their prison-house, will be no longer weighed down by earthly encumbrances, doomed to a pitiless search after happiness in cold and heartless amusements, compelled to waste their heaven-born energies in the attempt to secure a few coarse physical gratifications. They will be employed about objects, capable of meeting those deep wants, and those fond longings after a more intellectual mode of being, which are often felt, but which the world is incapable of satisfying. Christianity, while it is occupied especially with the heart, does not neglect the understanding, does not discourage exertions of intellect, but favors its growth and activity, quickens, stimulates, exalts, and fills all its faculties. It would carry forward rational beings towards that perfection for which they were formed. This religion, it is true, has been sometimes made to teach doctrines unfavorable to the exercise and expansion of our highest faculties. Its visage has been darkened, and its glories dimmed. Instead of being presented to view in a form adapted to satisfy, to elevate, and perfect our capacities, it has been offered in a dress, from which our understandings have been compelled to turn away. It has seemed, like counterfeit worth, to rely on mystery and darkness to set it off. It has inculcated distrust of reason. It has, at one time, degenerated into heartless ceremony, or dwelt in cold metaphysical abstractions; at another, it has grown out into the monstrous shapes of superstition and fanaticism.-But let us distinguish between Christianity, as it was left by its Founder, and Christianity as disfigured by human additions; between the simple and life-giving doctrines of inspiration, and the chilling, narrow, and fallacious speculations of men. The former is fitted to work efficaciously in our souls. It appeals to all parts of our nature; it is the assistant and strengthener of intellect, the inspirer of deep and generous thought, and quickener of all our capacities. Those spiritual objects, to which it directs the attention, have not more a soothing, than a refining and ennobling influence. They impart dignity to our views and feelings.

In proportion as we become familiar with them, and strive after them, the dominion of the senses is broken or weakened; earthly cares and interests cease to engross our minds; we feel that we were formed for excellence, not attainable in the present life, that we were sent forth to try, to strengthen, and enlarge our powers, not to reap the full fruits of them in this imperfect state.

The tendency of Christianity to excite, to form, and expand the intellect, and inspire a taste for its appropriate gratifications, point to our future destiny. It has reference not to the present scene merely, not to a local and temporary object, but to the glories of a future and invisible world. There our invigorated and enlarged capacities will find occupation suited to gratify a divine thirst of excellence. Of the mode in which they will operate, when those organs, which now supply the materials of thought, and instruments for conducting its processes, are lost, we cannot, at present, even conjecture, but we are authorized to believe, that it will be more refined and perfect than any of which we can now form a conception. There the clouds of ignorance, which now collect around us, will be gradually dispelled. We shall taste the satisfaction of rapidly accumulating, and ever fresh knowledge. We shall become more familiar, than the condition of mortality admits, with the extent, the harmony, and perfection of God's works; obtain additional and more distinct views of the moral glories by which he is surrounded, be made more fully sensible of his all-pervading and all-cheering presence and love. The obscurity, which now hangs around many of the objects of our faith, will be removed. The doubts and indecision, in which our most careful researches often terminate; the hesitation of judgment, which we frequently feel, and which may occasion distressing apprehension in consequence of our dread of receiving articles of faith on weak evidence, on one hand, or, on the other, of withholding assent, where the evidence is sufficient to authorize belief: all this doubt and hesitation will vanish, and

all painful uncertainty be at an end. Now,' observes St. Paul, we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face; now we know in part, but then shall we know, even as we are known.'

Let a contemplation of the intellectual glories of a future life influence our choice of pursuits and gratifications now; let it touch and fire our hearts, and light up in our souls a noble ardor and enthusiasm of excellence.-Beware of the seducing power of the senses; beware of that levity of mind, which shuns the fatigue of thought, and seeks its sole gratification in a round of frivolous and empty pleasures. Yield not to the temptation of indolence, and the engrossing influence of worldly occupations and cares. Remember that the understanding was given to be exerted, matured, refined, and exalted. The Author of our capacities never intended, that this noblest attribute of our nature should be a talent wrapped up and hidden in the earth; he never intended that it should be nothing more than the minister of the body, that it should be sunk in sensuality, absorbed by avarice, narrowed, degraded, and choked by the tares of worldly amusements, and pride, and flattery. It is a divine and heavenly power, tending upward to the throne of Godto imperishable and ever-growing excellence.

II. The gratifications of another life, however, will not be purely intellectual and speculative; they will partake of a moral character; they will flow from a contemplation and exercise of goodness; they will correspond to a pure taste, to virtuous sensibility, to exalted feelings and views, to a beneficent and humane temper. Our affections will cling around moral objects; they will be drawn forth towards all that is intrinsically venerable and lovely. Nothing will be wanting, which is capable of ministering to a heart expanded and enriched by the noblest and most sublime excellence. Virtue is God's law'; it contributes to our contentment and solace on earth, but its felicity and sweets will be fully tasted only in heaven.

We have said, that Christianity occupies itself with the understanding; that it proposes to itself the exaltation of its several faculties, as a qualification for the sublime scenes and employments of a future life. We now observe, that it occupies itself still more with the heart; it labors to mould the temper and affections, still more earnestly than to form the mind; it directs the attention to the moral still more frequently than to the intellectual distinctions of the world to come. It teaches us to place our hopes of pardon and felicity, not on mental endowments and acquisitions, but on the end to which we consecrate them; not on gifts of genius, on subtlety, and knowledge, but on the feelings, motives, and character, which God and all moral beings approve and love.

Unsanctified intellect cannot save us. The soul torn with deformed passions, debased and stained by sin, is not a fit companion for the spirits of the good and just. It is morally, essentially diseased, and until the malady is thrown off, no part of the universe can afford it a safe and happy resting-place. Which way' it flies is hell,' * itself is hell.' It may now find a temporary and partial alleviation and forgetfulness of sorrow and degradation in the gratification of depraved appetites, but when, divested of its present senses, and disengaged from the influence of outward objects, it is thrown back on itself, and all its thoughts are turned inward, it will experience an intensity of suffering not unfitly, though, perhaps, inadequately represented by the scripture metaphors of inextinguishable flames, and a never dying worm. Genuine and exalted goodness, a healthy state of the affections, warm and confiding piety, and meek, beneficent and compassionate temper, a quick discernment, a true relish, and possession of moral excellence, can alone raise the soul to heaven, or, to speak more accurately, they make heaven within our own breasts. Such excellence most dignifies and embellishes our natures, and ministers to rich and exhaustless solace and delight. It is a divine and godlike attribute; it assimilates us to pure spirits above, to Jesus,

and to God, the Father of Jesus. The primary object, which the great Author of our existence and happiness has kept constantly in view in all his dispensations to man, has been to produce and perfect it within us, and thus fit us for the highest spiritual and moral gratifications in another and more permanent form of being.

Those moral affections, which we are urged alike by reason and by the instructions and example of the Saviour to excite and strengthen, by every method in our power, while on earth, will, we may readily believe, be rendered hereafter more vigorous and intense, and they will meet with objects suited to their nature, and with such alone. Our warfare with sin will have been accomplished, and all painful remembrances, and all gloomy apprehensions, of weakness and of temptation, have ceased. We shall no longer fear the infection of a vicious world, no longer breathe an atmosphere loaded with the exhalations of earthly passions. We shall gaze only on images of purity, and be surrounded with attractive forms of goodness, and bright spirits of love, and all will be harmony and freshness, and sanctity, and truth. Though we may still hold our happiness by the tenure of obedience, nothing, we may presume, will have power ever more to mar our virtue, or overshadow our felicity. We shall be urged onward in our heavenly course by the charms of growing excellence, and expanding sweets of goodness, by the memory of tasted joys, and hope of ever new delight. The love of God, which will be shed. abroad and strengthened within us, in proportion as the veil, which now hides him from our view, is gradually withdrawn, will attract, sustain, and fill our souls, constituting at once our motive and reward.

Be careful, then, to excite and nourish this, and all moral, all pure, and beneficent affections. Adapted as they are to our nature, and full of dignity and solace, they will not spring up, grow, and expand in the heart without the hand of culture. Cherish them, therefore, and sedulously guard them against all injurious influences.