If we were to turn our attention to the different forms of government, we should find them suited to different states in human society, but almost powerless in creating that state. Hence, republican government can only exist in a civilized and enlightened community, and absolute monarchy is only suited to a savage or barbarous state.

How can man be taught moral science until he knows what distinguishes vice from virtue? How can he understand the stability of nature's laws without first knowing who formed those laws? And how can he account for the great phenomena of nature itself, unless he first knows who spake matter into existence? Finally, the power necessary to take the savage from his feast of human flesh, and clothe him in his right mind, and teach him to love his fellow man, is found no where but in the system of Christianty. That heartchanging, soul-purifying system, forms not only a necessary but indispensable element of civilization. Education may follow the gospel of Christ, and be beneficial, but it can not go before it. Almost as well might you endeavor to point out the beauties of a landscape in midnight darkness, as to teach natural or moral science to the savage mind. First give them the light of God's revealed will. Let the sun of righteousness arise upon them; then it is an easy matter to educate. It was the power of the gospel that enabled a Brainard, with his Bible, to do more for the civilization of the Cherokees, in six months, than government, with a score of teachers and untold thousands of treasure, could accomplish in ten years. It was this power that found the cannibals of the Sandwich Islands feeding on worms and human flesh, and sunk apparently to the level of brutes, and, putting beneath them its mighty energies, raised them, as in a day, to be quiet, peaceful citizens, com

paring favorably with the most enlightened nations on earth. Instances might be multiplied. To what do we owe our own civilization, but to Christianity. Without this, we might have been at this hour in all the degrading barbarism of our ancestors, the ancient Gauls and Britons. Compare a Christian's home with an Indian's wigwam; a New England village with a Caffrarian kraal. Look at our civil rights, our religious and literary institutions, towering as they do, above all other nations in the universe, and then thank God for the Gospel of Christ.

Republicanism can not create civilization, and if established when such a state does not exist, it passes away like the morning dew. We can find no power in these various systems and forms, to take mind in its unquarried state, and give it the polish of civilization. From education, generally and universally diffused, the world have been inclined to expect more; indeed, so much. dependence has been placed upon it, that worldly wisdom, or rather human folly, suggested the idea of "first sending to the heathen the school master, and afterwards the gospel minister." We do not say that education can render no assistance in civilizing a world, but we do say, that that alone would be a very slow process.

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IMPORTANCE OF AN ELEVATED AIM.

BY REV. HENRY L. STARKS, A. M.

Too many men live aimless. They sit not down to determine to what their tastes and talents are adapted. They rather leave it to chance or impulse, to direct their course, and give them the proper subject for reflection and pursuit. And even when these determine the point, they fix not their eye and heart upon it, nor energetically pursue it. Their efforts are spasms, their objects changing. Such conduct, in whatever department or profession of life, is almost necessarily attended with sinking below mediocrity, or entire failure.

The agriculturist, who is thus undecided or vacillating in seed time, like the sluggard, "shall beg in harvest and have nothing." The scholar, who is utterly aimless or undecided, whatever other circumstances may favor, must fail of being a marked man in the world. And yet nowhere is this evil so dangerous and destructive as in the department of piety. And nowhere is it more common. The soul's salvation may be the general desire, and the purpose to pursue the general path of piety, but unfortunately, a low state of religion seems to be all that is sought. And not a few are half their lives on their knees feeling for the line that divides the narrow road from the broad one. This is wrong, and as effectually prevents attaining excellence, and hinders usefulness, as any path that can be traveled.

Behold that young man! All about him is adverse.

He is poor, friendless, uneducated. He desires to ascend the hill of science. He places his mark high, and then starts for its attainment. Obstacles and difficulties multiply. Patiently he removes the one and surmounts the other. He reaches the goal. The runaway apprentice stands before kings. The blacksmith becomes the learned linguist. And so in religion. Once in awhile, one, influenced by the right spirit, resolves to be more than a mere professor or common Christian. He turns his back upon the world, resolves to be a devoted man, and presses towards the mark. His step is steady. His progress is sometimes slow, and yet every wind wafts him on. Even his troubles and trials are stepping stones to higher elevation. His profiting appears to all. He grows in grace. He loves God with all his heart. He walks with God, and exhibits his communings with heaven in his intercourse with men. He leaves a favorable impression upon all around him, and, dying, receives an abundant entrance into heaven. He has not lived in vain, nor has he labored for nought. He has accomplished life's greatest end, and lives near the throne at God's right hand in heaven.

THE TRANSFIGURATION.

BY REV. BISHOP ISBEL.

There is, perhaps, no passage in the evangelical history more pleasingly interesting than that which gives an account of the transfiguration of Christ. His most intimate and best-beloved disciples are chosen to be witnesses of that glorious scene as a reward for their interest in their Lord and Master. Something is now to be shown them to animate their zeal and swell their hopes. Humble as was their former occupation, they had gained no earthly elevation, or reward, by attaching themselves to the world's Savior. That at times they might fear they had exchanged a true religion for a false one, and made sacrifices in vain, is natural for us to suppose. And Christ, knowing what is in man, saw fit to prepare his disciples for their future work by answering questions, which agitated their minds, both to the eye and the heart, in a most impressive manner. Behold them alone; Christ, the world's Redeemer, the impetuous Peter, the considerate James, and the meek and beloved John, on one of the lofty elevations of the sacred land, far above the din of a corrupt and bustling world. As these disciples gazed upon their Master in his garb of humility, what thoughts and misgivings may have been gathering in their minds; when lo! his countenance becomes radiant with celestial light, and his vestments of earthly fabric blaze with heavenly splendor. Every trace of his earthly humiliation is lost amidst the brightness of his native glory. Here, then, is the teacher they have chosen, not in his assumed, but rightful garb. An important question is settled in a