pierced with the bloody nail, and fastened to the cursed cross for me!" When you behold the magnificence of creation, and the richness of its furniture-the grandeur of nature, and the variety of her works-what a heightened pleasure must they all impart, if, as you view the glorious scene, your thoughts make answer to your eyes, "All these were brought into existence by that adorable person who sustained my guilt, and wrought out my justifying righteousness!" O that we may possess this "precious faith!" 2 Pet. i. 1; that it may grow incessantly, "grow exceedingly," 2 Thess. i. 3, till it be rooted like those full-grown oaks under which we lately walked, and grounded* like that well-built edifice which is still in our view. Ther. I join with my Aspasio in this wish; and must beg of him to inform me how I may attain so desirable a blessing. Asp. You have entirely cured me, Theron, of making apologies: would to God I might be as successfully instrumental in delivering my friend from his doubts! that the gospel might come to us as it came to the Thessalonians, "not in word only, but in power and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance," 1 Thess. i. 5. Prayer is the first expedient. down from the Father of lights. author and finisher of our faith. request of his disciples, and should be the prevailing language of our hearts. Every good gift is from above, and cometh Christ is not only the object, but the "Lord, increase our faith!" was the Lay up many of the divine promises in your memory. Stock that noble cabinet with this invaluable treasure. "Faith cometh by hearing," Rom. x. 17; by meditating on, by praying over this word of life, and word of grace. And never, never forget the freeness with which the promise is made, and its good things are bestowed. You are to receive the one, and apply the other, not with a full but with an empty hand; not as a righteous person, but as an unworthy creature. Make the trial. Exercise yourself in this great secret of true godliness. I am satisfied it will be productive of the most beneficial effects. Look unto Jesus as dying in your stead, and purchasing both grace and glory for your enjoyment. Come unto God as a poor sinner, yet with a confident dependence; expecting all spiritual blessings through him that loved you, and gave himself for you. "He that believeth," with this appropriating faith, "shall not be confounded," 1 Pet. ii. 6, nor frustrated in his expectations. “He that believeth," with this appropriating faith, "shall have the witness in himself," 1 John v. 10. Nothing will bring in such light and peace, such holiness and happiness to his soul. The Ephesians, thus believing, "were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promiset," Eph. i. 13. The dispersed of Israel, thus believing, "rejoiced with joy unspeakable," 1 Pet. i. 8. Those were marked out as rightful heirs, these were blessed with some delightful foretastes, and both were prepared for the complete fruition of life and immortality. O! that we may "be followers of their example, and sharers of their felicity!" * Rooted and grounded, ggilausvos nas redeμEXINμevos. These are the apostle's beautiful ideas, or rather expressive similitudes, each comprehended in a single word, Eph. iii. 18. + ILIGTEVGANTES 1opgaywolne, not "after that ye believed, ye were sealed;" but " 'believing ye were sealed." In the way of believing, ye became partakers of this sealing and sanctifying Spirit. As for those doubts which have given you so much perplexity, and cost us so long a disquisition, look upon them as some of your greatest enemies. Oppose them with all the resolution and all the vigour of your mind. Nay, look upon those unreasonable doubts, as some of your greatest sins. Confess them with the deepest shame; and pray against them with the utmost ardour. With equal assiduity and zeal, let us press after a steadfast, an immoveable, a triumphant faith. Faith is the vehicle and the instrument of every good: "All things are possible to him that believeth," Mark ix. 23. Faith is the immediate and grand end of the whole gospel: "These things are written, that ye might believe," John xx. 31. Let us therefore covet, earnestly let us covet, this best of gifts, and "shew all diligence to the full assurance of hope," Heb. vii. 11. DIALOGUE XVII. THE next morning Theron ordered a cold collation to be prepared, and his pleasure-boat to hold itself in readiness. Breakfast being despatched, and some necessary orders relating to the family given-Now, says he to Aspasio, let me fulfil my promise; or rather, let us execute our mutual engagement; and consign the remainder of this mild and charming day to a rural excursion. We will take our route along one of the finest roads in the world: a road incomparably more curious and durable than the famous causeways raised by those puissant hands which conquered the globe: a road which has subsisted from the beginning of time; and, though frequented by innumerable carriages, laden with the heaviest burdens, has never been gulled, never wanted repair, to this very hour.-Upon this they step into the chariot, and are conveyed to a large navigable river, about three quarters of a mile distant from the house. Here they launch upon a new element, attended by two or three servants, expert at handling the oar and managing the nets. Is this the road, replied Aspasio, on which my friend bestows his panegyric? It is indeed more curious in its structure, and more durable in its substance, than the celebrated Roman causeways; though I must assure you, the latter have a very distinguished share of my esteem. I admire them far beyond Trajan's pillar, or Caracalla's baths; far beyond the idle pomp of the Pantheon, or the worse than idle magnificence of the amphitheatre. They do the truest honour to the empire; because, while they were the glory of Rome, they were a general good *; and not only a monument of her grandeur, but a benefit to mankind. But more than all these works, I admire that excellent and divinely gracious purpose to which Providence made the empire itself subservient. It was a kind of road or causeway for the everlasting gospel, and afforded the word of life a free passage to the very ends of the earth. The evangelical These roads ran through all Italy, and stretched themselves into the territories of France. They were carried across the Alps, the Pyrenean mountains, and through the whole kingdom of Spain. Some of them, towards the south, reached even to Ethiopia: and some of them, towards the north, extended as far as Scotland. The remains of several of them continue in England to this day; though they were made, it is probable above 1600 years ago. dove mounted the wings of the Roman eagle, and flew with surprising expedition through all nations. Who would have thought that insatiable ambition, and the most bloody wars, should be paving a way for the Prince of humility and peace? How remote from all human apprehension was such a design! and how contrary to the natural result of things was such an event! Most remarkably therefore was that observation of the Psalmist verified, “His ways are in the sea, and his paths in the great waters, and his footsteps are not known," Psalm lxxvii. 19. Conversing on such agrecable subjects, they were carried by the stream through no less agreeable scenes. They pass by hills clothed with hanging woods, and woods arrayed in varying green. Here, excluded from a sight of the outstretched plains, they are entertained with a group of unsubstantial images, and the wonders of a mimic creation. Another sun shines, but stript of his blazing beams, in the watery concave; while clouds sail along the downward skies, and sometimes disclose, sometimes draw a veil over the radiant orb. Trees, with their inverted tops, either flourish in the fair serene below, or else paint with a pleasing delusion the pellucid flood. Even the mountains are there, but in a headlong posture; and, notwithstanding their prodigious bulk, they quiver in this floating mirror like the poplar leaves which adorn their sides. Soon as the boat advances, and disturbs the placid surface, the waves, pushed hastily to the bank, bear off in broken fragments the liquid landscape. The spreading circles seemed to prophesy as they rolled, and pronounced the pleasures of this present state-the pomp of power, the charm of beauty, and the echo of fame-pronounced them transient, as their speedy passage; empty, as their unreal freight. Seemed to prophesy! It was more. gination heard them utter, as they ran, Thus pass the shadowy scenes of life away! Ima Emerging from this fluid alley, they dart amidst the level of a spacious meadow. The eye, lately immured, though in pleasurable confinement, now expands her delighted view into a space almost boundless, and amidst objects little short of innumerable. Transported for a while at the numberless variety of beauteous images poured in sweet confusion all around, she hardly knows where to fix, or which to pursue. Recovering at length from the pleasing perplexity, she glances quick, and instantaneous, across all the intermediate plain, and marks the distant mountains; how cliffs climb over cliffs, till the huge ridges gain upon the sky; how their diminished tops are dressed in blue, or wrapped in clouds; while all their leafy structures, and all their fleecy tenants, are lost in air. Soon she quits these aerial summits, and ranges the russet heath; here shagged with brakes, or tufted with rushes; there interspersed with straggling thickets or solitary trees, which seem, like disaffected partisans, to shun each other's shade. A spire, placed in a remote valley, peeps over the hills. Sense is surprised at the amusive appearance; is ready to suspect that the column rises, like some enchanted edifice, from the rifted earth. But reason looks upon it as the earnest of a hidden vale, and the sure indication of an adjacent town; performing, in this respect, much the same office to the eye as faith executes with regard to the soul, when it is" the evidence of things not seen," Heb. xi. 1. Next she roves, with increasing pleasure, over spacious tracts of fertile glebe and cultured fields, where cattle, of every graceful form, and every valuable quality, crop the tender herb, or drink the crystal rills. Anon, she dwells with the utmost complacency on towns of opulence and splendour, which spread the sacred dome, and lift the social roof: towns, no longer surrounded with the stern forbidding majesty of unpassable entrenchments, and impregnable ramparts: but encircled with the delicate, the inviting appendages of gardens and orchards; those decked with all the soft graces of art and elegance, these blushing and pregnant with the more substantial treasures of fruitful nature. Wreaths of ascending smoke, intermingled with turrets and lofty pinnacles, seem to contend which shall get farthest from the earth, and nearest to the skies. Happy for the inhabitants, if such was the habitual tendency of their desires! if no other contention was known in their streets! Villas, elegant and magnificent, seated in the centre of an ample park, or removed to the extremity of a engthened lawn, not far from a beautiful reservoir of standing waters, or the more salutary lapse of a limpid stream. Villages, clad in homely thatch, and lodged in the bosom of clustering trees. Rustics singing at their works; shepherds, tuning their pipes as they tend their flocks; travellers, pursuing each his respective way, in easy and joyous security. How pleasing, said Aspasio, is our situation! How delightful is the aspect of all things! One would almost imagine, that nothing could exceed it, and that nothing can increase it. Yet there is a method of increasing even this copious delight, and of heightening even this exquisite pleasure.— Let me desire my friend, answered Theron, to explain his remark; and not only to explain but to exemplify. If we view, resumed Aspasio, our own prosperity, and compare it with the afflicted condition of others, the method propose will be reduced to practice. Such a dark and mournful contrast must throw additional brightness, even upon the brightest scene. I Above, the skies smile with serenity; below, the fields look gay with plenty; all around, the sportive gales Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense Native perfumes; and whisper, whence they stole MILTON, B. iv. With us, all circumstances are as easy as the wafture of the boat; as smooth as the flow of the stream. But let us not forget those grievous calamities which befall our brethren in some remote tracts of the earth, or distant parts of the ocean. How many sailors are struggling, vainly struggling, with all the fury of rending winds, and dashing waves! while their vessel, flung to and fro by tempestuous billows, is mounted into the clouds or plunged in the abyss. Possibly the miserable crew hear their knell sounded in the shattered mast, and see destruction entering at the bursting planks. Perhaps this very moment they pour the last, dismal, dying shriek ; and sink, irrecoverably sink, in the all-overwhelming surge. The travelle in Africa's barren wastes, pale even amidst those glowing regions, pale wi prodigious consternation, sees sudden and surprising mountains rise; sees i sultry desert ascending the sky, and sweeping before the whirlwind. W can he do? whither fly? how escape the approaching ruin? Alas! wh he attempts to rally his thoughts, attempts to devise some feeble expedie: he is overtaken by the choking storm, and suffocated amidst the sandy inu dation. The driving heaps are now his executioner, as the drifted heaps will soon be his tomb. While we possess the valuable privileges, and taste the delicious sweets of liberty, how many partakers of our common nature are condemned to perpetual exile, or chained to the oar for life! How many are immured in the gloom of dungeons, or buried in the caverns of the mines, never to behold the all-enlivening sun again! While respect waits upon our persons, and reputation attends our characters, are there not some unhappy creatures, led forth by the hand of vindictive justice, to be spectacles of horror and monuments of vengeance? sentenced, for their enormous crimes, to be broken limb by limb on the wheel, or to be impaled alive on the lingering stake. To these, the strangling cord, or the deadly stab, would be a most welcome favour; but they must feel a thousand deaths, in undergoing one. And this, too probably, is but the beginning of their sorrows-will only consign them over to infinitely more terrible torment. While ease and pleasure, in sweet conjunction, smooth our paths, and soften our couch, how many are tossing on the fever's fiery bed, or toiling along affliction's thorny road! Some under the excruciating but necessary operations of surgery: their bodies ripped open, with a dreadful incision, to search for the torturing stone; or their limbs lopt off by the bloody knife, to prevent the mortification's fatal spread. Some, emaciated by pining sickness, are deprived of all their animal vigour, and transformed into spectres even before their dissolution. These are ready to adopt the complaint of the Psalmist; "I am withered like grass; my bones are burnt up, as it were a firebrand; I go hence like the shadow that departeth." While health, that staple blessing, which gives every other entertainment its flavour and its beauty, adds the gloss to all we see, and the goût to all we taste; health plays at our hearts, dances in our spirits, and mantles in our cheeks, as the generous champaign lately sparkled in our glass. We are blessed with a calm possession of ourselves; with tranquillity in our consciences, and an habitual harmony in our temper: whereas many, in the doleful cells of lunacy, are gnashing their teeth or wringing their hands; rending the air with volleys of horrid execrations, or burdening it with peals of disconsolate sighs. And O! what multitudes, even amidst courts and palaces, are held in splendid vassalage by their own domineering passions, or the vanities of a bewitching world! Far less innocently, far more deplorably disordered *, than the fettered madman, they are gnawed by the envenomed tooth of envy; they are agitated by the wild sallies of ambition; or feel the malignant ulcer of jealousy rankling in their breasts. In some, avarice, like a ravening harpy, gripes: in some, revenge, like an implacable fury, rages: while others are goaded by lordly and imperious lusts, through the loathsome sewers of impure delight; and left, at last, in those hated and execrable dens, where remorse rears her snaky crest, and infamy sharpens her hissing tongue. Why this long pause? replied Theron. Your observations are as useful as they are just. We should all be acquainted, at least in speculation acquainted, with grief; and send our thoughts, if not our feet, to visit the abodes of sorrow ;-that in this school we may learn a sympathizing pity for "Give me any plague," says an apocryphal writer, "but the plague of the heart," Eccl'us. xxv. 13. |