Then there is the momentous concern of the preparation for hereafter. When the spirit lies waiting to be gone, and casts its farewell glance at all it knew and loved below, there is, indeed, satisfaction for it in the thought that the duties of life have been done, that no one has been defrauded, and that friends have been kindly treated. We may not undervalue the worth of this testimony of the conscience. But the sinking immortal at that hour looks forward as well as backward; surveys with anxious thought the world he is approaching, as well as that which he is leaving. There, he feels, he is to commence a spiritual existence in new spheres and in higher connections. There

he is to meet the God who made him; there he is to see the Savior who redeemed him; there he is to join the spirits of the just made perfect, and the company of the angels. And will he not feel, that, for that scene, and that company, and those enjoyments, he needs a preparation of heart, affection, spirit, which the performance of duties growing out of his temporal relations has not made? Must he not feel that only the possession of an inward principle could fit him for, and enable him to relish, that spiritual state? Without that spiritual relish, not even heaven could give happiness. Let him enter its regions of glory, let him be received to the company of the blessed, give him the crown of glory and the harp of gold, and let the beauty of the throne of God pour its light around his feet, there is no enjoyment in it all to him; it is only a weariness; for the spiritual relish is wanting; his tastes and habits have been formed on the relations and pleasures of a bodily existence, and none else have any charm for him.

Is it not amazing, when we seriously give ourselves to reflections like these, that we are so content with the worldliness of our common life? Is it not amazing that we can

rest satisfied with this ordinary routine of formal existence, which goes not a step beyond the decent acquittal of the prescribed task of the hour, and gives no heed to the demands of the life within us and beyond us? If there be a spirit in man, virtue cannot be a thing of present expediency and social regularity; it must be an inwoven principle, deepseated and fervent, affecting the state of mind no less than the conduct. If that spirit is immortal, the holiness which belongs to it can be no mere adaptation to the exigencies and relations of this earthly existence, but must be a high, immortal, insatiable desire, aspiration, passion, for an excellence independent of the body, unrelated to time, such as dwells only in the retirements of heaven, and thirsts for its peculiar joys. Knowledge must cease, prophecies fail, and all earthly possessions decay and disappear; but the ethereal, celestial PRINCIPLE of goodness and felicity survives, indestructible and everlasting. If it dwell in us now, it will conduct us to duty as nothing else can. Then, even on earth, as the apostle says, we shall dwell in God, and finally shall dwell in heaven.

RELIGION

A RESTRAINT AND AN EXCITEMENT.

I HAVE often had occasion to call to mind the remark which once fell from a friend in conversation, to the effect that much practical error arises from men's looking on religion as a restraint alone, instead of considering it as an excitement also. The thoughts suggested by this hint are of most various and extensive application in the whole process of the religious life. What is that process, in fact, but the subjection of the soul to that will of God which restrains from all that is evil and excites to all that is excellent?

Undoubtedly the first aspect in which religion presents itself to man, is that of restraint. Its office is that of prohibition. Its commandments run in the language of denial — Thou shalt not. It forbids certain gratifications which nature craves. It insists on the denial of certain propensities, on limiting the indulgence of certain desires, on refraining from certain states of mind, and certain courses of conduct. It requires self-control, circumspection, thoughtfulness. It is thus a universal and ever-present restraint. He who acknowledges its authority feels that neither his body nor his spirit, neither his talents nor his time, are his own; they are the Lord's. He may neither live to himself nor die to himself. His business, his recreations, the emotions of his heart, the purposes and plans of his life, the

accents of his lips, the demeanor of every hour, are to be placed under the control of moral and religious principle.

But for a man to stop here, and fancy his religious culture done, would be a most absurd and pernicious error. This is but the beginning. This is only the negative. He knows what he must not do and be. But what must he do? What must he be? Will not religion teach him this? Religion is therefore an excitement to right action as well as a prohibition from wrong; it urges the heart to attach itself to what is lovely and pure, as well as to avoid what is low and base; it prompts to the glory of doing what is noble, as well as deters from the sin of doing what is mean and vile; it stimulates to action in every way of improvement and goodness. So that nothing can be more erroneous than their opinion who fancy it severe and morose, occupied wholly in checking the flow of the spirits and damping the ardor of the feelings, never speaking but to chide folly, and presenting forever the dark side of things. On the contrary, what more animating than its promises! what more inspiriting than the scenes to which it invites in the future! what more cheerful than its pursuits of useful labor and affectionate toils of beneficence and hours of elevated contemplation! And as to its showing the dark side of things, it is that which alone shows that every thing has a bright side, and unveils it to the eye of desponding humanity. He who sees only the prohibition, and feels only the restraint, without having his heart stirred with a holy purpose of action, and a joy in the anticipation of better things, has learned as yet only the alphabet of religious culture; he is a babe bound about with swaddling clothes, with no use nor enjoyment of a free and active existence.

It is clear, therefore, that wherever there is the true operation of the religious principle, it must perform both of

these functions alike. It must control and impel. No one will throw off the restraint, and impetuously follow the impulse; no one will be satisfied with the restraint alone, but will seek a higher and more active life.

Yet it is equally clear that it will be principally felt as a restraint in the beginning of the religious career. When the struggle for ascendency first takes place between the sensual, worldly principle and the religious principle, the latter prevails, if at all, by throwing a restraint over the worldly and sensual. This is the first step. It lays a check on the indulgence of selfish desires, and animal pleasures, and every wrong propensity. Like the voice which was heard in the wilderness, it announces the coming of God's kingdom in the soul by the cry, Repent! Quit these false pleasures; correct your taste for this false happiness; abandon these unworthy habits.

This is unwelcome and irksome. But as the progress of the religious life goes on, as the man becomes better acquainted with its sublime spirit, and is more habitually observant of its laws, he comes to be less sensible to the restraint, and more alive to its quickening and exciting powers. It ceases to be to him a burden, and grows into a pleasure; it is no longer a hardship, it is a delight. The privations which were at first severe, are no longer privations. The duties that were at first hard because new, are now familiar, and he is fond of them. Like the beginner in any new occupation, art, or study, he is for a long time. awkward and embarrassed by the strangeness of his position, and by mere unaccustomedness to the rules and routine of his pursuit. The learner on a musical instrument is perplexed and pained by the rules which operate as a distressing restraint upon him; but after a time they become familiar and natural, and nothing can be an apter emblem of freedom than the motion of his flying fingers as they kiss