mended to our observance. Where do you find this system? We cannot meet with it in the works of Stobæus, or the Scythian Anacharsis, nor in those of Plato or of Cicero, nor in those of the Emperor Antoninus or the slave Epictetus, for we are persuaded that the most animated considerations of the gπо and the honestum, of the beauty of virtue and the fitness of things, are not able to furnish even a Brutus himself with permanent principles of action; much less are they able to purify the polluted recesses of a vitiated heart, to curb the irregularity of appetite, or restrain the impetuosity of passion in common men. If you order us to examine the works of Grotius, of Puffendorff, or Burlamaqui, or Hutcheson, for what you understand by the law of nature, we apprehend that you are in a great error in taking your notions of natural law, as discoverable by natural reason, from the elegant systems of it which have been drawn up by Christian philosophers, since they have all laid their foundations, either tacitly or expressly, upon a principle derived from revelation-a thorough knowledge of the being and attributes of God: and even those amongst ourselves, who, rejecting Christianity, still continue Theists, are indebted to revelation for those sublime speculations concerning the Deity which you have fondly attributed to the excellency of your own unassisted reason.

. BISHOP WATSON.

THE wisdom of the Gospel is chiefly addressed to the heart, and therefore is easily understood by all. It is in touching that it enlightens us, in touching that it persuades. Directed by the light of faith, the eye of the true Christian is intensely fixed on the great sphere of eternity. He hears the solemn voice of his religion, which tells him that in man there are two distinct beings, the one material and perishable, the other spiritual and immortal. He knows and contemplates the rapid advance of that futurity, which is not measured by the succession of days and nights, or the revolution of years and ages. Before these profound and magnificent impressions all worldly glory fades. No interests can possess or transport his heart but those to which he is invited from above. No, not a desire in his breast, not a movement in his life; no evil in his apprehension, or happiness in his conception, that refers not to eternity; he is all immensity of views and projects: and hence that true nobility of spirit, that calm, majestic indifference which looks down on the visionary enterprises of man, sees them, unstable and fleeting as the waves of a torrent, pressed and precipitated by those that pursue, and scarce tell you where they are, when you behold them no more: hence likewise that equality of soul, which is troubled at no reverse or vicissitude of life, which knows not those tormenting successions, those rapid alter

nations of pleasure and pain so frequent in the breast of worldlings: to be elevated by the slightest success, depressed by the slightest reverse, intoxicated at a puff of praise, inconsolable at the least appearance of contempt, reanimated at a gleam of respect, tortured by an air of coldness and indifference, unbounded in all wishes, and disgusted after all possession, is a spectacle of human misery that would enhance the peace of a true Christian, did all the influence of a divine religion not infuse into his heart as much pity for his mistaken brethren as it does superior dignity and elevation of sentiments.

KIRWAN.

THE CONSOLATION TO BE DERIVED FROM CHRISTIANITY.

No, my beloved brethren! this world cannot, it was never designed by Providence that this world should afford any source or promise of happiness equal to what the prospect of immortality, and the hopes of the Christian stretching into eternity, hold out to us even in this world. In this prospect alone, we are to look for those powerful restraints that are equal to control the unruly wills of men, and to bridle the tumultuous and disorderly pas. sions that destroy the public peace, and imbitter all the enjoyments of the private domestic circle. In these hopes alone we are to look for those correctives which, by chastening our pleasures and enjoyments, and restraining them within the bounds of virtue, innocence, and right, keep every

thing in its own place, preserve order, and harmony, and concord in the society to which we hold, and secure the peace of the individual with others and with himself:-with others by his rectitude and integrity of conduct; by the spirit of universal benevolence he habitually breathes; by his blameless, inoffensive deportment and manners; and with himself, by his having no experience of the fatal consequences of vicious habits, early and long indulged; by feeling no stings of conscience to imbitter his days.

Sorrow and pain and suffering are the earthly portion of man. He is born to them as the sparks fly upwards. There is nothing more regular or uniform in the course of nature than their progress and operation in every stage of his life. Stretched on the bed of straw, and under the mean and forlorn roof with the poor and the indigent, the whole train of human calamities will equally force their way through all the barriers that fence the habitations of the great and the affluent, even to the throne. Of this our unhappy age furnishes us with examples equal to what the world has ever known since sin first introduced confusion and disorder among the works of God. Where, but in the great truths which I have been unfolding to you;-where, but in the reflections they suggest;-where, but in the views they open to us ;-can we look for any permanent support under this burden of universal, unavoidable misery, as it presses on the whole race of man; or as it weighs down every individual, bearing the proportion that falls to his own lot?

It is true, that neither these truths, nor the

reflections they suggest, nor the views they open to us, can exempt us from the condition of our nature. They will not secure us against sufferings and calamities; we must all bear our cross. But they will strengthen us for the trial; they will take from misery its bitterness; they will strip affliction of its sting. They will tell the Christian that every period of his distress will issue in eternal happiness, and that what he sows in tears he will in due season reap in joy. Does he pine in poverty? Does he earn his scanty bread by the sweat of his brow? They teach, and they assist him to bear with patient resignation, the condition of his mortal lot, in humble submission to the will of the Sovereign Disposer of all things, and in the certain expectation of the happiness which he reserves for the poor in spirit in that kingdom, where rich and poor shall meet together before him, and he will show himself to be their common Father.

Has he suffered any of those signal reverses of fortune, common to all men in all times, but more particularly to be expected in this age of strange revolutions, that suddenly reduce the most flourishing and opulent to the extreme of want and wretchedness? From the truths we have been contemplating he learns that he has only been stripped of transitory advantages, in which it was never designed that he should have any secure or permanent inheritance. Beyond this vale of tears they instruct him to look for other possessions, which no revolutions of this world can affect, no injustice seize, no violence wrest from him.

Does he suffer in the afflictions of others? Does