Now it is not true that self-love is our only principle, or that it constitutes ourselves any more than other principles, and the wrong done to our nature by such modes of speech needs to be resisted. Our nature has other elements or constituents, and vastly higher ones, to which self-love was meant to minister, and which are at war with its excesses. For example, we have reason or intellectual energy, given us for the pursuit and acquisition of truth; and this is essentially a disinterested principle; for truth, which is its object, is of a universal, impartial nature. The great province of the intellectual faculty, is, to acquaint the individual with the laws and order of the divine system; a system, which spreads infinitely beyond himself, of which he forms a small part, which embraces innumerable beings equally favored by God, and which proposes as its sublime and beneficent end, the ever growing good of the whole. Again, human nature has a variety of affections, corresponding to our domestic and most common relations; affections, which in multitudes overpower self-love, which make others the chief objects of our care, which nerve the arm for ever recurring toil by day, and strengthen the wearied frame to forego the slumbers of night. Then there belongs to every man the general sentiment of humanity, which responds to all human sufferings, to a stranger's tears and groans, and often prompts to great sacrifices for his relief. Above all there is the moral principle, that which should especially be called a man's self, for it is clothed with a kingly authority over his whole nature, and was plainly given to bear sway over every desire. This is eminently a disinterested principle. Its very essence is impartiality. It has no respect of persons. It is the principle of justice, taking the rights of all under its protection, and frowning on the least wrong, however largely it may serve ourselves. This moral nature especially delights in, and enjoins a universal charity, and makes the heart thrill with exulting joy, at the sight or hearing of magnanimous deeds, of perils fronted, and death endured, in the cause of humanity. Now these various principles, and especially the last, are as truly ourselves as self-love. When a man thinks of himself, these ought to occur to him as his chief attributes. He can hardly injure himself more, than by excluding these from his conception of himself, and by making self-love the great constituent of his nature.

We have urged these remarks on the narrow sense often given to the word self, because we are persuaded, that it leads

to degrading ideas of human nature, and to the pernicious notion, that we practise a virtuous self-sacrifice in holding it in contempt. We would have it understood, that high faculties form this despised self, as truly as low desires; and we would add, that when these are faithfully unfolded, this self takes rank among the noblest beings in the universe. To illustrate this thought, we ask the reader's attention to an important, but much neglected view of virtue and religion. These are commonly spoken of in an abstract manner, as if they were distinct from ourselves, as if they were foreign existences, which enter the human mind, and dwell there in a kind of separation from itself. Now religion and virtue, wherever they exist, are the mind itself and nothing else. They are human nature, and nothing else. A good man's piety and virtue are not distinct possessions; they are himself, and all the glory which belongs to them, belongs to himself. What is religion? Not a foreign inhabitant, not something alien to our nature, which comes and takes up its abode in the soul. It is the soul itself, lifting itself up to its Maker. What is virtue? It is the soul, listening to, and revering and obeying a law which belongs to its very essence, the law of duty. We sometimes smile when we hear men decrying human nature, and in the same breathing exalting religion to the skies, as if religion were anything more than human nature, acting in obedience to its chief law. Religion and virtue, as far as we possess them, are ourselves; and the homage which is paid to these attributes, is in truth a tribute to the soul of man. Self-crucifixion then, should it exclude self-reverence, would be anything but virtue.

We would briefly suggest another train of thought leading to the same result. Self-crucifixion, or self-renunciation, is a work, and a work requires an agent. By whom then is it accomplished? We answer, by the man himself, who is the subject of it. It is he who is summoned to the effort. He is called by a voice within, and by the law of God, to put forth power over himself, to rule his own spirit, to subdue every passion. Now this inward power, which self-crucifixion supposes and demands, is the most signal proof of a high nature which can be given. It is the most illustrious power which God confers. It is a sovereignty worth more than that over outward nature. It is the chief constituent of the noblest order of virtues; and its greatness, of course, demonstrates the greatness of the human mind, which is perpetually bound and

summoned to put it forth. But this is not all. Self-crucifixion has an object, an end; and what is it? Its great end is, to give liberty and energy to our nature. Its aim is, not to break down the soul, but to curb those lusts and passions, 'which war against the soul,' that the moral and intellectual faculties may rise into new life, and may manifest their divine original. Selfcrucifixion, justly viewed, is the suppression of the passions, that the power and progress of thought, and conscience, and pure love, may be unrestrained. It is the destruction of the brute, that the angel may unfold itself within. It is founded on our godlike capacities, and the expansion and glory of these is its end. Thus the very duty, which by some is identified with self-contempt, implies and imposes self-reverence. It is the belief and the choice of perfection as our inheritance and our end.

We have thus shown under what great limitations, self-crucifixion, or self-renunciation, is to be understood, and how remote it is from self-contempt. Our purpose was, after closing this discussion, to give a rational interpretation of the phrases in which Fenelon has enjoined this duty. But our limits allow us just to glance at one or two of these. Perhaps he calls upon us to do nothing so often as 'to renounce our own wills.' This is a favorite phrase; and what does it imply? that we are to cease to will? Nothing less. The truth is, that the human will is never so strenuous as in this act which is called the renunciation of itself, and by nothing does it more build up its own energy. The phrase means, that we should sacrifice inclination at the least suggestion of duty. But who does not know, that the mind never puts forth such strength of purpose or will as in overcoming desire? And what is the highest end and benefit of this warfare with desire? It is, that the mind may accumulate force of moral purpose, that the will may more sternly, unconquerably resolve on the hardest duties, and sublimest virtues to which God may call us.

Once more, we are again and again exhorted by Fenelon to 'forget ourselves.' And what means this? Self-oblivion, literally understood, is an impossibility. We may as easily annihilate our being as our self-consciousness. Self-remembrance is in truth a duty, needful to the safety of every hour, and especially necessary to the great work of life, which is the conforming of ourselves, of our whole nature, to the will of God. There is no danger of our thinking of ourselves too much, if we will think justly; that is, if we will view ourselves

as what we are, as moral beings, accountable to a divine lawgiver, framed to delight in and to seek virtue, framed for an ever spreading philanthropy, called to sympathize with and to suffer for others, and through this path to ascend to our Original. There are, however, senses in which we cannot too much forget ourselves. Our improvements of whatever kind, our good deeds, our virtues, whenever they are seized upon and magnified by self-love, or so recalled as to lift us above others, and to stifle that sense of deficiency and thirst for progress, by which alone we can be carried forward, these we cannot too earnestly drive from our thoughts. Our distinctions, whether of mind, body, or condition, when they minister to vanity or pride, weaken the consciousness of a common nature with the human race, narrow our sympathies, or deprave our judgments, these we cannot be too solicitous to forget. Our pleasures, when they are so exaggerated by the imagination as to distract and overwhelm the sense of duty, should be forced to quit their grasp on our minds. Such parts or constituents of ourselves we are to forget. Our moral, intellectual, immortal nature we cannot remember too much. Under the consciousness of it, we are always to live.

According to the views now given, self-crucifixion is the subjection or sacrifice of the inferior to the higher principles of our nature. It is the practical recognition of the supremacy and dignity of our rational and moral powers. No duty involves a more reverential view and care of ourselves. We have been the more solicitous to give this view of self-renunciation, because its true spirit is often mistaken, because it is often so set forth as to deject, instead of exalting the mind. In truth, we feel more and more the importance of bringing men to juster conceptions of the inward gifts with which God has enriched them. We desire nothing so much, as to open their eyes to their own spiritual possessions. We feel indeed the difficulties of the subject. We know that we have to combat with a secret incredulity in many minds. We know, that the clearest expositions will be imperfectly understood by those, who have nothing in their experience to interpret what we utter. The mind, we are aware, can be clearly revealed to itself, only by its own progress. Its capacities of thought, of action, of endurance, of triumphing over pleasure and pain, of identifying itself with other beings, of seeking truth without prejudice and without fear, of uniting itself with God, of sacrificing life to duty, these immortal energies can only be felt to be real, and duly honored,

by those in whom they are gradually and steadily unfolded. Still we do not despair of meeting some response, though faint, in multitudes. Such a spirit as God has breathed into men, cannot easily exist, without giving some signs of its divine original. In most men, there are some revelations of their own nature, some beams of a light which belongs not to the earth, some sympathies with what is good and great in character, some perceptions of beauty, some gushings from the deep fountain of love in the soul, some thirstings for a purer happiness, some experience of the peculiar joy of a disinterested deed, some dim conceptions at least of their intimate relations to God. Most men understand through experience these testimonies to the secret wealth and immortal destination of the soul; whilst, in not a few, such a measure of intellectual and moral power has been called forth, that nothing is needed but a wise direction of their thoughts upon themselves, to open to them the magnificent prospect of their own spiritual energy, and of the unbounded good into which it may be unfolded. For such we have written. We regard nothing so important to a human being, as the knowledge of his own mind, and of its intimate connexion with the Infinite Mind. Faith in what man contains as a germ in his own breast, faith in what he may become, in what he was framed to be, in that state of power, light, purity, joy, to which Jesus Christ came to exalt him, this faith seems to us the quickening, saving, renovating principle, which God sent his Son to revive in the soul, and happy are they who can spread its empire in the world.

We have finished our remarks on the first element of perfection, according to Fenelon, self-crucifixion. We proceed to the second, love to God. On this topic we intended to enlarge, but have left ourselves little room. We are happy to say, that we have less to object to Fenelon's expositions under this head, than under the former. Of the grandeur and the happiness of this principle he speaks truly, worthily, in the penetrating language of calm and deep conviction. In one particular, we think him defective. He has not stated, and in truth, very few do state, with sufficient strength and precision, the moral foundation and the moral nature of religion. He has not taught, with sufficient clearness, the great truth, that love to God is from beginning to end the love of virtue. He did not sufficiently feel, that religion is the expansion and most perfect