minuteness, however concealed from the ordinary notice of the human eye, is destitute of some proofs of an immediate connexion between itself and God; and that, therefore, he involved himself both in guilt and unhappiness, by inferring that he was the object of no Divine attention, and hence exempt from moral responsibility. It might have taught him to make better use of discoveries which should have heightened every conception of God, than to sit in judgment upon him-and to pronounce such a sentence as, under the profession of high regard for him as a most exalted being, really brings him down to the standard of man's own limited imagination. Well would it have been for Mr. R. if he had seen this; if he had allowed his mind to perceive, how that the arguments he used, went far to degrade that God whose existence he acknowledged, and on whose attributes he professed to dwell in ineffable wonder and reverence. He spoke of "the mighty Being, who was occupied in sustaining and governing unnumbered worlds;" but the perverse interpretation which he put upon the fact, that God could diffuse the benefits of his power and goodness over such a variety of worlds, was, that he could not, or would not, bestow so much goodness on one of those worlds, as a professed Revelation from heaven implies. Yet there were not wanting hours when his mind seemed somewhat open to conviction, and to a reception of the truth, if he could have seen it in all its bearings; nor was he without a kind and skilful friend to aid him in his inquiries. Often did he and that friend sit together, in close argument, till, with much emotion, Mr. R. would say, "I would give worlds, if I had them, to believe as you do, but I cannot." Infidelity had established its strong hold in his mind, and was never brought to surrender its tyrannizing usurpation over his understanding. The peculiar doctrines of the Gospel were too humbling for his pride, and demanded the subjection of his reasoning powers to the reception of the evidence of their Divine origin in vain. But his infidelity might be traced to another source than his philosophical studies. His youthful days were criminally neglected by his parents; and the painful levity with which, in his family, religion was treated, throws some light upon the fact of his subsequent entire apostacy from its principles. Accustomed to witness, to share in, that disregard, we cannot wonder if a heart, hardened at a period of life when it is most susceptible of impression, should never afterwards have been softened; nor that a mind, early familiarized to impiety, should never afterwards have admitted the Scripture testimony to that Saviour, whom, in the morning of his existence, he began to reject. It is impossible to be too earnest in shunning, as fraught with the highest danger, every thought, and sentiment, and word, which lightly treats the holy and blessed, though in some instances mysterious, facts of the Christian religion. An early formed habit of trifling with the high and awful things of God, and the soul, of heaven, and of hell, may never be broken off. He who once ventures into the drear and desolate regions of infidelity, enters a clime as inhospitable, and pursues a path as likely to be closed against his return, as the mariner who is driven by storms, or enticed by gain, or impelled by the spirit of enterprise, within the polar circle. : A lingering and insidious complaint brought Mr. R. to his grave, in the noonday of life. My tutor had requested to be called into his chamber, when his end seemed near; and accordingly, at midnight, he was summoned from his bed, to witness the melancholy conclusion of a life, over which scepticism had spread its cheerless clouds, and on the termination of which it shed no solace. The religion of Jesus, and that alone, can yield true comfort at such a critical hour and rejecting life and immortality, as they are brought to light by the Gospel, the disciples of infidelity are left, in the most critical moments of their existence, either to the horrors of despair, as in the case of Voltaire; to the insane and pitiable flippancy of Hume; or to the sullen taciturnity of one who, no longer sustained by the influence of his fondly cherished sentiments, sinks into the gulf of eternity, too wretched to smile, and too proud to weep. Mr. R. was lying on his bed, in gloomy silence. His mind seemed perfectly collected, though its joyless state communi cated no serenity to his countenance. His friend was oppressed by the scene; and turning away for a moment, took out his Bible, with a view to select some passage, which he might successfully apply to the conscience of the dying sceptic. He felt confounded and speechless, when, on opening the volume, his eye rested on the words-" Because they received not the truth, that they might be saved: for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness," 2 Thess. ii. 10, 11, 12. He was not disposed, as many are, to handle the Bible with superstition, nor to attach undue importance to particular passages of the sacred volume, merely from the fact of the eye suddenly falling on them, when first, on any particular occasion, the pages are opened: nevertheless, he was startled and overcome by this tremendous declaration of the Divine oracles; for the spectacle before him looked like an awful accomplishment of its fearful prediction. Rousing himself, however, from the depression under which he was sinking, and desirous of entering into conversation with his expiring friend, he requested Mr. R.'s sister to ask him this question: "My dear brother, do you ever pray?" He only replied, "Do not tease me;" and then relapsed into his former silence. This was sufficiently discouraging but the clergyman made another attempt. At his request, Mrs. R., whose mind her husband had tainted with his own principles, but whose tears now betrayed their insufficiency, approached the dying man, and in a trembling voice inquired, "My dear husband, have you any hope?" returned the same answer as before: "Do not tease me." Nothing more could be elicited from him. He died, without one sign of change. My tutor retired to a sleepless pillow, with his mind divided between anguish at what he had witnessed, and lively gratitude for the grace which had made him to differ, and which had given him a living faith in that Saviour, who is the life of the dying, and the resurrection cf the dead, who sleep in him. The frequency with which life, passed in the profession of a denial of the authority of Divine Revelation ends in a manner which must, on every ground, be deemed unsatisfactory, ought, at least, to throw suspicion on the correctness of such a decision, and to call for further investigation on the part of those who have arrived at it. There is a seeming modesty in the question" What is man, that he should think himself worthy to be noticed, and even specially cared for, by the Creator?" Still it may be asked in a spirit that would bring the Infinite down to the grade of a finite being, and would conceive of him as though he were such an one as the creature, influenced by the same feelings, and exerting his powers with the same limitations. But let the man who rejects Christianity as a Divine Revelation at once of authority and mercy -a rule to guide and a means to save on the ground of the comparative insignificance of those for whom it is affirmed to be a special interposition,-let him again pause, and ask, with the creation before him, whether his prejudice can be discerned entering into the operative principles of the Creator; and especially whether, looking beneath himself, among the animated orders, his principles are supported there. Is there, in such a survey, any appearance which could justify the supposition, that the Divine power and intelligence could deign to be occupied with stupendous masses, while it held in indifference, if not in contempt, the minute? If, indeed, it were so, then, upon diminutive beings, it might have been expected, nothing more than a rude and hurried finishing would have been expended. But it is not so. Passing from the greater to the less, among organized bodies, there is no regular decrease of ingenuity or nicety of workmanship: on the contrary, there is the most abundant refutation of the comparative insignificance, in the sight of God, of any part of his works; and, therefore, a ground of assurance, as satisfactory as it is emphatic, that man, who rises high above so many of the works of his hand, will not be overlooked; that himself, and his welfare, are considerations of importance in the eye of the Eternal.. Beyond this, one of the first principles exhibited by the constitution of the sentient and intellectual orders, is, that no faculties, either of knowledge or of action, are bestowed upon any creature, but such as have some direct bearing upon its destiny-upon its well-being. Is it for nothing, that man possesses the power and propensity of contemplating the extent of the universe, and that habit of mind which naturally induces him to refer all things to an intelligent First Cause; a constitutional dread of invisible power, and an inextinguishable sense of right and wrong, and an inherent forethought of an after-life? Are all these so many vague and empty instincts, which have no ulterior significance and purpose? But as to that purpose, do we not need instruction? To whom, then, shall we look for it, but to the Being who made us what we are? How natural, then, to expect a Revelation from God! And when the Scriptures claim to be received as that revelation, their claim is confirmed by the testimony of millions that man may discover therein just that information, which his own mental constitution -his moral condition-render desirable; that there belongs to it an internal evidence that it was made for such beings as men; and that it comes from the same hand that created them. And when, conceding to it its rightful place, men receive its statements, in regard to their present condition in the sight of God, as compared with their first estate; when their sense of right and wrong has been quickened to the production of selfcondemnation ; there has been felt a still more emphatic and more deeply affecting proof, that the Gospel is not only that which man needs, but that which alone can meet his requirements of pardon and peace, consistently with honour to God, and the maintenance and the authority of his law. Now, in the declarations, that "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, and not imputing their transgressions to them," 2 Cor. v. 19; that "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature;" that "God gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask," Luke xi. 13; that “He renews them in the spirit of their mind," Eph. iv. 23;—in these declarations the soul discovers a proof, easily appreciated, that "God does not despise the work of his hands;" that "he hateth nothing which he has made;" that “ our way not hid from the Lord;" that "he hath indeed remembered us in our lost estate, because his mercy endureth for ever." Affecting is |
