foundation, the noble fabric of humanity stands fronting the skies. But it is an indubitable fact, that notwithstanding the efforts which were made to resist the depressing influences of sensuality, the minds of men did, for ages, lie grovelling with their passions, in doubt or despair of ever obtaining freedom. The thirst for life was never satisfied: the path of existence ran through a desert, where there were a few ancient wells, but no fountains flowing into the ocean. It was only that small body of men, who were justly regarded as the wonders of their race, on whom the light of reason shed a hope of immortality: for the rest, they could scarcely look upon themselves as otherwise than passing shadows, or bubbles for death to burst: there was no savour of life in their souls; and thus, from one end of the earth to another there was an incessant talk of eternal night and nothingness. The mother brought up her children with the mother's natural care and fondness; but if she chanced to think of death, she felt as if she held but dust and ashes to her bosom. The friend loved his friend as friends love each other now, but when sickness came, or old age drew nigh, they had to think of nothing but an eternal farewell. All was hopelessness, or that which is almost as bad, and perhaps worse, a harrowing, feverish state of doubt; and generation after generation seemed to perish like the leaves of

successive autumns. The poet's melancholy image was all but reality.

If we inquire now how vice grew to such a height, when the principles of morality were so far from being unknown, or how it was that the noble efforts which philosophy made towards enlightening mankind were of so little avail, the answer will be found in this, that the whole system of ethics, and that knowledge of intellectual nature which belonged to the province of reason, had no connexion with the faith which pointed to Deity or heaven. The philosopher and the scholar, it is supposed, believed not in the gods: if they did, neither could their faith receive any support from their studies, nor their reason any help from their creed : but the people at large, depending chiefly on what was taught them respecting the nature and will of their deities, could only find, in the scattered rays of purer truth which occasionally reached them, a light too clear for the light of their heavens-a revelation of glory which had as little similarity to the splendours of Olympus or the happiness of Elysium, as the sublime beauty of nature to the wanton luxuries of art. To decide between the claims thus made by popular tradition on the one hand, and reason, throned in her secret asylum, on the other, was rarely attempted, and error was worshipped because her antiquity could be traced,

while truth had only, to appearance, its every-day birth in the minds of the few and the isolated. But the gloom of error and corruption is the night in which the soul sleeps without dreaming of its original destiny: and this was the case with myriads in the anti-evangelical ages. The sun of truth never rose above the horizon: but meteors of every shape and hue sprung from the noxious vapours of sin, and appearing like stars in the dense night, were reverenced as guides throughout the disordered world. To one small portion of the human race God had continued the knowledge of his name, and the elements of his law; but both the one and the other were only revealed so as to form the surface of a deep mystery, not then to be penetrated. A light, pure and splendid, shone around them: no one could look upon it without feeling that it came from above: but it was a light announcing rather than revealing the presence of God; and truth-though its messengers, and its ordinances, its laws, and signs, and emblems were there was not itself substantially known or present.

Now let us suppose that in this state of things, a simple, but full and direct, revelation had been made of the immortality of the soul-a revelation couched in such terms that minds of every class might comprehend it, and see the whole force of the evidence by which it was established. The

immediate consequence of such a discovery would be equally striking and important. A being whose thoughts and purposes had been adapted to the humiliating notion of a brief and mere earthly existence, who had been taught by the impulses of his sensual nature, that the indulgence of passion was the highest happiness to which he was born, and that when his body should waste away, and become dust, he himself would perish ;—a being whose whole intellectual course was confined to the space of which a momentary lust was the starting point, and his power of enjoyment the utmost boundary, could be subjected to no greater change than that of finding himself immortal in his nature, and the heir of whatever the illimitable future might confer upon his species. It may with safety be laid down as an axiom, that a man's determinations are the counterpart of his hopes. This is the case in respect to the kind of objects he pursues it is also so in regard to the extensiveness and fixedness of his designs. Spatio brevi spem longam reseces was the consistent maxim of the Epicurean poet: a far-extending hope was fraught with danger and grievous disappointment to one whose term of existence could scarcely promise the possibility of its completion: but in proportion as the probable duration of life was increased, hope might more safely extend its views; and when no limit was left to the continuance of

conscious existence, neither was any needed for the hopes and aspirations of the soul. But with views thus enlarged, and the mind quickened into constant action by the prospect of future good, the moral being must of necessity begin to develop its better qualities, and assert its superiority over the mere animal. The torpor of indifference, or the madness of sensual intoxication, will be yielded to less readily; a desire to make the most of experience, to know more of nature, and approach as near as possible the verge of the gulf which separates the seen from the unseen, will exercise a powerful influence on the mind; and truth will every day become of more value and importance, because more manifestly necessary to the security of happiness.

A revelation of the immortality of the soul, in its simplest form, would realize much of what has here been stated, in any age of the world. But many circumstances may be imagined which would render its effects more remarkable at one period than another, and even, though not intrinsically, yet, in respect to the temporal state of mankind, more valuable. There are seasons in which our race has to struggle less than at others, to supply the necessities of life; in which there is a larger proportion of calm and security; when diseases are less frequent, death more tardy in its approaches, and the satisfactions of appetite and passion less dear or perilous in the purchase. At