omit something which renders it nutritious. And yet you believe what they tell you, without asking; and if you refuse to believe them, you cannot eat at all. And what is to become of you?

You talk with your companion, with your master, your parent, your servant. Now all that you hear are certain sounds issuing from his mouth, and you see certain movements of the face; and from these two together you conjecture what is passing in his mind-in that mind which you never saw, and never can see in this life; but without knowing the movement of which, you may as well live with an automaton or a stone statue. And we all know how easy it is to feign words and dress up the countenance; and every one about you, who speaks to you, may have a real interest in deceiving you. Some of them may have great powers of deceit, and take delight in it. Not one in a thousand either could, or would unveil to you the whole state of his heart and mind. And yet if you distrust them, if you will not believe that they speak truth, how will you live with them? You cannot converse with them, nor be instructed by them, nor learn their character, nor love, nor please, nor guard against, nor influence them, nor establish any communication whatever with them, unless you take their testimony to what is passing within them. And without such communication daily and hourly, I ask again what is to become of you?

life

Take another instance. How much of your must depend on acting upon general rules! that is, on a knowledge, not only of individual facts, as that, on taking this drug, death has followed-on following this path, a man has fallen into a pit,but rather of the universal principles wrought out by experiment and induction, that such drugs always will produce death, that such and such paths always

do terminate in pitfalls. Every action in life, which proceeds from the higher exercise of reason, must start with general principles of this kind. But where are you to get them, if testimony is not to be admitted? How many are deduced from experiment, which have been, and will be again, fatal to the experimenters! how many from observations within the reach of a few only! how many from facts, which are past, and may never return again! Will you throw them aside-commence forming a new stock for yourself-hazard every thing in the act of forming them—and, after all, receive them upon human testimony, the testimony of your own senses, instead of the combined senses of many others?

These are but a few of the cases in which testimony is all in all. Of the past, of the distant, of every thing beyond the range of your own eye and ear—even then, of the certainty and correctness of your own perception,-of all universal truths, of all more recondite experiences, which have not happened to fall within your own narrow field of inquiry, of the heart and mind of man, and of all that passes within it; in other words, of all that is invisible (and how much of our existence, even in this world of sense, depends on things invisible!); of all this, without testimony, you can know nothing.

And therefore I say to you, that when good and wise men-when any men come forward, and assert any thing, however strange and mysterious, the first thought should be, not to reject the testimony, because the fact is strange, but to incline to admit the fact, because testimony is the natural channel for conveying such strange knowledge to man.

What, then, you will ask, am I to be credulous, superstitious, a listener to old wives' fables? Am I to have no discernment, no judgment of my own?

I answer, that you ought to be credulous-a listener to every thing to exercise no judgment of your own in opposition to accredited testimony. Do not begin with doubting, but begin with believing. Belief is natural, doubt is not; belief is a virtue, doubt is a sin. Why is it you fear to believe? because some evil may follow? Consider, for a moment, even in the worst instances, if believing the word of others is thus dangerous. Grant that we should put trust in every thing, what evil would follow? Of all that range of knowledge which is merely speculative, and involves no practical risk -as of geography, history, natural science, geometry, astronomy, -it is little man's interest to deceive; his discoveries are nothing, unless supported by learning and reasoning; they are open to correction at each point, and must be corrected step by step, exactly in proportion as they are brought into action. You read Bruce's Travels. They sound strange; but what harm arises from believing them to be true, even though indeed they were false? And what good proceeds from doubting? For it is better to have the mind filled with innocent fairy tales, and visions of the fancy, than to keep it empty, and cold, and lonely, without an occupant.

And as for facts which lead to action, how rarely are men interested in deceiving you! A robber may wish to entrap you to a solitary spot by some false tale; a beggar may delude you by a fiction of distress. But these cases are not the ordinary dealings of men, and carry with them their own safeguard. For the most part, men are more disposed to warn you against evil by their testimony, than to delude you into it. They are alarmists; they like to exaggerate; they are fond of exciting wonder, and sympathy, and emotion; of spreading terror, of exercising power in deterring

you from action, of leading you away with themselves from possible mischief, rather than of drawing you on to share in a doubtful good. And when they do attempt to deceive, how hard they find it not to betray themselves by inconsistencies!

Now these are provisions of nature; or rather, never say, nature, but of Almighty God, the Lord and Master of nature; these are his provisions for guarding you from hurt, when you obey his will, and put your trust in the words of men. But he has made a still better provision. He takes care that, from your earliest childhood, you should have standing by your side his own appointed witnesses-witnesses of truth and good; not indeed infallible, but least of human beings likely to err or to mislead you; so that your ears may be preoccupied by them, and every suggestion of evil, however mighty the testimony to it, may be met by a previous testimony still mightier against it. God has given you Parents, whose interest, as well as duty, is to secure you from harm-whose authority is founded on a commission from Him, by whose law man does not spring out of the earth, but is moulded at the breast of his mother-whose knowledge is rarely their own invention, but the common treasure of approved human wisdom. He has given you, moreover, Society, Society, with its governors and laws; its governors, like parents, commissioned from heaven; its laws having their root in the revealed will of God; and both, even from the instinct of selfpreservation, compelled to wish that you should do what is good, and obtain what will make you happy. At any rate, they are both of them ministers and representatives of God. They are not formed by man. They derive their power by delegation from heaven; and as such, they claim your obedience. If they speak what God has put into their mouths,

you cannot err in following them; if they speak for their own profit, yet obey them, as set over you by God, until you have from God some positive command to the contrary brought to you by ministers more formally accredited, with superior powers; and he will bear you safe from harm. For this is the real question for your consideration: Are these witnesses whose voice I am called on to obey sent by another, or do they come of themselves? Are they appointed, instituted, regularly commissioned to deliver a message from God, or are they self-taught, and mere human agents? Ask this of your parents; ask it of your king and civil governors; ask it, above all, of those who come to you with especial warnings and spiritual communications. Did you appoint them? Did they appoint themselves? Do they date their authority from man? If so, you must follow them at your own risk. In obedience there is no virtue, for you are not obeying God. There is even sin, for you cannot follow two masters; and in following those whom God has not sent, you must be deserting those whom He has sent. And if they lead you by accident in the way which He would choose, there is no reward; for you are not thinking of God, but of man : and if, as they are sure to do, they lead you from the path into evil, there is no excuse; for the evil has been of your own choosing.

Let me give you, then, in conclusion, for the present, these few short maxims :

1. In all things act by testimony.

2. In all things take that testimony which is appointed for you by God; which is given to you by persons set over you by His hand.

3. Never depart from this, unless you have the clearest and most indisputable dispensation, con

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