n of human progress, opens before us.

As citizens of the republic, we have comparatively little cause to
exult in the conceit of being freer or happier than other communities;
much more in the chance, having broken the fetters of superstition and
tyranny, next to rend those of false habit and fashion--to enthrone
reason over the authority of one another's eyes and prejudices: to say
in truth,--

"Here the free spirit of mankind at length
Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place
A limit to the giant's untamed strength,
Or curb his swiftness in the forward race?
Far, like the comet's way through infinite space,
Stretches the long untravelled path of light
Into the depth of ages; we may trace,
Distant the brightening glory of his flight,
Till the receding beams are lost to human sight."

*Bryant.

Part IV.

Welfare as Dependent on Religion.

But in all our attempts to educate self-love into harmony with
Universal benevolence, we contend with the enemy, somewhat as Hercules
wrestled with Antaeus:--

Und erstickst du ihn nicht in den Luften frei,
Stets wachst ihm die Kraft anf der Erde neu.*
[If thou strangle him not high lifted in air,
Fresh strength from the earth he continues to share.]

Thus we come to speak of present welfare, as dependent on the
cultivation of the whole man--on a recognition of his immortality, his
allegiance to his Maker, and his capacity for more disinterested
sentiments, than self-love, however modified.

The influences thus accruing are a confirmation, from higher authority,
of the conclusions approved by philosophy, ethics, the prudence which
calculates how man should live with man, considered as but creatures of
earth--a _re-binding_--a _re-ligation_ to what was _obligation_ before;
and such precisely is the proper sense of the word _religion_.

That the promise of the life that now is attaches to godliness-the
vivid recognition of a Father in heaven, with the union of reverence
and love cherished by a dutiful child--and that naught else secures the
possession, might be argued,--

1. First, as anticipated from the nature of the case. If man is
formed to own allegiance to his Maker, and to spend this life as
preparatory and introductory to a coming existence, then, till these
conditions are fulfilled, he must be expected, not to fill wor