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him differ from every unbeliever. Religion controls the opinions and the judgments of the mind, and directs and obliges the intellect to believe all truths on the authority of God, and to approve of all of them as they are revealed by him. The human mind is much better and much safer when steered under the powerful influence of this unearthly magnet, than it is when "tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine," which ever blew from Athens, or from Rome. emotions, and all the various classes of affections, passions, and tempers of man, are to be influenced and governed by religion in the character of good, and in the duties of usefulness they all find their course and their direction, their level and their rest. Even the WILL, the boldest assertor of liberty in the range of the universe, is to be controlled and regulated by the power of religion. Truth is "the law of liberty," the regulator of the will in its choice and selections. Under this regulating power the will is as free as the river is within its banks. Will, even in God, is not ungoverned, nor is it in man, without a regulating law and this law is Religion. The Divine will, though controlled by wisdom, justice, and mercy, is perfectly free; and the human will, though governed and influenced by the same principles, must be alike free. The "power of godliness is" the glorious liberty of the children of God."

3. The numerous and weighty duties of religion require, for their faithful discharge, a principle of energy and force commensurate with their importance. To restrain indwelling sin, to subdue fretting corruptions, to master well-schemed and well-timed temptations, to attain eminent piety, to undertake holy enterprises of peril and self-denial, and to realize wide and extensive usefulness, are not duties to be performed by infant power; nor are these achievements to be won by a sickly or a sluggish religion. It is only religion in power that enables a man to accomplish them all. It cowers before no opposition, it is appalled by no difficulty, it is abashed by no towering foe, it shrinks from no conflict, it succumbs to no splendid iniquity, it bows to no formidable titles, it evades no obligation, it avoids no unwelcome duty, it spares no sin, it is a secret and powerful "might in the inner man."

Religion makes its power evident and manifest by its results. It draws the sluggish heart to radiate its affections to things that are above; it constrains man to resign and forsake his darling sin; it impels him to acquire and produce good;

it excites him to fervid love and glowing compassion for the souls of men; it urges him to arduous and unwearied efforts to ameliorate the world; it fortifies him against all opposition, discouragement, and ingratitude; it supports him under all the buffetings of men, and the languishings of his own heart; it curbs and subdues in his passions everything rampant, disorderly, and likely to injure his usefulness; and it bears him aloft and along, far from the enclosures of selfishness, to a holier region of feeling, and to a loftier and wider sphere of thought and effort for the glory of Christ. It is the love of Christ constraining him—it is the spring that moves his energies, the atmosphere where his prayers breathe, and the element where his graces live and act. Mind," said the philosopher, "is omnipotent over matter; so religion in power is omipotent over evil. Christians can do all things, and discharge all duties, through Christ strengthening them.

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4. The trials to which religion exposes its possessors call for a powerful principle to strengthen and sustain them. Its trials are represented by taking up the cross, denying self, renouncing friends, forsaking the world, being hated of all men for Christ's sake, cutting off the right hand, and plucking out the right eye, crucifying the flesh, and dying to sin. Under these difficulties, bodily vigor will languish, intellectual energy will fail, moral courage will flag, and a nominal and formal religion will sink and perish. To sustain the constant pressure of these trials requires strength according to the day, and calls for strength to be made perfect in weakness. This is supplied by the power of religion. Together with the thorn in the flesh there is grace sufficient for us. It is the power of godliness that makes our light afflictions work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Sanctified afflictions are the Ebenezers with which the power of religion studs the vale of tears.

5. Religion is calculated and intended to give eminence to the character of its possessor; and this it could not do without being an influential and a master principle. A form of eminence will never give real distinction to a character. Pedantry is the form of learning, flattery is the form of praise, a counterfeit is the form of a sterling coin, doggerel is the form of poetry, daubing is the form of painting, and rites and ceremonies are the forms of devotion. These things never give eminence to a character. In our present circumstances in the flesh, religion cannot be manifested without forms; therefore, it is not

criminal to have forms of religion; but to have the forms without the power, and to have the pretensions without the reality, are nothing but organized hypocrisy. The case of a formalist is like that of a man who has a thousand counterfeits, which are found wanting, and declared to be so, by the standard of the kingdom, and who yet persists in the assertion that they are the real coin of the realm. Since, then, the form of godliness is not godliness, it is an infinite wrong to religion to hold it responsible for the conduct of men, who avowedly do not live under its influence and control. Nothing but religion suffers opprobrium in this way. There are many upstarts who make ridiculous and unworthy pretensions to philosophy, poetry, learning, &c.; but no man, on that account, thinks it right to traduce the sciences or revile the arts; but, as soon as any fictitious specimen of pietism is detected, pure and undefiled religion has to bear all the reproach. Religion receives this treatment, a treatment which is as unphilosophical as it is wicked, because men are happy of any pretext to blame the cause of their Maker. True religion, notwithstanding this unjust treatment, is true power: it has weight and pressure to constrain all minds, force and momentum to impel all hearts, pungency and penetration to impregnate all principles, and vitality and action to affect and model every fact and every event brought under its control. It is the power of God in the soul of man.

§ II. On Impressions of Character.

Religious character is religious power. Character is the impression which a man's habits and actions produce upon other minds. Hence a man's habits are called his ways and his footsteps, because they leave behind him traces, which mark the direction of his life. The character of a man's habits exists in his own mind, as the image in the seal, before it is impressed on the mind of another. The force of example is universally allowed, and this is only another name for energy of character. The Holy Spirit points our attention to the character of saints, as calculated to influence us in the formation of our own character; and he recommends us to be followers of them, who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises, to tread in the footsteps of the flock, and to "walk also in the steps of that faith of our Father Abraham, which he had, being yet uncircumcised." This class of

imagery, borrowed from footsteps and ways, will appear very suitable for illustrating the force of example, if we only consider the process of forming a character. It is not one step that makes a path, and it is not one act that forms a character: the path is made by a series of steps, and a character is formed by a series of habits. The measures and the actions of man must make impressions on others as well as upon himself, in order to enable them to form an idea of the character of his mind and heart. Let us pursue this train of thought further, that we may more clearly explain the sentiment that the Christian church will make deeper impressions of religion upon the world, by the energy of her own religious character, than by any other means.

I. Every man, in going through this world, leaves behind him traces of his principles and temper, or, what may be termed, impressions of his character.

Were a man to be snatched into one of the planets, or taken into one of the worlds of the galaxy, his appearance there would make an impression upon all the intelligences, who saw or heard him. An infant spirit does not sojourn for a day only, or a mere hour, in our world, without leaving behind it, on the minds of parents and friends, some impressions, which the varied events and attritions of time, and even the duration of eternity, will never efface. All allow that distinguished philosophers, celebrated poets, conquering heroes, and trampling tyrants, produce these kinds of impressions upon the history of the world; but the fact is equally true of every individual character. Perhaps every single individual has not originated or marked out a particular path or track for himself, as a hero or philosopher might have done; but every man has, according to the force of his own principles, and the weight of his own influence, done what in him lay to keep open the track, and to preserve it distinctly marked and well defined. He may not be the first to mark out the track of covetousness, intemperance, or profaneness; but he has done what his spirit and temper, what his dispositions and habits could do, to make and preserve these traces to be a beaten path and an open road for others. A man never takes a journey, never writes a letter, never meets a party, never exchanges words with a stranger, never spends a single day, never converses with a child dandled upon his knees, but he is in the act of producing impressions of his character, and leaving behind him footsteps of his actions and conduct. We

know and recollect that others have produced these impres sions upon our minds, when they very little intended it; and this fact, should teach us the solemn lesson, that we also are constantly producing impressions on others when we little think of it. Probably we are never more marked than when we think ourselves the least observed. That which a man is, when he thinks himself the least watched, is his real character; and it is this that makes the readiest and the deepest impression upon mankind. Such is the universe of which man is a member. It is one entire and complete system of relations and dependences, combinations and junctions, so that an event in it sends impressions, like the circles produced by a stone thrown into a lake, even to its utmost boundaries. The tear of a penitent, shed in an obscure nook of this world, thrills entire principalities and powers in heavenly places, and diffuses joy again among the stars of the morning.

II. The impressions which men leave behind them of their principles, spirit, and character, have very great influence on all who witness them.

You have observed a path through a newly ploughed field. That path is, for the whole year, crooked or straight according to the footsteps of the first person who walked over it. Thus, a family takes impressions from the character of the parents, a Sunday-school class from its teacher, a church from its pastor, and a nation from its governors. The impressions of character have greater influence upon mankind than any other impressions. Instruction and advice may do much; eloquence and argument, philosophy and legislation, may do more; but example is above them all. One painting or engraving of a landscape, or of an animal, will give to all men a more accurate and fixed conception of it, than many pages of verbal description. On the same principle, in our nature, religion delineated in one living character, by his temper and actions, gives to the world more correct and adequate views of godliness, than a thousand of the most learned and able dissertations.

As God has endowed human nature with great and wonderful powers of imitation, he has adopted a system of instruction suited to this capacity. He teaches by examples; and experience and consciousness testify that this is the most efficient way of teaching. In the scriptures, God does not give us a dissertation on faith, but he traces the life of Abraham; he does not discourse upon patience, but sketches the life of Job; he does not pronounce an august address on usefulness, but