admiration of the wisdom of the Creator ;* they traverse that immensity of space, those celestial globes, those immeasurable spheres, the existence of which it is impossible for us to call in question, but whose enormous mass and countless multitude confound and overwhelm us. The blessed in heaven know the nature of spirits, their faculties, their relations, their intercourse, their laws. But all this is inexplicable. Is any one capable of changing our senses? Is any one capable of giving a more extensive range to our imagination? Is it possible to remove the barriers which limit thought?

While we are on the earth, we discern but very imperfectly the relations which subsist even between the things which we do know. Contracted, incomplete as our ideas are, we should nevertheless, make some progress in our researches after truth, had we the power of reflecting, of recollection, of fixing our attention to a certain degree, of comparing beings with each other, and thus advancing from those which we already know, to those with which we are hitherto unacquainted. Men are more or less intelligent, according as they are in the habit of being more or less attentive. A man brought up in the midst of noise, in tumult; a man whom tumult and noise pursue wherever he goes, is incapable of composed recollection, because carrying always in himself a source of distraction, he becomes incapable of

* For a further illustration of this part of the subject, the Philosophical and Christian Reader is referred to the Letters of Euler to a German Princess, Letter I. Vol. I. published by the Translator of this Volume, 1794.

profound reflection upon any one object abstracted from and unconnected with matter. But a philosopher accustomed to meditate, is able to follow up a principle to a degree totally inaccessible to the other. Nevertheless, whatever a man's attainments may be in the art of attention, it must always be contracted within very narrow limits: because we still consist in part, of body; because this body is ever exciting sensations in the soul; because the soul is continually distracted by these sensations; because that, in order to meditate, there is occasion for a great concourse of the spirits necessary to the support of the body, so that attention wearied out, exhausted, does violence to that body; to such a degree that if, by the aid of an extraordinary concourse of spirits, we should be disposed to exert the brain beyond a certain pitch, the effort would prove fatal to us.

The blessed in heaven are not liable to have their attention disturbed by the action of the senses. St. Paul by means of a supernatural interposition, had his soul, if not separated from the body, (for he himself knows not whether his rapture were in the body, or out of the body,) at least emancipated from that continual distraction to which it is subject, in virtue of its union with matter. He could be selfcollected, attentive, absorbed of the objects which God presented to his mind. He could discern the mutual relation of the designs of eternal wisdom, the harmony of the works of God, the concatenation of his purposes, the combination of his attributes; sublime objects which he could not possibly display to men incapable of that degree of attention,

without which no conception can be formed of those objects.

Does not this first reason, my beloved brethren, of our apostle's silence on the subject of the heavenly felicity, already produce on your souls, the effect at which this discourse is principally aiming? Has it not already kindled within you an ardent desire to attain that felicity? Soul of man, susceptible of so many ideas, of such enlarged knowledge, of illumination so unbounded, is it possible for thee to sojourn without reluctance, in a body which narrows thy sphere, and cramps thy nobler faculties? Philosopher, who art straining every nerve, who givest thyself no rest to attain a degree of knowledge incompatible with the condition of humanity: Geometrician, who, after an incredible expence of thought, of meditation, of reflection, art able to attain, at most, the knowledge of the relations of a circle or of a triangle: Theologian, who, after so many days of labour and nights of watching, hast scarcely arrived at the capacity of explaining a few passages of holy writ, of correcting, by an effort, some silly prejudice: wretched mortals, how much are you to be pitied! how impotent and ineffectual are all exertions to acquire real knowledge! I think I am beholding one of those animals, the thickness of whose blood, the grossness of whose humours, the incumbrance of that house with which nature loads them, preventing them from moving with facility; I think I am beholding one of those animals, striving to move over an immense space in a little, little hour. He strains, he bustles, he toils, he flat

ters himself with having made a mighty progress, he exults in the thought of attaining the end which he had proposed. The hour elapses, and the progress which he has made is a mere nothing, compared with the immensity of the space still untrodden.

Thus, loaded with a body replenished with gross humours, retarded by matter, we are able in the course of the longest life, to acquire but a very slender and imperfect degree of knowledge. This body must drop this spirit must disengage itself before it can become capable of soaring unincumbered, of penetrating into futurity, and of attaining that height and depth of knowledge which the blessed in heaven possess.

Not only from revelation do we derive these ideas, not even from reason, in its present high state of im provement: they were entertained in the ancient Pagan world. We find this subject profoundly investigated, I had almost said exhausted in the Phadon of Plato. Socrates considers his body as the greatest obstacle in the way of seeking after truth. And this brings to my recollection the beautiful expression of a certain Anchorite, to the same purpose: extenuated, infirm, sinking under a load of years, on the point of expiring, he breaks out into singing. He is asked, Wherefore singest thou? "Ah! I sing," says he, "because I see that wall tumbling down, which hinders me from beholding the face of God." Yes, this body is a wall which prevents our seeing God. Fall down, fall down, interposing invidious wall; fall down impenetrable wall, and then we shall see God. But to man

in his present state, to man loaded with a body like this, the illumination of the blessed in heaven, is among the things which are unspeakable.

2. The blessed in heaven are prompted by inclinations the most noble and refined; a defect of taste prevents our adopting and enjoying the same inelinations.

All tastes are not similar. Men agree tolerably well in the vague notions of honour, of pleasure, of generosity, of nobility. of nobility. But that which appears pleasure to one, is insupportable to another: that which appears noble, generous to one, appears mean, grovelling, contemptible to another. So that the idea which you might suggest to your neighbour, of a pleasant and desirable mode of living, might, in all probability, convey to him ideas of life the most odious and disgusting.

Who is able to make a man plunged in business to comprehend, that there is pleasure inexpressible in studying truth, in making additions to a stock of knowledge, in diving into mysteries? Who is able to persuade a miser, that there is a delight which nothing can equal, in relieving the miserable, in ministering to their necessities, in sharing fortunes with them, and thus, to use the expression of scripture, to draw nigh to a man's own flesh? Isa. Iviii. 7. Who is able to convince a grovelling and dastardly soul, that there is joy to be found in pursuing glory through clouds of smoke and showers of iron, in braving instant and certain dangers, in bidding defiance to almost inevitable death? In general, what arguments are sufficient to convince a worldling, that the purest