never approached, like Moses, "to see this great sight ?"

If it were a thing which we might be allowed to imagine, that the Divane Being were to manifest himself in some striking manner to the senses, as by some resplendent appearance at the midnight hour, or by rekindling on an elevated mountain the long extinguished fires of Sinai, and uttering voices from those fires; would he not compel from you an attention which you now refuse? Yes, you will say, he would then seize the mind with irresistible force, and religion would become its most absolute sentiment; but he only presents himself to faith. Well, and is it a worthy reason for disregarding him, that you only believe him to be present and infinitely glorious? Is it the office of faith to veil, to frustrate, to annihilate in effect, its object? Cannot you reflect, that the grandest representation of a spiritual and divine Being to the senses would bear not only no proportion to his glory, but no relation to his nature; and could be adapted only to an inferior dispensation of religion, and to a people who, with the exception of a most extremely small number of men, had been totally untaught to carry their thoughts beyond the objects of sense? Are you not aware, that such a representation would considerably tend to restrict you in your contemplation to a defined image, and therefore a most inadequate and subordinate idea of the divine Being? while the idea admitted by faith, though less immediately striking, is capable of an illimitable expansion, by the addition of all that progressive thought can accumulate, under the continual certainty that all is still infinitely short of the reality.

On the review of a character thus grown, in the exclusion of the religious influences, to the nature and perhaps ultimate state, the sentiment of pious bene

volence would be,-I regard you as an object of great compassion, unless there can be no felicity in friendship with the Almighty, unless there be no glory in being assimilated to his excellence, unless there be no eternal rewards for his devoted servants, unless there be no danger in meeting him, at length, after a life estranged equally from his love and his fear. I deplore, at every period and crisis in the review of your life, that religion was not there. If that had been there, your youthful animation would neither have been dissipated in the frivolity which, in the morning of the short day of life, fairly and formally sets aside ail serious business for that day, nor would have sprung forward into the emulation of vice, or the bravery of profaneness. If religion had been there, that one despicable companion, and that other malignant one, would not have seduced you into their society, or would not have retained you to share their degradation. And if religion had accompanied the subsequent progress of your life, it would have elevated you to rank, at this hour, with those saints who will soon be added to "the spirits of the just." Instead of which, what are you now, and what are your expectations as looking to that world, where piety alone can hope to find such a sequel of existence, as will inspire exultation in the retrospect of this introductory life, in which the spirit took its impress for eternity from communication with God?

On the other hand, it would be interesting to record, or to hear, the history of a character which has received its form, and reached its maturity, under the strongest efficacy of religion. We do not know that there is a more beneficent or a more direct mode of the divine agency in any part of the creation than that which "apprehends" a man, (as apostolic language expresses it.) amidst the unthinking crowd, constrains him to

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serious reflection, subdues him under persuasive conviction, elevates him to devotion, and matures him in progressive virtue, in order to his passing finally to a nobler state of existence. When he has long been commanded by this influence, he will be happy to look back to its first operations, whether they were mingled in early life almost insensibly with his feelings, or came on him with mighty force at some particular time, and in connexion with some assignable and memorable circumstance which was apparently the instrumental cause. He will trace the progress of this his better life, with grateful acknowledgment to the sacred power that has wrought him to a confirmation of religious habit which puts the final seal on his character. In the great majority of things, habit is a greater plague than ever afflicted Egypt: in religious character, it is eminently a felicity. The devout man exults to feel that in aid of the simple force of the divine principles within him, there has grown by time an accessional power, which has almost taken place of his will, and holds a firm though quiet domination through the general action of his mind. He feels this confirmed habit as the grasp of the hand of God, which will never let him go. From this advanced state he looks with confidence on

futurity, and says, I carry the indelible mark upon me that I belong to God; by being devoted to him I am free of the universe; and I am ready to go to any world to which he shall please to transmit me, certain that every where, in height or depth, he will acknowledge me for ever.

LETTER VII.

THE preceding letters have attempted to exhibit only general views of the influences, by which a reflective man may perceive the moral condition of his mind to have been determined.

In descending into more particular illustrations, there would have been no end of enumerating the local circumstances, the relationships of life, the professions and employments, and the accidental events, which may have affected the character. A person who feels any interest, in reviewing what has formed thus far his education for futurity, may carry his own examination into the most distinct particularity. — A few miscellaneous observations will conclude the essay.

You will have observed that I have said comparatively little of that which forms the exterior, and in general account the main substance, of the history of a man's life --the train of his fortunes and actions. If an adventurer or a soldier writes memoirs of himself for the information or amusement of the public, he may do well to keep his narrative alive by a constant crowded course of facts; for the greater part of his readers will excuse him the trouble of investigating, and he might occasionally feel it a convenience to be excused from disclosing, if he had investigated, the history and merits of his internal principles. Nor can this ingenuousness be any part of his duty, any more than it is that of an exhibiter in a public show, as long as he tells all that probably he professes to tell-where he has been, what he has witnessed, and the more reputable portion of what he has done. Let him go on with his lively anecdotes, or his legends of the marvellous, or his

gazettes of marches, stratagems and skirmishes, and there is no obligation for him to turn either penitent or philosopher on our hands.—But I am supposing a man to retrace himself through his past life, in order to acquire a deep self-knowledge, and to record the investigation for his own instruction. Through such a retrospective examination, the exterior life will hold but the second place in attention, as being the imperfect offspring of that internal state, which it is the primary and more difficult object to review. From an effectual inquisition into this inner man, the investigator may proceed outward, to the course of his actions; of which he will thus have become qualified to form a much juster estimate, than he could by any exercise of judgment upon them regarded merely as exterior facts. No doubt that sometimes also, in a contrary process, the judgment will be directed upon the dispositions and principles within by a consideration of the actions without, which will serve as a partial explication of the interior character. Still it is that interior character, whether displayed in actions or not, which forms the leading object of inquiry. The chief circumstances of his practical life will, however, require to be noted, both for the purpose of so much illustration as they will afford of the state of his mind, and because they mark the points, and distinguish the stages, of his progress.

Though in memoirs intended for publication, a large share of incident and action would generally be necessary, yet there are some men whose mental history alone might be very interesting to reflective readers; as, for instance, that of a thinking man, remarkable for a number of complete changes of his speculative system. From observing the usual tenacity of views once deliberately adopted in mature life, we regard as