any violent and irregular startings off from our proper sphere, for the purpose of some extraordinary course of action, which the world may wonder at, but to a patient, regular, faithful, unostentatious discharge of daily, and it may be humble duties. The religion which we respect does not produce any temporary, unnatural excitement of feelings, which may, or may not, have a very little to do with personal holiness; but it forms habits of virtue and selfcontrol, it restrains the passions, it regulates the temper, and it produces throughout the whole character a gradual but constant progress in excellence. It has no sectarian air, no habitual look of gloom and repulsion, no assuming of censorship and superiority; but it mingles in the world, and sheds a beneficial and improving influence on all around, and regulates in its possessor, either directly or as a more remote principle, all his actions toward his fellow-creatures.

It is true, also, that we regard with thorough dislike the manner in which a virtuous and religious life, or, to use language that, however proper in itself, may recall the barbarous jargon of technical theology, in which good works are spoken of in the creeds of Calvinism and in the writings of men of this belief. We

think, that the sentiments to which we refer in these creeds and writings are not less hostile to morality, than the doctrines with which they are connected are injurious to religion. There is nothing to which our irregular passions will not sooner submit, than to the uniform observance of those rules of piety and virtue, which never intermit their authority, and never relax their obligation; but there is no difficulty in forming an alliance between religion and the passions, if the former can be understood as not directly connected with this observance. One cause of the prevalence of almost all the corruptions of Christianity is the desire to substitute something else instead of personal holiness; to make something different from this the foundation of our hope of God's mercy. To this cause we may attribute the penances, pilgrimages, ceremonies, and indulgences of the Romish church, which have been made substitutes for a good life; and to the same indisposition to consider this as essential we may ascribe, in a considerable degree, the doctrines of imputed sin and imputed righteousness, of a nature thoroughly corrupt, during whose existence we can perform no good action, and of its miraculous renovation, after which we cannot finally fall away, and, above all, the manner

of speaking before referred to, respecting a virtuous life. Let us not, however, be misunderstood. We do not confound the general cause of the prevalence of certain doctrines with the particular cause of their reception by many individuals, nor the natural tendency of those doctrines with their actual operation. We have no doubt that there are Catholics and Calvinists who would insist strongly on the necessity of habitual virtue.

These views of religion and of the doctrines of Calvinism are what probably have given occasion to the charge we are noticing, which is made, we suppose, with very little attention. to its force or meaning. If there be any one who seriously thinks it true, who thinks that we regard no other duties than those of man to man, and rely on no other motives to virtue than what the present life affords; that we believe in God with somewhat more delightful views, we suppose it must be confessed, of his nature and moral government, than what many other Christians entertain, and yet regard him with no love, nor reverence, nor fear, and do not make this belief the foundation of all virtue and of all hope; that we believe Jesus Christ to have been the messenger of God, and yet view his perfect character with no admira

tion, and his labors and sufferings with no gratitude; that we believe in a future life of happiness and misery, and yet regard its most. awful sanctions with indifference; - if there be any one who thinks all this true, we suppose no attempt could be more hopeless, than the attempt to undeceive him.

But, to notice another charge, it is said that we deprive religion of all its doctrines which may give joy or consolation, that our principles afford no hope in life and no comfort in death. Some doctrines we reject, which we should think not fruitful of joy and consolation, and which we believe have driven many persons sincerely good to gloom and despondency, and some to melancholy and madness; and such consequences we should suppose they would naturally produce, we do not say in a common mind, but in a mind of sensibility, of proper affections, and in the habit of thinking seriously on religious subjects. If it be thought, however, that our views of the present condition of men are little adapted to promote happiness or virtue, we may compare them with those to which they are opposed. We believe that man is a being possessed of powers, which he may abuse, and which it is morally impossible that he should not in some

instances abuse, before he has formed habits of exercising them aright; and of passions, whose natural tendency to excess is to be restrained by experiencing the ill effects of this excess in himself, or witnessing them in others. We believe that his highest happiness consists in the right exercise of these powers, and the proper indulgence of some of these passions. Of this highest happiness, therefore, he is of course incapable, till he has formed habits of virtue, that is, of properly exercising his powers, and habits of self-control, that is, of properly restraining his passions. For the formation of these habits, we believe the present life to be a state of discipline admirably adapted. If these habits be here formed, we believe that he will be removed to a better state of existence, adapted to his improved. nature, where we think it is the doctrine of reason and of revelation, that his faculties will be continually enlarging, and new objects be continually presented to his intellect and his affections. If, on the contrary, habits of irregularity and vice be formed, he cannot be happy. The whole order of nature must first be reversed. As to his future state, we leave it in the same terrible uncertainty in which it is left by revelation. Now to this view, which