acter; it resembles, in some main points, the man who frames it. He cannot think that the carnal mind is enmity against God; for he esteems God a Being who has done, and will do, very much in accordance with a plan which he himself esteems rational and proper. It is true, we cannot exhibit the case of Deists, as to what they love or hate, as plainly as the case of others, because there is such an unending variety in their creed. Go to one hundred Deists, and you will rarely find two of them believing alike. They all agree in rejecting the Bible; but on many very important considerations,—whether God will or will not punish the wicked,-whether the soul goes out, or certainly lives on after death,-whether the world is to meet ruin, or continue forever,—if the wicked are to be chastised, what sins are most dangerous, &c. &c. &c,-they have no sameness in their plans. Many Deists, on questions of breathless interest, will refuse to give you any answer; they will tell you they do not know; they have no belief on the point, however interesting. At other times, you will find them maintaining that man's reason was given him as a lamp to enlighten, and as a guide to direct him in these matters. But ask them what kind of conduct here will mostly add to, or diminish from, happiness hereafter; or what kind of life we may certainly look for in the next existence, and no two of them will give you the same instructions as to these inquiries. The reason of a thousand of them seems to have led in a different direction. That Christian denominations should differ, appears to them exceedingly absurd and reproachful; but that Reason, which they say God has given as our only teacher, should give either no opinion, or a very different opinion amongst their own number, does not call forth a bitter remark. If the Bible is disclaimed, thus far they all agree; far

ther than this they do not ask after agreement, or regret it, should there be a thousand different creeds. A God, according to the Bible, they do not love; one conformed to their own proper ideas they do not hate.

SECOND HEAD.

"Men have loved darkness rather than light."In this assertion, light stands for truth; and the word darkness means falsehood. It does not seem to any one as though he prefers falsehood to truth. The most prejudiced man thinks himself impartial. It is so on any subject. The most vehement politician thinks himself unbiassed in his judgment; the most deadly enemy, in speaking of the one he hates, will tell you that his views are not the offspring of passion; but he certainly would believe evil of his neighbour more readily than good, even when this good is true. We might then very certainly expect, that the man who wishes to live forever; to whom annihilation has no pleasing look, and who even wishes strongly to believe the Bible, would be far from feeling, or believing, that on this subject he would receive darkness rather than light. Nevertheless it is true. Although not in a situation as deplorable as the man who gnashes his teeth on religion,-still it is true, that one small cunningly devised falsehood will influence him further than one hundred plain and forcible arguments in favour of Revelation. A man may stand on the side of a precipitous mountain, and long for the top; yet the impetus of an ounce will push him farther down, than many times that force will cast him up. One who desires the valley below, can go there without a struggle. The man who has sinned, may desire the summit of truth; but he stands on a declivity of a sinful nature. Every transgression, or sensual indulgence, has added to the dark

ness of his soul, without his knowing it. Some examples of this must be given in the following chapter, to make the fact easily understood.

CHAPTER III.

EXAMPLE I.- THAT A TRIFLING FALSEHOOD BEARS HEAVIER

IN INFLUENCING HUMAN BELIEF AGAINST THE BIBLE, THAN DOES GIGANTIC TRUTH IN FAVOUR OF IT.

AN English traveller (Brydone) wrote home a description of Mount Etna. His book was published. He describes her craters and her extended slope, covered occasionally for twenty miles, or more, along the side of the mountain, with vines, villages, and luxuriance. These are sometimes destroyed by the river of melted metal, which issues from the mountain above, many feet deep, and a mile (perhaps more, sometimes less) in width, bears all before it, until it reaches the sea and shoves back its boiling waves. After this burning stream has cooled, there is seen, instead of blooming gardens, a naked, dreary, metalic rock. Eruptions are sometimes many in the course of a year, breaking out at different parts of the mountain, and sometimes none for half a century. The traveller found a cold stream of lava, congealed on the side of the mountain, which attracted his notice more than others. He thought it must have been thrown out by an eruption, which was mentioned by (perhaps) Polybius, as occurring near seventeen hundred years since. There was no soil on it. It was as naked as when first arrested there. The particles of dust floating through the air had not fallen there, so as

to furnish hold for vegetation, and these vegetables had not grown and decayed again and again, thus adding to the depth of the soil. Such work had not even commenced. He tells us that on some part of that mountain, near the foot, if you will sink a pit, you must pass through seven different strata of lava, with two feet soil between each one. Upon the supposition that two thousand years are requisite for the increase of earth just named, he asks how seven different layers could be formed in less than fourteen thousand years. The chronology of Moses makes the world not half that old. The Englishman was jocular at this discovery; and his admirers were delighted at what seemed to them a confutation of the book of heaven. How many thousands through Europe renounced their belief of Revelation with this discovery for their prop, the author of this treatise is unable even to conjecture. It seems that many parts of Europe almost rang at the news of the analogical theory. True, the traveller only conjectured that he had found the lava mentioned by the ancient writer; but no matter, supposition only was strong enough to rivet their unbelief. The author has conversed with those in America, and on her western plains, who would declare they believed not a word of the Bible, because there was no soil on a stratum of lava, which, in all probability, had been there long. Another learned Englishman, an admirer of the books of Moses, wrote to those who seemed to joy so greatly in their new system. He told them that, inasmuch as they seemed fond of arguing from analogies, he would give them an additional one. He reminded them that the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii were covered up by the eruption, in which the elder Pliney lost his life, near seventeen hundred years since. Those cities have lately

been discovered; and in digging down to search their streets, six different strata of lava are passed through, with two feet earth between each one. And the famous Watson tells them, that if six different soils near Vesuvius could be formed in seventeen hundred years, perhaps seven might be made elsewhere in five thousand years. Might we not suppose, that those who had renounced their belief of Christianity, after reading some conjectures concerning Etna, would have resumed their faith as soon as these Vesuvian facts were placed before them? No, it was not so. It was easy to descend, but they never reascended. Men love darkness rather than light. Thousands who snatched after the objection, with joyful avidity, never read the confutation. They never inquired after an answer. Those who read, were afterwards silent, but remained unaltered. A lawyer who stood so high with his fellow-citizens, for worth and intelligence, that he filled many offices of trust, had his credence of the sacred page shaken by reading the suppositious system, built on the surface of Etna's lava streams. He took the book to a friend, to show him what reason we have for casting off our reverence for the Bible. This friend turned over a few pages of the book, where this same traveller, after telling how many eruptions sometimes happen in the course of a month, goes on to narrate the following history, which is here presented substantially, and as exactly as recollection will permit.

The traveller gives us to understand that a small tract, or section of country, on the side of the mountain (perhaps the ancient Hybla) had, because of its extreme luxuriance, been called in the language of the vicinity, (Mel Passi,) the Honey Land. The red stream from the crater above overran it, and left it a spectacle of naked