Ghost, it has changed the face of the world, and uprooted those deep foundations of human society which were every where inlaid with injustice, oppression and misery. It has renovated the character of individuals, families and nations; and in the same proportion in which its principles and spirit have prevailed, has banished sin and misery from the abodes of men. Its influence has not always been alike uniform, because it has sometimes had more difficulties and opposition to encounter than at others; nor has it always been alike visible, even where it has been real and felt, because its plans are comprehensive and it acts upon a large scale. But even where most obstructed, it has left sensible traces of its benevolent design; and where least observed, it has often been preparing the way for its most extended conquests.

May it not then be said, that the religion of the Bible is a benevolent religion? Who, that is a friend to man, is not the friend of the Bible? What part of the earth that now enjoys them, can afford to dispense with the Scriptures? What greater calamity could befall our world than to lose the last copy of this sacred Book? What benevolent man would extinguish such a light as this? Whoever was induced, from a sincere regard to the best interests of his fellow men, to subvert the foundation of so much public tranquillity, and so. many private virtues and hopes? Who would bring back upon the world. the ignorance and servitude, the horror and crime of the dark ages?

Who would be the agent in inducing it to retrace its steps to the ignorance and superstitions of paganism; to the impure and sanguinary altars of Baal-Peor, Moloch, and Ashtaroth; to the obscene groves of oriental idolatry; to the hero-gods of Egypt and Greece, and to all that shall foster the basest and most malignant passions of men ? Who would throw back the human intellect upon a state of scepticism and uncertainty as to the reality of a future and immortal existence, and the way of securing its blessedness by faith in the only Redeemer? Who would impart anew all their power to those exciting causes of human depravity which the Bible has subdued, or restrained? Who would dry up those living fountains of joy which it has opened? Who would destroy or diminish its motives to well-doing, and wither its fruits of righteousness? Who would refuse its consolations to the heart of the bereaved, and provoke afresh those tears of the mourner which it has wiped away? Who would tell the widow and the orphan to go and visit the tombs of those they loved, and come trembling away, trembling on through life, trembling and uncertain to the grave, to learn all there, but not to bring back the secret? O, where is the man that would thus consent to restore to death the sting, and to the grave the victory, which the Bible has taken away? No calculations could measure, no numbers estimate the loss, were this Book to be blotted out of existence; nor were it possible to appreciate it, except from

the extended cry of misery and despair that would be consequent on excluding it from the world. Fiends, alone, and men like fiends, would toll its funeral knell, and crowd in joyful procession to its tomb; while virtuous and holy minds, veiled in mourning, and bathed in tears, would turn away disconsolate, and bury their hopes in the same grave with the Bible.

May we not also say, in view of the preceding lectures, THAT THE BIBLE IS A BOOK PRE-EMINENTLY DISTINGUISHED FOR ITS INTELLECTUAL

SUPERIORITY? With very few exceptions, I have carefully read this book every day for more than forty years, and I have never discovered in it a single mark of intellectual imbecility. Though portions of it were written during the periods of this world's infancy and darkness, and when contemporaneous authors evinced nothing more than their ignorance and weakness; though it treats of a vast variety of themes, difficult, complicated, and some of them mysterious; yet does it every where evince a powerful and well-disciplined intelligence. In mere intellectual excellence, it has claims to superiority over every other and all other books.

It is in every view an original work. It is impossible for language to speak of it in this respect in the terms of commendation which it deserves. Its amazing thoughts and combinations of thought, discover wonderful originality of mind. Read, for example, the Ten Commandments given from Mount Sinai by Moses; a code of laws so wonder

fully comprehensive and perfect, that it cannot be improved upon by all the legislative wisdom of the world, either as it regards its influence upon human opinions, affections, and conduct. And the entire book exhibits throughout, the same originality and simplicity of thought. While it aims not at originality for its own sake, yet "it makes disclosures which have eclipsed and consigned to oblivion all prior discoveries." It does not disdain to dwell upon important truths that are old, and give them to the world again with "all that original freshness and force which is the peculiar prerogative of genius," nor does it withhold disclosures that are peculiarly its own. Many of its instructions are common-place to us, while to the most learned minds of Greece and Rome, they were

new and strange things," and have added almost every thing that is original and valuable to our intellectual resources. Its sublimest truths and great peculiarities it places in a clear and strong light; and what is always the work of an original and powerful mind, makes them as level to the capacities of the meanest, as of the highest intellect. To cursory readers, whose object is amusement, they afford comparatively little interest; but to those who will consent to digest what they read, they will prove a perfectly original source of mental improvement.

The Bible is also an inexhaustible book. The extent, number, variety and importance of the subjects of which it treats, the weight and perti

nence of its instructions, as well as the illimitable extent of views it opens to the mind, give it a preeminence above all other books that ever were written. The more you gaze at its splendours, the more is your vision dazzled and overpowered; and the more you investigate its truths, the more do its resources appear unwasted and unwasting. It has exhausted many a life, and many a capacious and vigorous mind, while itself remains unexhausted. There are men who have studied this volume most thoroughly and intensely, and who, the more they have studied, have been the more charmed with its clearness and simplicity; and who, at the same time, have been at every step of their progress, more and more deeply convinced that it is a fathomless profound of light and knowledge. There are those who have made it the chief object of their investigation for half a century; who have studiously examined every paragraph it contains, some fifty or an hundred times; and who, at every fresh perusal, have discovered new thoughts and new sources for admiration and joy. It has been read and studied a thousand fold more than any other book; libraries have been written upon it, and while, by every unwearied research, you see that new truths are elicited, you at the same time hear the most patient students of its pages confess, that the more deeply they have been absorbed in their contemplations of it, the deeper has been their conviction of its illimitable

resources.