On no subject is it more dangerous to let loose the imagination than on religion. Every thing connected with spiritual subjects and the future state, is matter of pure revelation: and we cannot advance a step, with safety, without her guide. Now it seldom happens that he leads us beyond the statement of certain truths, which are necessary for our instruction, or warning, or comfort; and on which, from the very nature of things, there must rest some degree of obscurity. Our inquisitive minds are not easily reconciled to this limited information and uncertainty. We wish to pry more minutely into things; and send imagination into the illimitable field of possibilities, from which it brings back innumerable crude and extravagant notions. It is the business of a sound and chastised judgment to repress these vain excursions, and this pernicious curiosity; and strictly to confine the thoughts to the prescribed limits of revelation; and it is with almost inconceivable difficulty that this control is effectually exercised. Hence, whatever

adds a stimulus to imagination, in matters of religion, does, in fact, counteract the salutary efforts of reason and a sound mind to repress it; and tends to convert the religion of the gospel into the wild reveries of fanaticism. May not then the publications in question have a tendency to foster the imaginative faculty; and to induce train of evils arising from the predominance of fancy over reason and revelation ?

But these reflections have led me into a length of discussion which I did not anticipate; and it is more than time that I return to the immediate subject of this memoir.

I was drawn into these remarks by stating that my beloved daughter was inclined to indulge in reading the productions of some of the modern school of poetry and fiction, beyond the limit which she afterwards thought to be safe: but I should do her memory great injustice, if I were to omit stating that her principal reading was of a religious character. She had studied various treatises on the evidences of religion;

and had read several histories of the Christian church. The works of some of our ablest divines were familiar to her; and she had made herself acquainted with some of the common subjects of controversy between Christians of different denominations. Sacred biography was a topic of peculiar interest, and she read with avidity whatever of this kind fell in her way. But her constant companion was the Holy Scriptures. A considerable part of it was committed to memory; and she could repeat by heart a great part of the Psalms. The marks she has placed against different passages of this blessed book, plainly indicate that her daily perusal of it was not a mere form. Not only did she notice those parts, which are most beautiful for their poetry, and most sublime in description; but more especially such as relate to fundamental doctrines, important duties, and encouraging promises. Whatever set forth the value of the soul; the nature of salvation; the evil of sin; the necessity of holiness; the promise of pardon; and the work of the Holy

reasonable to suppose that this inattention to strict veracity may be owing, at least in part, to the circumstance on which I am animadverting.

There is also so close an affinity between works of this nature, and the common class of novels, that there is some danger of gliding imperceptibly from one to the other; and thus acquiring a taste for those pernicious publications, which have poisoned the minds, and corrupted the hearts of so many of our youths.

It will not have escaped the notice of many of my readers that among many professing Christians, a sort of sentimentalism has usurped the place of experimental religion. The sober views and feelings, which the facts of our case, and the nature of the gospel, might be supposed to occasion, are superseded by sensations of a more exquisite and inexplicable nature, and by undefined and romantic notions of imaginary excellence and enjoyments. May not this evil also have some connexion with the writings which we are now considering?

:

On no subject is it more dangerous to let loose the imagination than on religion. Every thing connected with spiritual subjects and the future state, is matter of pure revelation and we cannot advance a step, with safety, without her guide. Now it seldom happens that he leads us beyond the statement of certain truths, which are necessary for our instruction, or warning, or comfort; and on which, from the very nature of things, there must rest some degree of obscurity. Our inquisitive minds are not easily reconciled to this limited information and uncertainty. We wish to pry more minutely into things; and send imagination into the illimitable field of possibilities, from which it brings back innumerable crude and extravagant notions. It is the business of a sound and chastised judgment to repress these vain excursions, and this pernicious curiosity; and strictly to confine the thoughts to the prescribed limits of revelation; and it is with almost inconceivable difficulty that this control is effectually exercised. Hence, whatever