Moral character displayed in Jesus Christ.

make any impression upon us, which material objects can make; but how shall he exhibit to us the moral beauty of justice, and benevolence, and mercy between man and man? How shall he exhibit to us clearly his desire that sorrow and suffering on earth should be mitigated, and injuries forgiven, and universal peace and good will reign among the members of this great family. Can he do this by the thunder, the lightning or the earthquake? Can he do it by the loveliness of the evening landscape, or the magnificence and splendor of countless suns and stars? No. He might declare his moral attributes as he might have declared his power; but if he would bring home to us the one, as vividly and distinctly as the other, he must act out his moral principles, by a moral manifestation, in a moral scene; and the great beauty of Christianity is, that it represents him as doing so. He brings out the purity, and spotlessness, and moral glory of the Divinity, through the workings of a human mind, called into existence for this purpose, and stationed in a most conspicuous attitude among men. In the movements of a planet we see the energy of the Deity in constant occupation, showing us such powers and principles as majestic motion can show; and in the moral movements of a mind, in which the energies of a Deity equally mingle, and which they equally guide, we have the far more important manifestation which the movements of thought and feeling can show. Without some direct manifestation of the Deity in the spiritual world, the display of his character would be fatally incomplete, and it is a beautiful illustration of the more than harmony which exists between nature and revelation, that the latter does thus, in precise analogy, exactly complete what the former had begun. Thus the moral perfections of divinity show themselves to us in the only way by which, so far as we can see, it is possible directly to show them, by coming out in action, in the very field of human duty, by

Studying God's character.

His works examined.

a mysterious union with a human intellect and human powers. It is GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH; the visible moral image of an all pervading moral Deity, himself for ever invisible.

My object in this chapter, thus far, has been to show my readers, in what way, and on what principles they are to study the character of God. The substance of the view, which I have been wishing to impress upon your minds, is, that we are to expect to see him solely through the manifestations he makes of himself in his works. We have seen in what way some of the traits of his character are displayed in the visible creation, and how at last he determined to manifest his moral character, by bringing it into action through the medium of a human soul. The plan was carried into effect, and the mysterious person thus formed appears for the first time to our view, in the extraordinary boy, whom we left sitting in the temple, an object of wonder, which must have been almost boundless, since the power which was manifesting itself in him was unknown. We have now in the succeeding chapters of this book, to follow the circumstances and events of his remarkable history.

Before we proceed however, we have a few things of a practical character to say, which are suggested by this subject.

1. A young Christian may derive great advantage, and enjoy much pleasure in studying the character of God on the principles of this chapter. I do not mean by reading books on the subject, but by making your own observations and reflections upon the scene and the objects around you. There are certain highly wrought contrivances, such as the eye, and the hand, which were long since exhibited as proofs of divine wisdom, and they have been so exclusively dwelt upon by writers since, as almost to produce the impression upon those who read

An experiment.

The ripe apple's stem.

passively, that these are all, or certainly the chief indications of divine wisdom. Whereas you cannot take a walk, or sit at an open window, without finding innumerable examples as unequivocal as these.

A young lady of active mind, who was out of health, and forbidden by her physician to read or study, and who complained that she did not know how to employ her thoughts, was advised by a friend to take a walk, and see how many proofs of divine contrivance she could find. Such an experiment, I would advise all my readers to try. With a very little ingenuity, they will succeed much better than they would imagine. Should any make the attempt, and reduce to writing the result of the observations made, the report might be perhaps somewhat as follows:

"From the yard of my father's house, I passed through a gate into the garden, intending to cross it and seek for my proofs of design, in the fields and wood beyond. As I passed along the walk, however, I observed several apples lying on the ground, under a tree. I took up one and found that it was ripe. I was thinking whether there was not design in the smooth tight skin by which the apple was covered, protecting it so fully from the rain, and thought that next spring, when the apples were about half formed, I would carefully pare one while it was on the tree, and then leave it, to see what effect the loss of its skin would have on its future growth.

"None but the ripe apples had fallen to the ground. It seems then that when the fruit has come to its maturity, it is so contrived as to let go its hold, and fall. There appears to be no natural connexion between the maturity of the fruit and the weakness of the stem precisely at its junction with the tree, particularly as the rest of the stem continues strong and sound as before.

"I mellowed one of the apples, as the boys term it, by

Juices.

Cells.

The vine and its tendrils.

Contraction.

striking it rapidly against a smooth post, without however breaking the skin. Before, though it was not very hard, it was firm to the touch, but now it was soft and yielding. What change had I made in its interior? A ball of wood could not be thus softened by blows. I cut it open. The juice flowed out profusely. If I had cut it open just as it came from the tree, not a drop would have fallen to the ground. I concluded that the sweet liquid had been carefully put up in little cells, which composed the substance of the fruit, and which had safely retained it until my blows had broken them all away, so as to mingle their contents into one mass. I thought how busily the power of God was employed, every summer's day, in ten thousand orchards, carrying these juices into every tree, apportioning its proper share to every apple, and conveying each particle to its own minute, invisible cell.

Just then I saw before me at a little distance, a cucumber vine, which had spread itself over the ground, and was clinging to every little sprig and pebble which came in its way. 'How can its little tendrils find what they wish to clasp?' thought I, as I stooped down to look at them. I observed that the tendrils which did not come into contact with any thing, were nearly or quite straight, though some of them had grown out to a considerable length. Every one however which touched any object, had curled towards it, and some had wound themselves round so many times, that they would break rather than relax their hold. How delicate must be the mechanism of fibres, so contrived that by the mere invitation of a touch, they should curl and grasp the object which is presented.

"While looking at this, and observing that the origin of the tendril in the stem of the vine, was always at the exact place where a support would be most effectual, I noticed a small bright drop, which assumed, as I slightly

The dew drop.

Its supports.

Highly finished work.

changed my position, bright hues of orange, green, blue, and violet. It was a drop of dew, which lay in a little indentation of the leaf. I was admiring the admirable exactness of its form, and the brilliancy of its polished surface, and wondering at the laws of cohesion and of light which could thus retain every particle in its precise position, and produce images so perfect, and yet so minute, as I saw reflected there,-when I accidentally touched the leaf, and the little world of wonders rolled away. The charm was broken at once; it vanished upon the wet ground as if it had not been. The spot upon the leaf, where it had been lying for hours was dry Thousands of downy fibres, which God had fashioned there, had held it up, and similar fibres in countless numbers clothed every leaf and every stem and every tendril of the whole. I looked over the garden and was lost in attempting to conceive of the immense number of these delicately fashioned fibres, which the all pervading Deity had been slowly constructing there, during the months that had just gone by. And when I reflected that not only that garden, but the gardens and fields all. around me, the verdure of the whole continent,—of the whole earth,-of unnumbered worlds besides, was all as exquisitely finished as this, the mind shrunk back from the vain effort to follow out the reflection."

But enough. Such a narrative might be continued indefinitely, and the young Christian who will actually go forth to study God's character in garden and forest and field, will find no end to his discoveries. And the very substances which are most common, and which he has been accustomed to look upon with the slightest interest, he will find teeming with the most abundant proofs of the Creator's benevolence and skill, and the boundless resources of his power. Take for instance, water, which, as it lies before us in a bowl, appears as simple