such times, the minds of men may be supposed to look with more complacency on their condition, and to suffer less from the anxious suspense which, in periods of toil and affliction, weigh down their spirits. Now, for some ages previous to the coming of our Saviour, the world had been reaping, and gathering into its storehouses, that is, into the seats of its several governments, and into the homes of individual men, the harvest of evil and misery, which had been sown, first, at the fall of our great progenitors, and then at the several periods in which the mighty spirit of rebellion and anarchy came visibly forth to exert his right upon us. War had glutted itself with carnage; licentiousness loosened the holiest bonds of social existence; slavery was defended as the necessary lot of millions; and the whole mass of mankind felt, and writhed under, the lash of the tormentor. The only mitigation of these accumulated evils, was that occasionally afforded by the soothing voices of those few exalted and finer spirits, who kept some portion of their natural freedom, and who loved to employ their eloquence in asserting the beauty and nobility of nature. Poetry and philosophy still cultivated their green recesses in the desert; and sometimes coming forth into the world, startled their fellow-mortals, as with a song heard in the night, from their gross and heavy slumbers. But the sound had no multiplying echo: there was no

focal point wherein the rays of intellectual light might accumulate, and fire a torch for the guidance of the fallen race.

That the metaphor is fairly illustrative of the reality, is proved by the sober testimony of undoubted history. But let us, for the moment, suppose that when the world was in this condition, one of those noble-minded men of whom we have spoken, had discovered arguments, or a method by which he could secure the immediate attention of his fellow-beings to the better principles of their nature, and lead them safely to the acquisition of good and happiness;-is it to be doubted that he would have readily employed his power? or is it not, in fact, proved that he would, by the manner in which the best of the learned men of antiquity did exercise their genius? Let us further suppose that he had not only discovered truth, and the right method of communicating it, by the strength of his own intellect, but that light had been poured into his heart from on high, and that he found himself thereby consecrated as a teacher of mankind;—is it to be imagined that he would have kept back the blessing which he received in charge for the good of his suffering brethren? The answer to this question is at once manifest, and we must at the same time see, that in proportion to the benevolence and the power of the individual, would be the decision of his conduct; and consequently, that, if we sup

pose a divine instead of a human being employed in this work, the probability of his undertaking the instruction and enlightenment of mankind is increased in proportion to the increased perfection of the agent. And while this is true of the agent, it must also be true in respect to Him who sets him at work, that is, of God himself: for unless we deny him the attribute of love, He cannot be supposed less willing to deliver his creatures from darkness than any one of those creatures would be to deliver the rest, were it in his power.

We may conclude from such considerations as these, that nothing could be more consistent with the benevolence of God than the communication of a truth which should make man the conscious master of immortality; and that in thus enriching his mind, he would be supplying him with the best possible means of recovering his lost dignity and happiness. But the wondrous act of benevolence has been performed: the human race has received from its great Author this rich dowry of intelligence; and in an age of the world when it was the sole means of saving mankind from irrecoverable degeneracy. To regard a benefit with less interest when it has been conferred, than when it is viewed prospectively, or theoretically, is the common course of human feeling; but to neglect a blessing which is always increasing in the power of its operation, and the application of which becomes every hour more necessary to our safety, is

the extreme of folly: yet thus is Christianity disregarded by millions of our race; and the regenerating application of the doctrine of the resurrection resisted, or treated with contempt. Had such an important truth been in the power of man to reveal, there is every reason to believe that it would have been listened to with eager and influential attention delivered by God, it is heard with backwardness and mistrust. Notwithstanding, however, the little readiness evinced by mankind to adopt the evangelical law for its renewing and life-giving efficacy, the secret influences of it are felt throughout the world. The darkness has been broken through which kept us enslaved to ignorance and superstition; and the Gospel, making the profoundest maxims of eternal truth the common property of the world, has given the mind a new atmosphere to breathe in; and reason new confidence in its efforts. Nor is it to be doubted but that the moral atmosphere, thus cleared of its impurities, is itself, mysteriously and secretly, often imbued with some portion of the light which ever follows the track of the divine Spirit, and announces his presence: for though the Lord deny this precious gift in its converting strength to those who seek not for it, yet hardly can the kingdom of heaven, which is full of its splendour, exist amid the nations, without some portion of those lustrous rays of truth scattering their light beyond its bor

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ders: the dew of heavenly blessing overflowing the full vessels; the sound of heavenly harpings, heard outside the mansion. Thus the world becoming imbued with a certain degree of knowledge, through the work and the presence of Christ, which could have been derived from no other source, he is, in a very general sense, the light which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world; it being utterly impossible now to separate, or distinguish that knowledge which a man may seem to acquire by his natural ability, from that which, intimately mixed up with it, though unknown probably to himself, he entirely owes to the silent operations of the Lord, and the unobserved progress of his kingdom.

But while a benefit of vast importance to the world at large is thus communicated through the medium of Christianity, its direct influence on the state of the many thousands who own its sway in their souls, is the beautiful manifestation of a sublime mystery, in which the love of God is seen regenerating, as it originally created, the whole being of humanity. In the almost innumerable circumstances which the plan of redemption presents for contemplation, not one exists in which divine benignity is not eminently conspicuous: Rejoice in the Lord always; and again, I say, rejoice,' describes the true feeling of every devout mind, after a long and earnest consideration of the