stitution of the human mind is sufficient to show what is the relation that religion bears to the whole. It is the vital principle of the whole being. It is like the soul of the soul. By it all the other powers and feelings are reduced to their right place and subordination. Without it the whole mind is disturbed and thrown into disorder. Hence only are derived true magnanimity and wisdom. Hence only the affections are purified and sublimed. Hence only the passions receive their law. What religion is to the individual mind, that it is to the mind of a whole people. This alone preserves it lofty and strong. Without this it sinks into weakness and degradation. Its intellectual powers, its courage, its liberty, are no sufficient security. These cannot preserve its elevation. These, though noble in themselves, are not of sufficient power to maintain the whole rational mind ennobled. It is necessary that men should have before their minds some object of regard and desire, of which they fall infinitely short; that so they may be admonished to arouse themselves, and advance their nature. Their spirit is beset with many insidious foes; and it is not possible for them, by any vigilance of their own, to guard and protect themselves from their wily assault. But while they exalt themselves in the highest strength, they become secure; for those betraying weaknesses cease to have any power over them. Here is a spirit which can enter every house, can tell pleasure of its folly and wealth of its vanity, which can address itself to every heart, and chastise in each single breast the universa depravity. How utterly have those nations fallen who have been without religion! How have those declined and suffered who have corrupted their religion ! We feel that we have yet some strength with which to contend against the threatening decays that creep in upon the further periods of a nation's existence. But of that strength how much do we owe to the vigour in which our religion has been maintained amongst us? How much of it would be left, if we should ever suffer that religion unhappily to decay? In the laws, the manners, the philosophy, the literature of a people, the influence of high religious feelings will be traced, unobtrusively but powerfully diffusing itself through every part of their welfare. How much of the happiness of a people, of the purity and dignity of its manners, arises from that domestic virtue which religion alone can guard. Their public institutions must be actuated by the same spirit. Their literature will take a character, indirectly, from this source. If the thoughts of the people be high and pure, their whole literature will maintain the same tenor. Their philosophy especially, which continually draws near to religion-which weds itself to their morality-which is constantly derived anew from the highest faculties of their intelligence-their philosophy will be lofty or low, a science of truth or of falsehood, as their whole mind is more or less influenced and governed by these high doctrines and feelings. In truth, what philosophy of morals can there be which does not derive its character direct from this source? Nothing but abaseIn ment and degradation of the whole moral nature of man can follow the moment morality is made independent of this connexion. It were better to leave man without speculation at all upon this subject, than to exhibit to him himself bereft of his highest capacity, and to persuade him that this is the faithful picture of that being which he was created. Even that science which seems less immediately connected with this part of our nature, The character of nations seems borne down by a fatal power. The great principles of opinion and passion which have sustained them for a period sink away, and none succeed in their place. The very progress of their maturer intelligence advances them beyond the noble errors of their uninstructed youth. There is then no principle which can save them from decay coming on, but religion. their highest state of intelligence, here is an object which commands the adoration of reason. In their decay and fall of spirit, here is a passion which can enter the sunk and languishing heart, and rekindle and renovate its strength. In the flow of overwhelming luxury, here is a principle of power to contend against the enchantments of sense, and to cast out the madness of the grosser passions. physical science, is in a thousand ways linked to it, and owes to it its noblest character. For it is not the subjectmatter itself that constrains the mind to an inevitable course, but the mind, according to its own character, selects the matter of its knowledge. The highest researches of this science are those which are connected with the great principles that govern the natural world; and to these the mind seems called full as much by that secret moral feeling which accompanies the sublimer contemplations of nature, as by its own intellectual tendency. Nor is it possible to conceive of the mind of Newton investigating the laws of the universe, without believing that his great studies had to himself their highest commendation, while he believed himself permitted, in pursuing them, to become, in some part, an interpreter of that divine wisdom which has framed and governs the world. In these enquiries we are accustomed to speak of the light of nature in comparison with the light of revelation, and to speak of the theological doctrines of which our human reason gives us assurance. Such expressions as these may easily lead to important error, and do, indeed, seem often to have been misconceived and misemployed. What those truths are which human reason, unassisted, would discover to us on these subjects, it is impossible for us to know, for we have never seen it left absolutely to itself. Instruction, more or less, in wandering tradition, or in express, full, and recorded revelation, has always accompanied it; and we have never had other experience of the human mind than as exerting its powers under the light of imparted knowledge. In these circumstances, all that can be properly meant by those expressions which regard the power of the human mind to guide, to enlighten, or to satisfy itself in these great enquiries is, not that it can be the discoverer of truth, but that, with the doctrines of truth set before it, it is able to deduce arguments from its own independent sources which confirm it in their belief; or that, with truth and error proposed to its choice, it has means, to a certain extent, in its own power, of distinguishing one from the other For ourselves, we may understand easily that it would be impossible for us so to shut out from our minds the knowledge which has been poured in upon them from our earliest years, in order to ascertain what self-left reason could find out. Yet this much we are able to do in the speculations of our philosophy. We can enquire, in this light, what are the grounds of. evidence which nature and reason themselves offer for belief in the same truths. A like remark must be extended to the morality which we seem now to inculcate from the authority of human reason. We no longer possess any such independent morality. The spirit of a higher, purer, moral law than man could discover has been breathed over the world, and we have grown up in the air and the light of a system so congenial to the highest feelings of our human nature, that the wisest spirits amongst us have sometimes been tempted to forget that its origin is divine. One other strain from the "SOLACE OF SONG." "Tis a volume well worthy a place in every Christian Family Library. The embellishments in wood by Harvey are very beautiful. LOIANO. A VILLAGE ON THE SUMMIT OF AN APPENINE, NEAR THE BATHS OF LUCCA. "And as his glance surveys, Yon lines of trodden ways, He, fain, unmindful of the law of love, Forgets, as pass the pigmy crowd before his face, Far as the eye can see, Beneath him stretch the lordly Appenines, There may he raise his shrine-his God adore, Conning his works of might down to the mid-sea's shore. "But little thought hath man Of Nature's glories, while his cheek is wan His eye to heaven upturn'd in bootless prayer! The nightly dews that lie So rich around, his thirst may not supply, Nor earth reveal her founts to glad his clouded eye. For many and many an age, The maidens sped their weary pilgrimage, With toilsome steps and slow Their brazen vessels on their shoulders slung Down to the vale below, O'er whose rich crops the wooded mountain hung. "There, in a mossy cave, 'Mid groves of chesnut on the hill's broad side, Where gushed a fount, whose waters never died. With unremitting toil They bear the stream, more choice than wine or oil, And cool the thirsty tongue, and glad the parched ground. "Lo! from the covert green, With weary steps they came, the groves between, To ease the toil of the precipitous ground. Gladly their footsteps clung To the gnarled roots, that o'er their pathway sprung. As up they wrought at their hard lot amazed, Drawing their moisture fresh from heaven's gate; To see poor man thus slaving all his years; And to the toilsome band their shadows lent, And stretch'd their brawny arms to smooth the steep ascent. "No more the rugged way Compels the strength and burden of the day. From the extremest isle, Where yon bright sun now rests his parting smile, The health those wooded hills have ever brought; They marked the maidens wend their way, and weep; The gushing stream, and the responsive praise. They pierced the mountain's crown, A fount besought then poured the blessing down, And bade the thirsty hail, their hearths beside, The never ceasing spring surcharge its golden tide. "Joy lights the clouded eye, As now, beneath the hot and sweltering sky, On the full current, rushing from its cave- And as adown the steep, steep side they gaze, That ope'd the mossy well-head on the sight, To scatter life and light, They raise the hand, and bless the flowing tide, And those, their stranger guests who thus their want supplied. "Blest were the hands that bade the waters flow, It hath no power to save! The lip may quaff-man's sense awhile immerst With an undying thirst, That will not yield, tho' o'er the mountain's side, Founts of the depths beneath burst forth-a boundless tide: Who of this dinks must thirst again, and die; For what of earth can the soul's wants supply? And point the eye to the immortal Fount Water of life-free gift of Christ to all, O seek then for the living wave, This this alone hath power the life to save! Seeking a day's supply, Then, with the wave to die Ask, and the boon is your's-an everlasting tide !" These are delightful stanzas-and will win their way into every bosom. We have long been sick of the Simplon-and many a time and oft have we deplored the cutting of this road by Napoleon-travelled as it has been by so many scribblers. But this Christian poet journeyed religiously among the magnificencies of nature—“ worshipped at the temple's inner shrine❞— and drew thence a holier inspiration. THE SIMPLON. "Why hide thy head beneath the tempest's wing, He looks to thee, as up his footsteps wend, Scaling thy heights, his vows with thine to blend; For thou a tale may'st tell of sovereign sway— Unveil thy clowdy brow, and hail the Sabbath-day! "A Temple wert thou framed, where God might stand, Search where, to work his will, a willing hand, Or willing eye, that righteous will to scan. But O! how changed the scene! since far and near, His kingdom spurn'd who gives all being breath, And holds with even hand the scales of Life and Death! "A Temple wert thou still of life and light, He bade them yield their prey—and vex the world no more. "But lo! rebellion rules the stubborn land- "What shakes the spirits of the smitten crowd? Not the far tokens of a coming God, Shrouding his glory in the deep'ning cloud'Tis sense of guilt, that points his lightning's rod! In peace they saw Him not-they see Him now; And haste to frame the long-forgotten vow; All that He saith, we do!' they trembling cry'We fear not man, but God !-O shield us, or we die !' "But who dares climb, with fearless foot, the mount, Thus blazing 'neath unmitigated wrath, With eye of Faith beholding Mercy's fount, Through the dense clouds, that gather o'er his path? O how should He, who guides their desert- way, "Since, then, oft glimpses of sabbatic rest "On Pisgah's brow he bade his prophet stand, "And O! more favour'd yet, where purest air, And hallow'd loneliness delight to dwell: There raised the Prince of Peace his house of prayer, High communings were there for man's lost race, While Tabor's glories lit the Saviour's faceAnd oft he fainted 'neath the noon-tide might And oft his locks were gemm'd with dew-drops of the night. |