soul in life; and that he is at once the preserver of these frail bodies, and the guide and sanctifier of the fallen natures which inhabit them.

The judgment and sympathies of men, in regard to every thing religious, are deeply impaired; but the conclusions which follow from facts and reflections of the kind now adverted to, have commended themselves to the prevailing feeling of the human race, and have exerted a powerful influence over human action. We find men shrinking, as it were instinctively, from the thought of dwelling in a world abandoned to accident, or to itself. So strong has this feeling been, that where the views entertained of the Deity have been such as to preclude the supposition that all things are subject to his immediate influence, it has disposed the imagination to call a multitude of agencies into being, appointed, as delegates of the Supreme power, to the joint performance of this service. The objects and the changes in nature, have all been viewed by them as under this authorized guardianship, as was every thing that could affect the outward circumstances, or the intellectual and moral character of individuals and communities.

The lively Grecian, in a land of hills,

Rivers, and fertile plains, and sounding shores,
Under a cope of variegated sky,

Could find commodious place for every god,
Promptly received, as prodigally brought
From the surrounding countries-at the choice
Of all adventurers. With unrivalled skill,

As nicest observation furnished hints
For studious fancy, did his hand bestow

On fluent operations a fixed shape;

Metal or stone, idolatrously served.

And there is more of truth than may at first appear in what follows.

And yet triumphant o'er this pompous show
Of art, this palpable array of sense,

On every side encountered; in despite
Of the gross fictions, chanted in the streets
By wandering rhapsodists; and in contempt
Of doubt and bold denials hourly urged
Amid the wrangling schools-a SPIRIT hung,
Beautiful region! o'er thy towns and farms,
Statues, and temples, and memorial tombs,
And emanations were perceived; and acts
Of immortality, in Nature's course,
Exemplified by mysteries, that were felt
As bonds, on grave philosopher imposed
And armed warrior; and in every grove
A gay or pensive tenderness prevailed,
When piety more awful had relaxed.

'Take, running River, take these locks of mine,—
Thus would the votary say this severed hair,

My vow fulfilling, do I here present,

Thankful for my beloved child's return.

'Thy banks, Cephisus, he again hath trod,

Thy murmurs heard, and drunk the crystal lymph,

With which thou dost refresh the thirsty lip,
And moisten all day long these flowery fields!'
And, doubtless, sometimes, when the hair was shed
Upon the flowing stream, a thought arose
Of Life continuous, Being unimpaired.

WORDSWORTH.

Certain it is, that the history of the world might be appealed to as demonstrating, that the doctrine of a divine influence, and of that influence as extending to our ordinary affairs, and to the inmost secrecies of the mind, is a conclusion sustained by the most prevalent convictions of the human understanding, and by some of the strongest sympathies of the

human heart. Whatever some solitary faction, in its moments of delirium, may have done, no nation has hitherto agreed to proscribe the belief of a divine presence and power in the earth; though few, unhappily, have been prepared to recognize that All-perfect Nature, whose word forms our only certain guide on matters of such high import.

The sum of the preceding statement is, that there is enough, in the relations pervading all material things, and in the evident feeling of mankind on this subject, to render our belief in the doctrine which teaches that the spirits of men are exposed to influences from other spiritual natures, manifestly reasonable, so much so, as to make a hasty rejection of what is taught in scripture on this point, the certain indication, either of a pitiable weakness and presumption, or of alarming depravity.

Such men may say, The Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it. But what saith the voice of the Holy One, and the voice of nature too? Understand, ye brutish among the people; and ye fools, when will ye be wise? He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see? He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know ? The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity. But the vanity of supposing that God has resigned his place of influence in the affairs, or in the hearts of men, is hardly greater than that of supposing that our spirits are

the only reasoning creatures in the wide field of creation, or than to deem it incredible that such natures, whether inferior to our own or superior to it, should possess a medium of approach to our facultiesour thoughts, imagination, and passions.

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth. The immediate reference of this passage is to the influence of the Holy Spirit in regeneration. But this is not the only spiritual influence connected with our present experience; and the language of the Saviour, in this instance, is applicable to all spiritual agency. We may hear the sound of the passing air, we may feel its pres-sure; but as to the cause of these sensations, we know not whence it comes nor whither it goes. We are conscious of the fact, but ignorant of the mode. We partake of the effect, but have a very imperfect knowledge of the concurrence of things by which it is produced. So is every one who is born of the Spirit, or at all influenced by purely spiritual causes. The air, which produces great and unquestionable results, and still eludes the sight, is thus employed to denote the effects of spiritual power among us, and to teach us, that our inability to comprehend much connected with the working of such power, ought not to form the slightest objection to its reality.

The whispering air
Sends inspiration from the shadowy heights,
And blind recesses of the caverned rocks.

What is thus said of the air, might be said of many influences in nature. We know that they exist, but how, or wherefore, are questions still to be answered. It is not the Bible only which has its appointment to prophesy in part, nor is it merely with respect to the more mysterious doctrines of the Bible that we know only in part.

It is scarcely necessary to add, that the word spirit, is of the same meaning with the word air. It appears to have been applied to the mind, from its seeming dependence on our respiration for its connexion with the body. Through the imperfections of human language, the term has been thus accommodated in every age and nation; and is to be understood as referring to a reasoning spiritual existence, with all the usual properties of such an existence, both in distinction from the inanimate things surrounding us, and from the mere instinct of the brute.

II. We shall now proceed to notice, more particularly, WHAT THE SCRIPTURES TEACH on this theme. The sacred writers affirm, that the chain of created existence does not terminate with man;—that as there are existences greatly below him, so there are others rising above him. Even in his perfect state, he was made "lower" than the angels. How much lower he is now become we may only conjecture. But these angels have not all continued in their perfectness. Some of them appear to have fallen as far below humanity,