which prepare him to appreciate, and qualify him to enjoy, all that is worth enjoying, and to a degree that is impossible to a mind less pure. "To the upright, there ariseth light in the midst of darkness." In the gloomiest wilderness, he has a guide that accompanies and cheers him with encouragement. No danger can appal him, no sorrow crush, no doubt depress him. Darkness becomes day, the bitterest flower yields him honey, seeming evil turns to certain good. He utters no complaint, because he knows his lot is so much better than he deserves; he yields not to fear, for he is well assured that by a thousand contrasts and com⚫binations, “all things work together for good to them that love God." Others he sees travelling a gayer road, faring sumptuously, arrayed in rich apparel; but he does not repine, does not envy them. He is content that his path should be through the desert, and over the rough places, so that he has peace and joy within. One of the unfailing sources of happiness, for which we are indebted to the Scriptures, is the spirit and character which it requires and imparts. Man is formed for activity. Exertion is the true element of a well regulated mind. If undisturbed by the implements of husbandry, the soil becomes hard. and impenetrable. Its bosom is not open to the dew, or rain, or to the vivifying influence of the sun. The scattered seed finds no root, but is driven by every wind that blows over the surface. No verdure is seen to greet the eye, or tree bearing fruit to cheer the careless husbandman; but weeds, rank and dangerous to man, spring up from the soil. that was destined for his support and comfort. So it is with the mind of man, when, locked up and deprived of healthful exertion, he lives for himself alone, and only the most sordid passions spring up within his bosom. Benevolence has no room in a soul so narrow; com

passion and sympathy are stifled, and all the nobler faculties languish. Almost the only relief from unmingled misery in the indulgence of some of the evil propensities of our nature, is found in the fact that they produce excitement and incite to exertion. That God who brings good out of evil, has so ordered it that in giving rise to action and effort, even these propensities produce no small amount of good, though aiming at a very different end. Avarice and love of wealth set commerce in motion, provide labour and sustenance for the poor, bring the ends of the earth near to each other, and spread abroad civilization and Christianity. The heathen of the isles and of this continent might still have been unknown, still deprived of the blessings of the gospel, had not the ambitious spirit of adventure quickened the ingenuity and winged the sails of the navigator. The love of fame may be the only motive that inspires the tongue of the orator and the pen of the writer; but God gives them a destiny different from what they proposed to themselves. Their names may be lost amid the rushing whirlpool of time; but their words and their works may break the chains of nations, carry intelligence over the face of the earth, and their influence be felt throughout eternity. Mankind, in this respect, may be not unaptly compared to the Alchymists of old, who spent their lives in laborious search after the fabled philosopher's stone. Their unwearied industry failed of success, for it was directed toward an object that was unattainable; yet, though misapplied, it was not, as subsequent events have shown, without its sources of happiness to themselves, and benefit to the world.

If then action in itself considered, is a source of happiness and a benefit to mankind, how much more when it is founded on intelligent and benevolent

principles? Few sources of pleasure equal those which arise from benevolent exertion. When intelligent and benevolent principles stimulate it to action, then it is that the soul is enlarged and elevated, and the bosom opened to every kindly influence. Benevolence and well doing become their own reward, and inducements to future efforts. The seed sown in such a soil brings forth fruit an hundred fold; and a rich harvest in the happiness of others adds to the already abundant store of our own. But whence are intelligent and benevolent principles of action to be derived? Does nature dictate them? Have they been discovered by reason? Are they found amid the researches of philosophy? Are they gathered from observation? Spring they up even from dear bought experience? What is more obvious, than that the world needs a supernatural revelation, if for nothing else than to discover the true aim and end of man's existence? It is a remark of Cicero, that "those who do not agree in stating what is the chief end, or good, must of course differ in the whole system of precepts for the conduct of human life." And yet this writer informs us, that on this subject “there was so great a dissension among the philosophers, that it was almost impossible to enumerate their different sentiments." And hence it is that the men of pagan lands so rarely even professed to put forth their exertions for a benevolent end, and kuew so little of the happiness arising from such an exalted source. Great exertions from great motives constitute the glory and blessedness of our nature. And nowhere do we learn what great exertions and great motives are, but from the Bible. The wisdom to guide, and the aliment to sustain them, are derived only from that great source of instruction and duty. Where on all the pages of pagan and infidel philosophy do we

read such an injunction as this: "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, do all to the glory of God." Whence, but from that sacred book do we learn the maxim, so familiar to every Christian mind, "None of us liveth to himself, and none of us dieth to himself; but whether we live, we live unto the Lord, and whether we die, we die unto the Lord!" He, and he alone, is the happy man, who has been taught to consider the nature and tendency of his conduct, and whether it will approve itself to God, and advance the designs of his truth and love in the world; who makes his will the rule, and his glory the end; and whose governing aim and study are to please him, and show forth his praise. Such a man is happy, because he lives to do good. His daily employment is his daily joy. His "meat is to do the will of him that sent him, and finish his work. He may be as great a sufferer as Paul, and yet as happy as he. He cannot be miserable, so long as he acts from the principle of communicative goodness. No matter where his particular sphere of occupation, he is happy. His aim is high, and he has an object which sustains, and an impulse which encourages him. His anticipations are joyous, his reflections tranquil. He looks backward with pleasure, and forward with hope. He has the joy of an approving conscience. He has not buried his talent, nor is he a cumberer of the ground. He lives to bless the world. And when he dies, he bequeaths to it his counsels, his example, his bounty and his prayers. Another source of enjoyment for which we are indebted to the Bible, therefore, is the habit of benevolent exertion.

It is in vain to turn our eyes from the sad spectacle of human misery. We cannot persuade ourselves that it does not exist, nor arm ourselves with a stoical insensibility to evils which are every where around us,

and which we ourselves feel. If you open your eyes upon the annals of time, you see an unbroken series of existences who appear for a few days or hours, on this scene of action, and then pass away. The cradle is suffused with their tears, and, in a little while, the places that so lately knew them, are hung around. with the emblems of their dissolution. And between the cradle and the grave, what mournful scenes fill up the drama of human life! What hours of sadness and gloom! What painful diseases, what disheartening discouragements, what disappointments and losses; what defeated hopes and withered honours; what depression and melancholy; what malignity of enemies and fickleness of friends; what unkindness, darkness, and fear; what individual and domestic calamity, and public distress; what consternation and dismay; all heightened and aggravated by the distressing doubt and uncertainty as to what shall be on the morrow! Trials like these befall us at every step through life. No hour can we be free from the fear that what we value most on earth may be snatched from us. In this respect man seems subjected to a severer sentence than the rest of the natural world, and the curse of death falls with a heavier weight upon him. The trees and plants grow up to their full height, fill up the measure of their years, and then decay and fall. Flowers bloom through their passing life, and then wither and die according to the laws of their nature. Birds and beasts live, for the most part until age creeps upon them, and unless they are destroyed by the hand of man, are rarely cut off by disease. The brute creation have no thought, no fear of evil. Their life is not embittered by the expectation that they must die; *hey have no knowledge beyond the present and the past; their hopes and their fears gather nothing from their experience which may reveal to them the mor