poses us to obey the commands which result from infinite wisdom, purity, and benevolence. And is there not everything in this view of the subject to fill the heart with pleasure? What can be more delightful than the fact that, without money and without price, we may be reconciled to God by the death of his Son? What gives happiness to the exalted minds of angels, but the contemplation of the Divine character, and paying him worship and obedience? Oh, if the possession of the Divine favour and the employment of angels will not make a man happy, we know not what will.

Finally, it is the province of religion to prepare its possessors for the enjoyment of the heavenly world. Let the awful descriptions given us of the region of despair in the inspired records be well considered, and all must enjoy pleasure in the thought, that though we have deserved this punishment, we may be delivered from it. On the other hand, let the glowing and beautiful views given us in the same volume of the heavenly

world be contemplated, and who will not rejoice that this heaven may be obtained, and welcome, as the best of blessings, the religion which endows us with its dispositions while yet on earth, and gradually prepares us for its eternal joys? If religion were all sorrows,—if it consisted in the mortifications and penances which some of its mistaken votaries have enjoined,—when we considered its end, we might be filled with pleasure; but when we remember that even now "her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace," we clasp her to our hearts as our best friend, we submit to her guidance, and travel with her to the celestial world.

CHAPTER III.

THE DOCTRINES AND DUTIES OF EVANGELICAL RELIGION PRODUCTIVE OF HAPPINESS.

The Scripture is the only cure of wo;
That field of promise, how it flings abroad
Its odour o'er the Christian's thorny road!
The soul, reposing on assured relief,
Feels herself happy amidst all her grief;
Forgets her labours as she toils along,
Weeps tears of joy and bursts into a song.

COWPER.

It is a circumstance by no means unworthy of our remark, that the charge brought against religion as tending to melancholy has been preferred, not by thoughtful and sensible men, but by the vain and trifling. Depraved as men universally are, there is yet a voice heard in every soul declaring that religion is important, and indeed essential, to human happiness. In proof of this, we refer to the conduct of the different nations of the earth,

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all of whom, in some way or other, attend to something they call religion. And seldom have we heard of those who are required to submit to the most painful privations and sufferings, to please their imagined deities, complain of the austerities and sufferings of piety. Men of the least degree of reflection in our own country seldom prefer the charge of melancholy against what they conceive to be religion itself, but against the representations given of it in the sacred volume. Many persons have told us of the pleasure they have felt in the contemplation of the Divine character, and his wisdom and goodness as displayed in his works; but they say that revelation exhibits him in an unlovely view, and teaches doctrines inconsistent with human happiness. This has been said, but not proved, and we yet challenge proof of the charge. In the meantime, we shall endeavour to remove what (in the absence of proof to the contrary) we consider a mistake, and to shew, by the happy effects which a belief of the truth produces on the heart, that

the religion of Jesus makes its possessor happy.

In our last chapter we endeavoured to take a general view of this religion, and to display its influence in producing happiness; let us now descend to particulars, and in the present examine the doctrines and the duties of Christianity. Here, if anywhere, we shall find the gloom of which we have heard; and if the truths taught, and the duties enjoined, can furnish the mind with pleasure, we may rest satisfied that the object we have had in view is accomplished.

In pursuing our reflections on this subject, it will be well to bear in mind that Christianity is not a system of uncertainties. It is founded on a volume which presents a thousand evidences of its divinity, and claims our belief as emanating from the Spirit of Truth. All the discoveries of revelation, too, are of the utmost moment. They relate to the soul, and associate themselves with eternity. A period will speedily arrive, when the things of the world will be of no importance; at