the
freshness of immediate perception. He alone can embalm the past, and
welcome the tidings of the future. Man alone is fitted to covenant,
although he may occasionally waver in the performance. His exalted
capacities, his comprehension of the law, constitute his responsibility:
for where the conditions of the compact are not understood, there can be
no disobedience or delinquency.

The helpless condition of the human infant, and the paucity of its
instincts, apparently render it less favoured than animals;--but it was
necessary, in order to constitute man a moral agent and a responsible
being, that he should be the architect of his own mind. When born, he
has every thing to learn; and a large portion of his existence is
consumed to qualify him for his station in society. Had he, like
animals, been gifted with intuitive wisdom, the donation would have
been so perfect, as to render instruction superfluous;--and such
endowment would have diminished the measure of his responsibility. The
freedom of his will, by which is to be understood the impulse of reason,
not the blind dictates of appetite, nor the sallies of tumultuous
passions, renders him amenable. Such is the force of the human mind,
that it can surmount the difficulties which situation and circumstances
oppose to its improvement: so powerful is reason, that it can correct
the prejudices of early tuition, and atone for crime, by the pursuit of
honourable practice. Man alone can repent; he only can retrace the acts
of former commission, and resolve on amelioration for the future. Thus
we find that moral responsibility has its basis in the comprehension of
Time. In proportion to our love and estimation of justice, we must be
satisfied that, under the purest forms of human government, it is but
imperfectly administered: the rewards and punishments in this life will
ever be blended with the hopes and fears, the interests and passions, of
our species; and there is much of evil, which human sagacity cannot
detect. When we consider the attributes of the Deity and the nature of
man, we can never be induced to conclude that the tribunals of this
world are the courts of final retribution. Man bears in his intellectual
construction the badge of moral responsibility, and, consequently, the
germ of future existence: and the only incentive that can urge him to
the advancement of science, and the practice of virtue, is the reward
that Revelation has unfolded.

THE END.