facts embraced in such a supposition impossible. If we were to study nature for ever, we should never expect to meet with any thing like this.

Now I apply this to the case of human nature. And I desire you to suspend your judgment of the comparison for one moment till I can fully lay it before you. Consider, in the first place, the dignity of the being, to illustrate whose condition this comparison is brought. Consider all the difference between animal sense, and a being so "infinite in faculties" as man. Suppose, in the next place, that this being, acting according to an unquestionable law of his nature, should improve his faculties to the highest degree conceivable, without the knowledge of a future life. And finally, suppose him, with all the craving wants, the soaring aspirations, and the exquisite, varied, and multiplied sorrows of refined thought and feeling, to stand upon the earth, as it rolled in silence through the mighty void of heaven, — with death all around him, and without one voice from beyond the realms of visible life to assure him, that he should live hereafter, – and then say, whether this would not be a condition more mournful, more disastrous, more at war with the order of divine beneficence, than any catastrophe that ever could befall animal natures,

If any one distrusts this comparison, I must beg leave to doubt whether he fairly comprehends it. The truth is, that all the world has held to revelations in one form or another. By communications direct or traditional, by the voice of augurs or of prophets, by open miracle or inward light, all mankind have deemed themselves to have special guidance from above. It is an important inference from this fact, that no one can very well estimate the case of supposed utter destitution; and, therefore, that it is extremely difficult for any individual to feel the whole and legitimate force of this argument. Every man has been trained up from childhood by a system of communications; and now, upon the very strength of these communications, or of the convictions they have inevitably inspired, he deems himself able to stand without them. But difficult as the task is made by the unfair position of the objector, I shall offer two or three observations, in close, tending to show the need, and therefore the likelihood, instead of the often alleged improbability, of an extraordinary revelation.

Leaving other communications out of the account, then, we, as Christians, say that about eighteen centuries ago, at a period

at once of unprecedented intellectual developement and equally prevailing skepticism, there appeared an extraordinary teacher from heaven. I am not now to offer any of the arguments for his divine mission, that seem to me so abundant and overwhelming; but I think I am fully entitled by the circumstances to say, that there ought to be no presumption against it. For it is undeniable, that, amidst all the lights of Grecian and Roman civilization, the most important truths, the unity and paternity of God, and the immortality of man, were obscured; and it is but a reasonable inference, that without a revelation, they would have been overshadowed with doubt till And even the belief that prevailed in the minds of a few philosophers, seems to me singularly to have wanted vitality. There is more reasoning than conviction apparent in their discourses; and certainly their faith had but little influence on their lives. Cicero, we know, and others, amidst all their hopes, had strong doubts. And I maintain, not only from these examples, but from the experience of every powerful mind since, that no reasonings can relieve that great question from painful, from distressing uncertainty.

now.

My argument, then, is from human experience, and from cultivated human experience. It is easy to see, that a rude age might less need the relief which a revelation on this point would give; and for this reason, as I hold, to rude ages it was not given. My argument, then, is from cultivated human experience. And this is the form into which it resolves itself. God is the author of life, and the former of the mind. It is fair to presume, that he, who has provided for the wants of the humblest animal life, would not doom the noblest creature he has made on earth, to overwhelming despondency and misery. Now I say, that, without a revelation, this result is inevitable. I maintain, that no scheme of a virtuous, improving, and happy life can be made out, which leaves the doctrines of God's paternal and forgiving mercy, and of human immortality, in great and serious doubt.

My friends, I bring home the case to myself, and to you. I know what it is to doubt, and I say that no man should judge of the effect of that doubt, till he knows by experience what it is; till, crushed by its weight, he has laid himself down to his nightly rest, too miserable and desperate to care whether he ever raised his head from that pillow of repose and oblivion; till every morning has waked him to sadness and despond

ency darker than the gloomiest night that ever clouded the path of earthly sorrow. It is not calamity, it is no worldly disappointment, it is not affliction, it is not grief, that I speak of; nor is it any of these that gives the greatest intensity to this doubt; it is a developement of our own nature; it is the soul's own struggling with the mighty powers with which it is made to grapple; it is the longed-for and almost felt immortality, struck from our eager grasp, the light gone out, — the heaven of our hope all overshadowed and dark. Yes, it is the consciousness of infinite desires and capacities, all blighted and broken down; it is the aspiring which suns and stars cannot bound, all shrunk and buried in a coffin and a grave! In short, it is the proper and legitimate state of a mind following the premises of the case to their just result; and not that worldly condition of the mind, which is no more fit to judge of this subject than childhood is to judge of the interests of an empire. And now I say, Is it hard to believe that God would interpose for humanity, so circumstanced? Is it incredible that he should send a voice into that deep and dark struggle for spiritual life and hope?

I appeal to you, my brethren. I appeal to the youth who are before me. It is thought that this age is witnessing an unusual developement of infidel principles. One whole nation, indeed, has fallen a victim to them. And what is new and striking, it is said has a kind of fascination for youth. But I hold that this is an age, too, which is witnessing an extraordinary developement of sensibility in the young. This arises from an earlier, I had almost said, a premature education; from an exciting literature; and from the character of enterprise and expectation which now invests all the interests and prospects of society. But I ask, Is this an age, when you can safely break the great bond of faith and hope? If you were a dull and sluggish youth, or a youth amidst rude and barbarous times, it might not yield me the argument which I now seek. But I know that in this age, ay, and in this assembly, there is many a youthful heart, whose daily experience is the strongest possible proof of the need, and therefore of the likelihood, of a divinely sanctioned religion. Ay, I know, and many a sorrowing parent in this land knows, that the period of youth cannot be safely passed without it. Those thronging passions, those swaying sympathies of social life, the deeper musings of solitary hours, the imaginations, the affections, the thoughts,

unuttered and unutterable, all the sweeping currents that bear the youthful heart it scarcely knows whither, all show that it cannot be thrown without infinite peril, to drift upon a sea of doubt.

Humanity, in fine, and especially in its growing cultivation, has too hard a lot, it appears to me, if God has not opened for it the fountains of revelation. Without that great disclosure from above, human nature stands, in my contemplation of it, as an anomaly amidst the whole creation. The noblest existence on earth is not provided with a resource even so poor as instinct. On the heart that is made to bear the weight of infinite interests, sinks the crushing burthen of doubt and despondency, of fear and sorrow, of pain and death, without resource or relief, or comfort, or hope. The cry of the young ravens, the buzzing of insect life in every hedge, is heard; but the call, that comes up from the deep and dark conflict of the overshadowed soul, dies upon the vacant air; and there is no ear to hear, nor eye to pity. Oh! were it so, what could sustain the human heart sinking under the burthen of its noblest aspirations?"The still, sad music of humanity," sounding on through all time, would lose every soothing tone, and would become a wail, in which the heart of the world would die!

And why must any man think that the world is left to that darkness and misery? Because he cannot believe, that a communication has been made from heaven in the only conceivable way in which it can be made and proved; by miracles. For I affirm, that, if that great preliminary difficulty were over, all difficulties would vanish before the stupendous proofs of a revelation. He that thinks, then, that the world is left to nature's darkness, thinks thus, I repeat, because he cannot believe in miracles; because he cannot admit that the order of nature which is itself not an end, but a means to an end, may be interrupted for the greatest of all ends; - because he will not admit, that the infinite Power is superior to the laws itself has made; because he will not allow, in his philosophy, that liberty to the Infinite Parent, in changing and adapting his provisions to the wants of his children, that he allows to every earthly parent. Is this the childlike and trustful, the deep-searching and discerning, the expansive and unprejudiced spirit of true philosophy, or is it the shallow and skeptical spirit of bondage to the mere outward forms and

processes of things, regardless of their higher meanings and

ends?

Here for the present I leave the subject. I have not undertaken in this discourse to prove the truth of Christianity; but, if I have succeeded in removing the great obstacle, — in opening the door to the argument, the conclusion, I think, will easily follow. I have not undertaken to prove that there have been miracles; but I do hold myself entitled to say, as the close and inference of this discourse, that I should wonder if there had not been miracles. The philosophical presumption is for, rather than against them. Nature is for, more than it is against them, its mechanical order only being against them, while its whole spirit is in their favor. Man's necessity, God's mercy, is for them; and against them is what? What is against all legitimate wisdom and conviction? Why, only a doubt, - which is mostly vague and irresponsible, -which, because it is a doubt, holds itself scarcely bound to give a reason, and which, though it is a doubt, sits immovable, as if it held the very seat of knowledge, and throne of reason. To allow it to sit there undisturbed, is to yield more deference to a shadow, than to the very substance of reason and truth.

ART. VIII. The Library of American Biography. Conducted by JARED SPARKS. Vol. V. Life of John Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians. By CONVERS FRANCIS. Boston Hilliard, Gray, & Co. 1836. 16mo. pp. 357.

A WORTHIER literary enterprise has not been projected amongst us than this "American Biography." Mr. Sparks was fortunate in the first conception of the plan, nor has he been less so in the execution, the subjects chosen, and the contributors obtained. The time, too, is propitious. The country is not so new as to make the catalogue scanty of those deserving such memorial, or to give to their biographies a contemporaneous character; nor yet is it so old as to preclude system and considerable completeness in the undertaking. An editor, so well versed in our annals as Mr. Sparks, and, we may add, so judicious in selection, and indefatigable in accomplishment, with