anity as mere pretence. Let not him who will not submit to the toil of making himself better, become a reformer at home or abroad. Let not him who is known to be mean, or dishonest, or intriguing, or censorious, or unkind in his neighbourhood, talk of his concern for other men's souls. His life is an injury to religion, which his contributions of zeal, or even of wealth, cannot repair, and its injuriousness is aggravated by these very attempts to expiate its guilt, to reconcile him to himself.

It is well known, that the greatest obstruction to Christianity in heathen countries, is the palpable and undeniable depravity of christian nations. They abhor our religion, because we are such unhappy specimens of it. They are unable to read our books, but they can read our lives; and what wonder, if they reject with scorn a system under which the vices seem to have flourished so luxuriantly. The Indian of both hemispheres has reason to set down the Christian as little better than himself. He associates with the name, perfidy, fraud, rapacity, and slaughter. Can we wonder that he is unwilling to receive a religion from the hand which has chained or robbed him? Thus bad example is the great obstruction to Christianity, abroad as well as at home; and perhaps little good is to be done abroad, until we become better at home, until real Christians understand and practise their religion more thoroughly, and by their example and influence spread it among their neighbours and through their country, so that the aspect of christian nations shall be less shocking and repulsive to the Jew, Mahometan, and Pagan. Our first labor should be upon ourselves; and indeed if our religion be incapable of bearing more fruit among ourselves, it hardly seems to deserve a very burning zeal for its propagation. The question is an important one; Would much be gained to

heathen countries, were we to make them precisely what nations called christian now are? That the change would be beneficial, we grant ; but how many dark stains would remain on their characters. They would continue to fight and shed blood as they now do, to resent injuries hotly, to worship present gain and distinction, and to pursue the common business of life on the principles of undisguised selfishness; and they would learn one lesson of iniquity which they have not yet acquired, and that is, to condemn and revile their brethren, who should happen to view the most perplexed points of theology differently from themselves. The truth is, christian nations want a genuine reformation, one worthy of the name. They need to have their zeal directed, not so much to the spreading of the gospel abroad, as to the application of its plain precepts to their daily business, to the education of their children, to the treatment of their domestics and dependants, and to their social and religious intercourse. They need to understand, that a man's piety is to be estimated, not so much by his professions or direct religious exercises, as by a conscientious surrender of his will, passions, worldly interests, and prejudices, to the acknowledged duties of Christianity, and especially by a philanthropy resembling in its great features of mildness, activity, and endurance, that of Jesus Christ. They need to give up their severe inquisition into their neighbours' opinions, and to begin in earnest to seek for themselves, and to communicate to others a nobler standard of temper and practice, than they have yet derived from the scriptures. In a word, they need to learn the real value and design of Christianity by the only thorough and effectual process; that is, by drinking deeply into its spirit of love to God and If, in this age of societies, we should think it

man.

wise to recommend another institution for the propagation of Christianity, it would be one, the members of which should be pledged to assist and animate one another in living according to the Sermon on the Mount. How far such a measure would be effectual, we venture not to predict; but of one thing we are sure, that should it prosper, it would do more for spreading the gospel, than all other associations which are now receiving the patronage of the christian world.

IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION TO SOCIETY.

FEW men suspect, perhaps no man comprehends, the extent of the support given by religion to the virtues of ordinary life. No man perhaps is aware, how much our moral and social sentiments are fed from this fountain; how powerless conscience would become without the belief of a God; how palsied would be human benevolence, were there not the sense of a higher benevolence to quicken and sustain it; how suddenly the whole social fabric would quake, and with what a fearful crash it would sink into hopeless ruins, were the ideas of a Supreme Being, of accountableness, and of a future life, to be utterly erased from every mind. Once let men thoroughly believe that they are the work and sport of chance; that no superior intelligence concerns itself with human affairs; that all their improvements perish forever at death; that the weak have no guardian, and the injured no avenger; that there is no recompense for sa

crifices to uprightness and the public good; that an oath is unheard in heaven; that secret crimes have no witness but the perpetrator; that human existence has no purpose, and human virtue no unfailing friend; that this brief life is everything to us, and death is total, everlasting extinction; once let men thoroughly abandon religion, and who can conceive or describe the extent of the desolation which would follow? We hope perhaps that human laws and natural sympathy would hold society together. As reasonably might we believe, that were the sun quenched in the heavens, our torches could illuminate, and our fires quicken and fertilize the earth. What is there in human nature to awaken respect and tenderness, if man is the unprotected insect of a day? and what is he more, if atheism be true? Erase all thought and fear of God from a community, and selfishness and sensuality would absorb the whole man. Appetite, knowing no restraint, and poverty and suffering, having no solace or hope, would trample in scorn on the restraints of human laws. Virtue, duty, principle, would be mocked and spurned as unmeaning sounds. A sordid self-interest would supplant every other feeling, and man would become in fact, what the theory of atheism declares him to be, a companion for brutes.

It particularly deserves attention in this discussion, that the christian religion is singularly important to free communities. In truth we may doubt whether civil freedom can subsist without it. This at least we know, that equal rights and an impartial administration of justice, have never been enjoyed where this religion has not been understood. It favors free institutions, first, because its spirit is the very spirit of liberty; that is, a spirit of respect for the interests and rights of others. Christianity recognises the essential equality of man

kind; beats down with its whole might those aspiring and rapacious principles of our nature, which have subjected the many to the few; and, by its refining influence, as well as by direct precept, turns to God, and to Him only, that supreme homage which has been so impiously lavished on crowned and titled fellow creatures. Thus its whole tendency is free. It lays deeply the only foundations of liberty, which are the principles of benevolence, justice, and respect for human nature. The spirit of liberty is not merely, as multitudes imagine, a jealousy of our own particular rights, an unwillingness to be oppressed ourselves, but a respect for the rights of others, and an unwillingness that any man, whether high or low, should be wronged, and trampled under foot. Now this is the spirit of Christianity; and liberty has no security, any farther than this uprightness and benevolence of sentiment actuates a community.

In another method religion befriends liberty. It diminishes the necessity of public restraints, and supersedes in a great degree the use of force in administering the laws; and this it does, by making men a law to themselves, and by repressing the disposition to disturb and injure society. Take away the purifying and restraining influence of religion, and selfishness, rapacity, and injustice will break out in new excesses; and amidst the increasing perils of society, government must be strengthened to defend it, must accumulate means of repressing disorder and crime; and this strength and these means may be, and often have been, turned against the freedom of the state which they were meant to secure. Diminish principle, and you increase the need of force in a community. In this country, government needs not the array of power which you meet in other