while in the lapse of years, we can but with difficulty, if at all, recall the face and the form. Such the love of God may be, and surely ought to be. We have indeed never seen Him. But his character we know ; his benefits we have expe'; rienced from the first; his bounty has never failed; his goodness we see on every side. From himself we are for a season separated. From his goodness and the experience of an unfailing beneficence, from the acts of his love, we are not, we have never been, we cannot be separated. These are always present to us; and as it is these that we love in our earthly friend, and not the mere perishable form upon which our eye rests, so it is these upon which we can fix our affections, if we will, in that Great Being whom we have never seen. Frequent contemplation of the works of God, and recollection of what we have received from him, will raise in us emotions of love and veneration, not very different from or inferior in strength, vivacity, and reality, to the affection which we entertain towards those whom, on earth, we have seen, known, and loved.

This is one way in which we may love God; another is, through principles of right action. Some deride the idea, which we will not, — of any other love toward God, than this. They think that it is possible to love God, only as we obey him and do all things to his glory. And it cannot be denied, that some good ground has been furnished for this opinion by the conduct of many, who, in the endeavor to love God after the manner of men, have fallen into extravagances, that have brought discredit upon religion. But the errors of a few cannot falsify a great truth. The annals of Christianity present us with illustrious examples of men, whose love of God has been an affection as warm and glowing, as the heart ever entertained toward any present object, and at the same time as pure and holy, as from the nature of the Being, on whom it has rested, it ought to be. Still it is doubtless true, that the least suspicious form, in which the love of God can be shown, is in that of a principle of conformity to his will. He in an eminent sense loves God, the single aim of whose whole life it is to do his will, who, in whatever he undertakes, aims to do all to the glory of God. Jesus has said, "He that keepeth my commandments, he it is that loveth me." And a prophet has said, "What doth the Lord require of us, but to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with him?" How can we testify our love of God in a way more certain to be right in itself, and useful

to ourselves and the world, than by keeping ourselves to that path of duty which we know to be prescribed. The true child is one who obeys, and never consciously violates a parent's command. The true citizen is he who yields to all the lawful requisitions of the power that is over him. No protestations of affection, on the part of a child, would command our respect, or possess the least value, whose conduct was such as to give pain to the heart of a parent. True affection is never selfish. It consults the whole will of the object loved, and is ready to sacrifice whatever interferes with an exact conformity to it. He, who is filled with a genuine, all-controlling love, must be able to say, that he has no will of his own; or, rather, that his only will is, to do the will of God. Such a one is ready to sacrifice what he most dearly loves; to forego what he most earnestly desires; to abandon a course he may deem most truly conducive to his interests; to assume any post of duty or danger; to deny any of his appetites, and any of his tastes, if he finds reason to believe, that so lies the path of duty, so prescribes the will of God. He who loves God, through his principles of action, gives not only those evidences of that affection that are easiest, but the more difficult also; he not only muses in private, and communes with the great Invisible upon his bed, but he brings, or aims to bring his every action into harmony with the Divine will. In the use of his time, in the use of wealth, in the discharge of official or professional duty, in the domestic relations, in the placing of his affections, in the ruling of all his conduct, it is his first and supreme desire to comply with the laws of the Being who made him. Love is a principle of such authority with him, that the circumstances cannot be imagined, in which he should hesitate, between his own will and the will of God, which to choose. Just as instinct warns of that which would injure, and prompts to involuntary efforts for self-preservation, so does the love of God, herein lies the proof of its genuineness, guard us against even the approach of evil; sounding an alarm while yet it is afar off. Just as it is difficult to conceive of a person, who has acted for a long series of years upon principles of pure selfishness, easily doing them violence; so is it difficult to conceive of one, over whom the love of God has long reigned, doing that affection violence; he cannot be selfish any more than the other can be disinterested; he cannot act for himself alone, (with him God is all in all,) any more than the other can for God alone.

How happy and well ordered would a love like this make life! It would cover it with brightness. Pain and evil would lose their nature. Like that fabled stone that turns all it touches, even the most unlikely substances, to gold; so would this love convert into blessing and honor all the labor and duty, even all the trial and suffering of life.

COURAGE.

To the traveller, penetrating unknown regions of the earth, what so essential as courage, as a mind not to be taken by surprise, or easily daunted, full of new expedients, not to be defeated in the accomplishment of its objects, determined to succeed, if putting in action every energy, and using all the power God has given, can avail to its deliverance.

Courage like this is as needful to the Christian. A spirit that will not be subdued, crushed, or disheartened by any accumulation of trial, that will not be discouraged from new undertakings, - which, as often as calamity comes, though for a while it may bend, will not and cannot break, but through the virtue of its faith springs back, after each trial, elastic to its place, and displays its accustomed energy, ever ready for new conflicts, and strong for yet worse encounters ;- this is what we mean by Christian courage. Its value cannot be overrated. It ought to be the temper of every Christian. For the Christian, the traveller over life's moral wilderness, is exposed to evils and dangers, many more, and many times more terrific, than any which throng the path of him who, for purposes of knowledge or of gain, traverses the earth's surface. The Christian is scarce ever in such a position that he needs not courage, either for endurance or action. His exposures are always; his dangers, not from without only, but much more even from within also, and the call for resolution and the spirit of patience without intermission.

There is nothing, either of pride or presumption, implied in a true courage. The brave man is at the same time a moderate, considerate, calculating man. If he is willing and prompt to expose life when necessary, he is as unwilling to throw it away. It is the fool, who, incapable of appreciating the worth of life, or too much of a coward to act with independence, puts it at hazard for a word or a whim, and when nothing is to be gained at most, but death and the applause of fools.

The Christian needs not, because he knows not what fear is, expose himself without reason, nor put such trust in himself, as not still to feel that human strength is but weakness, and that many a trial may prove too much for him. He, who would exhibit a true courage, will foreknow and prepare for the evil day, and when it approaches will be on the alert, ready for it, and so never the victim of the unmanly despondency of those who, because the sun shines to-day, and all goes well with their virtues and their fortunes, cannot bring themselves to believe that clouds may hide it from them to-morrow. Presumption is no part of moral courage. On the contrary, it is full of humility, of the spirit of acquiescence, endurance, and trust. It is prophetic of evil in the coming years, as well as of good. But it anticipates evil not on the principle of borrowing trouble, but of being ready for it.

-

sursum

To possess and exhibit this courage is one among Christian obligations. When we are restive and repining and despondent under many of the evils of our condition, is it not by our actions, our temper at least, to find fault with the Great Disposer of events, to complain of our being and its exposures and allotments? I know not what the language of such a temper is, if it be not this. Is not this virtue, then, not only of the greatest value as one of the best springs of happiness, but in truth obligatory upon us? To sink too easily under the burdens of life; to shrink from the tasks which our condition imposes; to be turned back from duty by resistance, is to distrust Providence. Cheerfulness and a heart always up, corda, should be the temper and motto of the Christian. This may seem to require too much, seeing what the trials of life are. Yet when we consider what, and how universal the providence of God is; that he appoints whatever befals; that the reverses and evils of life flow from an order of things which he has instituted and pronounced good, and that this variety and mutability of events has been ordained or permitted for moral ends, that character might be formed, and the Christian grow out of the man; we shall be ready to acknowledge, that if we do not exhibit this virtue, when circumstances call for it, then are we false to ourselves and to the moral teachings of Providence, and do what in us lies, to render nugatory this whole institution and discipline of human life. Dejection, despondency, fear, when they pass the limits of transient emotions, are essentially irreligious. They unfit us for the tasks of

life, for any of its more difficult, and therefore more important, duties, for any path but one that shall lie before us broad, and straight, and smooth, with not a stone over which to stumble. And how often, and to whom is such the path of human life? But he who can take no other with courage to encounter its dangers, in a spirit that events cannot subdue, at least with a determination not to fall but after a hard fight, deserves not his privilege of living; and, if he shows himself so unfit for the moral trial of this world, is he not for that of any other? Where can a place be found for him, who will not exert his powers of self-defence?

Faith is the deep spring of courage, the faith that works by love, that trusts. The faith that only believes is not faith, it is only belief. Faith carries with it the idea of confidence, of believing and then trusting because you believe. He who believes thus can hardly be otherwise than of good courage. Courage is its natural fruit. And so, if we find ourselves without courage, we may know that we are without faith. We have what we call faith, perhaps, but it is cold and mechanical, the faith of circumstances, tradition, necessity, interest, it has not been enlightened by a wide observation, enriched by meditation and the study of the works and providence of God, and strengthened by prayer, and it has very little of the power that belongs to it. Unless their faith was true, even apostles were powerless. Their voice died away upon the air, like the voice of common men,· the dead heard them not; demons heeded them not; they were the sport and derision of the multitude. Much more will our faith fail us in our extremest need, if it want reality. But let it be that high and holy principle which it ought to be, and which we may make it if we will, and then no more signal miracles were ever done by apostles, than the Christian will do when overtaken by the calamities, or assailed by the temptations of life.

RELIGION.

Some preach and talk as if there were to come a period, the approach of which we should all labor to hasten, when religion and its peculiar offices and observances will occupy the whole mind; and the world, as in the days of monkery, be fairly abandoned, only to a much greater extent. But what can this mean? Must we not eat and drink, if we would live? Then