sign or contrivance in the works of nature. You must just look at what is, and not ask what it is for. You may find• wonderful adaptations of things to each other, all tending to happy results; but you must never suppose that any one ever designed or planned those adaptations, with a view to those happy results. You must confine yourself entirely to what you see, and never admit the thought of a Maker whom you do not see. You must limit your observations to what is done, and not dream of a Doer. You may see things tending to the diffusion of happiness, but must not suppose that there is a great unseen Benefactor, who gives them this blessed tendency. And if you feel in yourself a disposition to gratitude, you must treat it as a foolish, childish fancy, and suppress it as irrational.

A sillier or a more contemptible notion-a notion more opposed to true philosophy and common sense,--can hardly be conceived. How any one could ever have the ignorance or the impudence to propound such an unnatural and monstrous absurdity as a great philosophical principle, would be a mystery, if we did not know how infidelity perverts men's understandings, and, while puffing them up with infinite conceit of their own wisdom, transforms them into the most arrant and outrageous fools.

Yet this monstrous folly has found its way into books, and papers, and reviews, and, through them, into the minds of some Christian students; and when the madness of the notion is not detected, it destroys their faith, and makes them miserable infidels.

Some adopt the principle that reason is man's only guide, —that reason alone is judge of what is true and good, and that to reason every thing must be submitted, and received or rejected, done or left undone, as reason may decide. This sounds very plausible to many, and there is a sense in which it may be true; but there is a sense in which it is fearfully false; and the youth that adopts it, and acts upon it, will be likely to land himself in utter doubt, both with regard to religion and morals. There are numbers of cases in which reason is no guide at all,-in which instinct, natural affection, and consciousness are our only guides. You can never prove by what is generally called reason alone, that man is not a machine, governed entirely by forces over

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which he has no control. You cannot therefore prove by what certain philosophers call reason, that any man is worthy of reward or punishment, of praise or blame, of gratitude or of resentment; or that there is any such thing in men as virtue or vice, according to the ordinary sense of the words. The ablest logicians on earth, when they take reason alone as their guide, come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as liberty or moral responsibility, in the ordinary acceptation of the terms, but that all is fixed, that all is fate, from eternity to eternity. They accordingly come to the further conclusion, that there is no free, voluntary Ruler of the universe, that there is no Almighty Judge and Rewarder,-that there is neither reward nor punishment, properly speaking, either in this world or in the world to come. They become atheists.

You can never prove by reason that a woman ought to love her own child better than the child of another woman. You cannot prove by reason that she ought to love it at all. You may say no children would be reared if mothers did not love their children, and even love them better than the children of other mothers. But how will you prove that children ought to be reared? Can you show that the mother will confer any advantage on her child, or secure any advantage to herself, or any one else, by rearing it? Can you prove that it will not be a torment to her,—that it will not bring her to want, and shame, and an untimely death? The fact is, a mother's love, a mother's partiality for her own child, is not a matter of reason. The hen loves her chickens, the she bear loves its cubs, the mother dog loves its whelps, and the ewe loves her lambs, without any regard to reason. Their affections and preferences are governed by something infinitely wiser than reason; infinitely higher, at least, than any reason that man can boast. And men love women, and women love men, and men and women marry and form new families, not at the bidding of reason, but under the influence of instincts or impulses that come from a wisdom infinitely higher than the wisdom of the wisest man on earth. And so it is with many of our beliefs. They are instinctive; and reason, when it becomes reasonable enough to deserve the name, will advise you to cherish those instinctive beliefs as your life, in spite of all the infidel philosophy and reasoning on earth.

But even honest and well-disposed men of science sometimes form bad, defective, or one-sided habits of thought and judgment unconsciously, which render it impossible for then to do justice either to Nature or Christianity as revelations of the character and government of God. And these faulty habits of thought and judgment, and the anti-Christian conclusions to which they lead, pass on from men of science to literary men; and literature is vitiated, and books and periodicals which should lead men to truth, cause them to err. Thus skeptical principles pervade society. They find advocates at times even among men who call themselves ministers of Christ. The consequence is, that well-disposed, and even pious young men, are perplexed, bewildered, and some who, like John the Baptist, were "burning and shining lights," become "wandering stars,' and lose themselves, for a time at least, amidst the "blackness and darkness" of doubt and despair.

CHAPTER III.

ANOTHER CAUSE OF UNBELIEF-BAD FEELING.
THE AUTHOR'S CASE.

THE!

THERE are several other causes of doubt and unbelief which we might name, if we had time; but we have not. There is one however which we must notice, because it had considerable influence in our own case; we refer to the bad feeling which sometimes takes possession of the minds of Christians towards each other, or of the minds of ministers towards their brother ministers.

You are aware, perhaps, that if you scratch the skin, and introduce a little diseased animal matter to the blood, it will gradually spread itself through the system, and in time poison the whole body. And if you do not know this, you know, that if you take a little leaven, and place it in a mass of meal, and leave it there to work unchecked, it will in time leaven the whole lump. And as it is with things natural, so it is with things spiritual. If you allow a little leaven of bad feeling to get into your minds towards your fellow

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Christians or your brother ministers, and permit it to remain there, it will in time infect your whole soul, impair the action of all its faculties, and after alienating you from individuals, separate you first from the Church, and then from Christ and Christianity.

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There is a passage in the Bible which says that judges are not to take gifts; and the reason assigned is, not that if a judge accepts a present he will, with his eyes open, wilfully condemn the innocent or acquit the guilty; but that a gift blindeth the eyes," even of the wise," so that he is no longer able to see clearly which is the guilty and which the guiltless party. And there is another passage in the Bible which says that "oppression driveth a wise man mad." The feeling a man has that he has been wickedly, cruelly treated, excites his mind so painfully and violently, that it is impossible for him to think well of the character or views of his oppressor, or of any party, institution, or system with which he may be connected.

As some friends of mine were canvassing for votes one day, previous to an election, they came upon a man who could not, for a time, say for which candidate he would vote. At length a thought struck him, and he said, "Who is John Myers going to vote for?" "Oh," said my friends, "he's going to vote for our man. "Then I'll vote for the other said he, man, for I'm sure Myers will vote wrong.' Myers had swindled him in a business transaction; and his feelings towards him were so strong, and of so unpleasant a kind, that he could not think anything right that Myers did, nor could he think anything wrong that he himself did, so long as he took care to go contrary to Myers.

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It is very natural to smile at such weakness when we see it in others, and yet exhibit unconsciously the same weakness ourselves under another form. There are some Christians who, when their minister pleases them well, are quite delighted with his discourses. They are marrow and fatness" to their souls. And every sermon he preaches seems better than the one that went before; and they feel as if they could sit under that dear good man for ever. But a change comes over their feelings with regard to him. While going his round of pastoral visits some day, he passes their door, but calls at the house of a richer neighbor a little lower

down or on visiting the Sunday-school, he pats some one's little boy on the head, and speaks to him kind and pleasant words, while he passes their little son unnoticed. He has no improper design in what he does; but it happens so; that is all. The idea of partiality never enters his mind. But they fancy he has got something wrong in his mind towards them; and it is certain now that they have got something wrong in their minds towards him. And now his sermons are quite changed. The "marrow and fatness" are all gone, and there is nothing left but "the husks which the swine should eat.” And every sermon he preaches seems worse than the one which went before, until at length they get quite weary, and their only comfort is, if they be Methodists, that Conference will come some day, and they will have a change. And all this time the preacher is just the same good man he ever was, and his sermons are the same; only they are changed. They have misjudged him, and become the subjects of unhappy feeling, and are no longer capable of doing either him or his sermons justice.

And the longer the unhappy feeling is allowed to remain in their minds, the stronger it will become, and the more mischievous will it prove. After disabling or perverting their judgments with regard to their pastor, it will be in danger of separating them from the Church; and when once they get out of the Church into the outside world, no wonder if they make shipwreck both of faith and of a good conscience.

And so it is continually. Our views of men's characters, talents, sentiments, are always more or less influenced by our feelings and affections. If we like a man very much, we look on his views in the most favorable light, and are glad to see anything like a reason for adopting them ourselves. We give his words and deeds the most favorable interpretation, and we rate his gifts and graces above their real value. On the other hand, if we dislike a man,—if we are led to regard him as an enemy, and to harbor feelings of resentment towards him, we look on what he says and does with distrust; we suspect his motives; we underrate his talents, and are pleased to have an excuse for differing from him in opinion.