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God, -a dream from which even the civilized world can hardly be said to have yet awakened.

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Much has been said of modern enlightenment, yet it is not long since there were followers of Johanna Southcote, and who in these days has not heard of "Mormonism? In short, no impostor or enthusiast who professes to have a Divine mission can entertain opinions too extravagant to prevent him from securing a host of disciples. Surely, then, the Anthropologist who studies man as he is at present and on the whole, studies only his pathology, and sees him in a state, not of health, but of disease,-not, therefore, we may presume, the state in which at the beginning he was created, and the state which his general economy, intellectual and moral, even at present, and notwithstanding these perversions, would seem to prove that he was intended for.

Hail! heavenly daylight-bright and beautiful irradiation, that shall dissipate for ever all these wild delusions! Hail! celestial city! into which there shall in nowise enter anything that "defileth, or worketh abomination, or maketh a lie. Where there shall be no night, and they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign for ever and ever."

THE DARKNESS OF SIN AND SORROW.

Oh, cursed, cursèd sin! traitor to God
And ruiner of men! mother of woe

And death and hell; wretched, yet seeking worse,
Depth ever deepening, darkness darkening still.

In

THERE are unions which God has made, but which man is either permitted, or is vainly endeavouring to dissolve. In some of them the things associated exist, it may be, separately in the mind of the metaphysician, but are never actually witnessed except in conjunction. some they are parted, but only to prove how unnatural and how disastrous is the divorce. In some again, though always found together, they are linked by laws of connexion which elude our cognizance. In others, though actually united, they appear to be separate because the points of contact are to us at present invisible, so that we must wait for a knowledge of their real association till, with vaster powers than we now enjoy, we can perceive and appreciate the harmonies of the universe. Alliances, too, are conceivable between things which are now frequently disconnected, and yet so much oftener in companionship, and so obviously suited the one to the other, that we can hardly help believing them to be, either now as it were, affianced, and to be

one day espoused, or to have once existed together and been divorced, though but partially, and by some such abnormal cause of separation as will not prevent them from being ultimately and for ever reunited. Of this latter kind are those between goodness and happiness, and between sin and sorrow. We often see, though, perhaps, if the whole truth were known, it would be right to say that we only seem to see, the goodness without the happiness, and the sin without the sorrow. But it can be clearly shown that their union is far more frequent than their severance. We take it that this could be decisively proved by an appeal to general experience. It could also be established by the evidence of consciousness. We have the witness in ourselves. Nor is it merely hope that in the case of goodness causes the happiness, nor merely fear that in the case of sin produces the sorrow. These are additional elements of pleasure and pain, and fortify the argument which would be valid without them. They are annexed respectively to virtue and vice, and go to prove that the one is a cause of enjoyment, the other of unhappiness. But though there were no hope in the case of virtue there would still be enjoyment, and though there were no fear in that of vice there would still be misery. For it has been well observed, and, we think, conclusively proved, that there is a positive pleasure in the mere emotions of gratified virtue apart from the hope of reward, and a positive pain in the mere emotions of sinful propensity apart from the fear of punishment. It will be granted, for example, that there is a real joy in the workings of pure benevolence—a happiness in making others happy,

even when there can be no possibility of requital, and a real wretchedness in hatred, even when there can be no risk of retaliation. Does not trust quiet anxiety, and suspicion on the other hand awaken alarm? Can it be questioned that, even as regards the present life alone, there is peace and joy in believing," while there is disturbance and dissatisfaction in doubting and distrusting? A good conscience will make its possessor happy, even when he sees no prospect of reward, and an evil conscience will make its victim wretched, even when he has no fear of punishment. There are virtues such as patience and temper, which cause, in their exercise, a dignified satisfaction, while it is hardly possible to conceive how the opposite qualities can operate at all without producing pain or uneasiness. He who really forgives an injury, forgets, it may almost be said, that he has ever been injured at all; while an implacable enemy, brooding continually over remembered wrongs, feels them without cessation; and if there be vices that on earth are hell anticipated, they must be revenge and jealousy. Milton has finely described the misery of wickedness in his character of Satan

"Nor with cause to boast

Begins his dire attempt, which nigh the birth
Now rolling boils in his tumultuous breast,
And like a devilish engine back recoils
Upon himself; horror and doubt distract
His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir
The Hell within him; for within him Hell

He brings and round about him, nor from Hell
One step; no more than from himself can fly
By change of place."

It would be easy to adduce other instances of this contrast, and quite enough to show that it expresses a general law. The consequences, too, of virtue and vice respectively, even in this world, corroborate our position. Pride incurs a thousand mortifications which humility avoids, and induces many quarrels to which humility finds no provocation. The ambition of one mind often awakens the jealousy of another, while that jealousy vents itself in the infliction of an injury on him who provokes it. But an humble spirit avoids, unless called to them by duty and Providence, the places which, because they are high, are also dangerous. The natural consequence of prudence, energy, honesty, fidelity, and perseverance, is worldly success, while it is certain that the contrary qualities "clothe a man with rags." There are virtues which obviously conduce to bodily health, and vices which as obviously occasion physical disease. If society sometimes gives countenance to guilt and disparages goodness, it after all—at least in cases of glaring wickedness and undeniable virtue--frowns upon the vicious and does homage to the upright; and if human laws do not sanction goodness with reward, they visit crime with punishment. Such, it must surely be admitted by all who are not wilfully and obstinately blind to facts of universal experience, is the constitution of nature-such the course of natural providence; and if we grant, as every Theist must, that these are from God, they amount, in the language of Butler, to an authoritative" declaration on His part in favour of virtue and against vice." But, as stated already, there are exceptions, and many.

Virtue often suffers, and

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