance to the world at large is thus communicated through the medium of Christianity, its direct influence on the state of the many thousands who own its sway in their souls, is the beautiful manifestation of a sublime mystery, in which the love of God is seen regenerating, as it originally created, the whole being of humanity. In the almost innumerable circumstances which the plan of redemption presents for contemplation, not one exists in which divine benignity is not eminently conspicuous: Rejoice in the Lord always; and again, I say, rejoice,' describes the true feeling of every devout mind, after a long and earnest consideration of the

Gospel; and the revelation of immortality is the golden band which holds all its invitations, its promises, and instructions together, so as to offer them at once as a precious boon to the human heart: and this revelation is so made as to remove every cause of doubt that can exist in a thoughtful and ingenuous spirit; and to render the comprehension of the mystery easy and familiar to the humblest understanding that rebels not against the law of God.

The pathway to eternity is open, and human life is declared to be commensurate with its untold ages. For this intelligence we are indebted to the Son of God: but with the revelation of our immortality we receive a further revelation of the mystery by which this endless life is beautified, like a stream running through beds of amaranths, with unfading delights and to the Son of God are we indebted for this also: for the eternal love of the Father having decreed, that both our souls and bodies should be saved, and that neither the flux and convulsions of nature, nor the fury of sin should destroy them, the Son has executed the decree, and by his atonement both justified the promise of the Almighty, and raised our nature to the level of his mercy.

It was remarked at the beginning of this Essay, that the little practical influence enjoyed by the philosophy of the ancients, may in great part be

attributed to its separation from the received religions. Philosophy and faith both appeal to the souls of men: their ultimate object is properly the same -the sanctifying of the human heart, the naturalization of truth in the world; the reconciling of men to God, by enabling and inducing them to lay upon his altar the sacrifice of pure and elevated affections. When philsophy and religion are opposed to each other, both suffer in their general influences; for, though the one is chiefly taken up with the examination of principles, and the other supposes them known and received, it is in the same substratum of truth both are expected to begin and terminate their course. Now, one of the grand differences between Christianity and the religions of the heathen world is this, that it is not opposed to the inquiries carried on by the learned and the philosophical; that it does not diffuse itself, as polytheism did, in the manner of a vast pool, contented with covering an immense extent of flat surface with its shallow waters, while every little hillock and pointed eminence remain bare and dry : it has nothing to conceal; but much in its very character and structure to stimulate mental activity. If its mysteries are incomprehensible, it is in the same manner that the depths of the purest ether are unfathomable: if it warn us against questioning what we cannot comprehend, it is because, in this as in every other particular, it has the most perfect

respect to the laws of human nature, to the extent and limitation and proper exercise of its powers. In all systems of philosophy the discovery of causes is the main purpose of inquiry; and to know the nature of the great First Cause, the acknowledged privilege of the clearest and most exalted intellects: but Christianity refers at once to this universal source of existence, as the object to be continually contemplated in the course of our progress; it describes the nature of this sublime subject of inquiry; and makes every attribute of divinity appreciable to the understanding, by showing it in its action on the conditions and destinies of our race. Thus religion and philosophy may sit down together at the same heavenly banquet of truth, and each derive strength and vigour, according to their respective origin and nature, from the same food. There is, therefore, no irremediable injury inflicted on the great mass of mankind by their exclusion from the schools of philosophy. Philosophy is glad to be their fellow-guest in the temple; and every believer in the gospel feels ennobled as the Lord's freedman. The perfect law of liberty rules in his mind his soul is as free as truth: it is the will of God that it rise as high as it can by its own force, and when that fails, he gives it the wings of his Spirit.

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That the application of any discovery made by reason to the wants and anxieties of human feeling