pare it with those
distorted and temporizing systems which have resulted from the
inventions of men. A feeling of dissatisfaction, the same in kind,
though it may differ in degree, will attach to them all; and there is
none in which we can confidently rest, until we rise to the sublime
morality of the gospel. That great system of ethical purity comes to us
under the sanction of divine revelation, and established by the
miraculous evidence by which the proof of this is conveyed; but it is
independent of any other support than that which it carries in
itself,--consistency with the character of God,--and harmony with the
best feelings of man. In yielding an absolute consent to its supreme
authority, we require no external evidence. We have only to look at the
record in its own majestic simplicity, tried by the highest inductions
of the philosophy of the moral feelings, to enable us to point to the
morality of the gospel, and to say with unshrinking confidence,--this is
truth.

If we would seek for that, which must be of all conceivable things of
the highest moment both for the peace and the improvement of the moral
being, it is to be found in the habit of mind, in which there is the
uniform contemplation of the divine character, with a constant reliance
on the guidance of the Almighty in every action of life. "One thing,"
says an inspired writer, "have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek
after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my
life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his
temple."--The man, who thus cultivates the habitual impression of the
divine presence, lives in an atmosphere peculiarly his own. The storms
which agitate the lower world may blow around or beneath, but they
touch not him;--as the traveller has seen from the mountain's top the
war of elements below, while he stood in unclouded sunshine. In the
works, and ways, and perfections of the Eternal One, he finds a subject
of exalted contemplation, in comparison with which the highest inquiries
of human science sink into insignificance. It is an exercise, also,
which tends at once to elevate and to purify the mind. It raises us from
the minor concerns and transient interests which are so apt to occupy
us,--to that wondrous field in which "worlds on worlds compose one
universe,"--and to that mind which bade them move in their appointed
orbits, and maintains them all in undeviating harmony. While it thus
teaches us to