ence. Let him retire from the influence of external things; and listen to that voice within, which, though often unheeded, still pleads for God. Let him call to aid those high truths which relate to the presence and inspection of this Being of infinite purity, and the solemnities of a life which is to come. Above all, let him look up in humble supplication to that pure and holy One, who is the witness of this warfare,-who will regard it with compassion, and impart his powerful aid. But let him not presumptuously rely on this aid, as if the victory were already secured. The contest is but begun; and there must be a continued effort and an unceasing watchfulness, -an habitual direction of the attention to those truths which, as moral causes, are calculated to act upon the mind,—and a constant reliance upon the power from on high which is felt to be real and indispensable. With all this provision, his progress may be slow; for the opposing principle, and the influence of established moral habits, may be felt contending for their former dominion: but, by each advantage that is achieved over them, their power will be broken and finally destroyed. Now in all this contest towards the purity of the moral being, each step is no less a process of the mind itself than the downward course by which it was preceded. It consists in a surrender of the will to the suggestions of conscience, and an habitual direction of the attention to those truths which are calculated to act upon the moral volitions. In this course, the man feels that he is authorized to look for a might and an influence not his own. This is no imaginary or mysterious impression, which one may fancy that he feels, and then pass on contented with the vision;

but a power which acts through the healthy operations of his own mind; it is in his own earnest exertions, as a rational being, to regulate these operations, that he is warranted to expect its communication; and it is in feeling these assuming the characters of moral health that he has the proof of its actual presence.

And where is the improbability that the pure and holy One who framed the wondrous moral being may thus hold intercourse with it, and impart an influence in its hour of deepest need. According to the utmost of our conceptions, it is the highest of his works,-for he has endowed it with powers of rising to the contemplation of himself, and with the capacity of aspiring to the imitation of his own moral perfections. We cannot, for a moment, doubt that his eye must reach its inmost movements, and that all its emotions, and desires, and volitions are exposed to his view. We must believe that he looks with displeasure when he perceives them wandering from himself; and contemplates with approbation the contest, when the spirit strives to throw off its moral bondage, and to fight its way upwards to a conformity to his will. Upon every principle of sound philosophy, all this must be open to his inspection; and we can perceive nothing opposed to the soundest inductions of reason in the belief, that he should impart an influence to the feeble being in this high design, and conduct him to its accomplishment. In all this, in fact, there is so little improbability, that we find it impossible to suppose it could be otherwise. We find it impossible to believe that such a mental process could go on without the knowledge of him whose presence is in every place,—or that, looking upon it,

he should want either the power or the willingness to impart his effectual aid.

A BEAUTIFUL CONTRAST.

THAT "man is born to trouble" is inscribed on every living and material thing. We see and feel it in the frailty and struggle for existence in infancy, and in the thousand "ills to which our flesh is heir;" we see it in the rivalry and animosity which tear asunder the hearts of our youth; we hear it in the notes of murmuring in our streets, in the dungeon of the criminal, and in the asylum of the outcast; in our nurseries of knowledge, and many a domestic fireside; and the very breeze, if we listen to it, seems to catch and repeat the sound, as if from ten thousand voices," man is born to trouble." To all these, Christianity proffers a full and efficient remedy. And at the hour of death; that last mysterious event, from thoughts of which we shrink with an instinctive shuddering; when the soul is hovering on the confines of two worlds; when man is suffering, it may be, the agony of physical pain and the remorse of an accusing conscience; how indispensable are then its solaces and sublimer hopes! Infidelity, at this dread hour, has nothing to proffer but the icy, appalling doctrine of eternal sleep. It can give no peace to the self-accusings within, not even a momentary respite. Fiend-like, as it is, it would extinguish all those lights which cheer the fainting spirit, as she pursues her trembling way through "the dark valley of the shadow of death;" it would snatch the keys of death and the grave from Him who hath conquered both, and who holds them as trophies

of the victory which he hath obtained; it would conduct the dying man into the regions of eternal silence; and bolting, irreversibly bolting, the gates of heaven against him, would there leave him to worms, decay, and oblivion !

TENDENCY TO RELIGIOUS DELUSION.

I HAVE Constantly remarked, that those who, in the beginning of their religious course, are drawn from the paths of sobriety and truth, by some of those extravagancies and delusions that ever abound in the Church, however soon they may return from their first eccentricities, will go off again on the first temptation, and very late, if at all, become what may properly be called steady characters in religion. I never saw a mind strongly possessed with one error, that was not ready to receive any other, though it should be totally unconnected, and even irreconcileable with its former favourite. This predisposition of the mind to be misled, is like the ague, and other intermittent diseases, which, having once got possession of the constitution, return whenever it is brought within the influence of a certain atmosphere. It has its hot fits, when it is sure of every thing, and its cold fits, when it is sure of nothing; but it is never safe and sober, "rooted and grounded in the faith." This is so remarkably the case, that when any new views and strange doctrines are brought before a community, a practised observer may guess with tolerable accuracy who will and who will not receive them. Can parents and teachers be too careful how they suffer the spiritual constitutions of their children to imbibe so

unhealthy a tone? or expose them to persons, who, totally disregarding the Apostle's distinction of administering milk to babes, and strong meat to men, are carrying into the very nursery, into the schools of children, and the cottages of the poor, views and notions, that if they are not rank poison, are most indigestible and unwholesome food; and if they do not destroy the soul, will give it a distaste for the simplicity of divine truth, and the plain language of the written Word.

VAIN CURIOSITY.

A MOUSE that had lived all his life in a chest, says the fable, chanced one day to creep up to the edge, and, peeping out, exclaimed with wonder-"I did not think the world was so large!"

The first step to knowledge, is, to know that we are ignorant. It is a great point to know our place for want of this, a man in private life, instead of attending to the affairs in his "chest," is ever peeping out, and then he becomes a philosopher! he must then know every thing, and presumptuously pry into the deep and secret councils of God-not considering that man is finite, and has no faculties to comprehend and judge of the great scheme of things. We can form no other idea of the dispensations of God, nor can we have any knowledge of spiritual things, except what God has taught us in his word; and, where he stops, we must stop. He has not told us why he permitted the angels to fall-why he created Adam-why he suffered sin to enter into the world-why Christ came in the latter ageswhen he will come to judgment-what will be