spirit with him who is willing, in the midst of many objects of gratification, that there should not be one object of gratitude. It is thus that, even in the ignorance of God, there may be a responsibility towards God. The Discerner of the heart sees, whether, for the blessings innumerable wherewith He has strewed the path of every man, He be treated, like the unknown benefactor who was diligently sought, or like the unknown benefactor who was never cared for. In respect, at least of desire after God, the same distinction of character may be observed between one man and another-whether

God be wrapt in mystery, or stand forth in full development to our world. Even though a mantle of deepest obscurity lay over the question of His existence; this would not efface the distinction, between the piety on the one hand which laboured and aspired after Him; and the impiety upon the other which never missed the evidence that it did not care for, and so grovelled in the midst of its own sensuality and selfishness. The eye of a heavenly witness is upon all these varieties; and thus, whether it be darkness or whether it be dislike which hath caused a people to be ignorant of God, there is with him a clear principle of judgment, that He can extend even to the outfields of atheism.

17. It would appear then, that, however shaded from the view of man are the objects of Theology, as in virtue of his moral nature he can feel and recognise in some degree the ethics of Theology— even in this initial state of his mind on the question of a God, there is an impellent force upon the conscience, which he ought to obey, and which he

incurs guilt by resisting. We do not speak of that ight which irradiates the termination of the inquirer's path, but of that embryo or rudimental light which glimmers over the outset of it; which serves at least to indicate the commencement of his way; and which, for aught he knows, may brighten, as he advances onwards, to the blaze of a full and finished revelation. At no point of this progress, does "the trumpet give an uncertain sound," extending, if not to those who stand on the ground of antitheism, (which we have already pronounced upon and we trust proved to be madly irrational)

at least to those who stand on the ground of atheism, who, though strangers to the conviction, are certainly not strangers to the conception of a Deity. It is of the utmost practical importance, that even these are not beyond the jurisdiction of an obvious principle; and that a right obligatory call can be addressed to men so far back on the domain of irreligion and ignorance. It is deeply interesting to know, by what sort of moral force, even an atheist ought to be evoked from the fastness which he occupies-what are the notices, by responding to which, he should come forth with open eyes and a willing mind to this high investigation; and by resisting which, he will incur a demerit, whereof a clear moral cognizance might be taken, and whereon a righteous moral condemnation might be passed. The "fishers of men" should know the uttermost reach of their argument; and it is well to understand of religion, that, if she have truth and authority at all, there is a voice proceeding from her which might be universally

heard so that even the remotest families of earth, if not reclaimed by her, are thereby laid under sentence of righteous reprobation.

18. On this doctrine of the moral dynamics, which operate and are in force, even in our state of profoundest ignorance respecting God, there may be grounded three important applications.

19. The first is that all men, under all the possible varieties of illumination, may nevertheless be the fit subjects for a judicial cognizance-insomuch that when admitted to the universal account, the Discerner of the heart will be at no loss for a principle on which they all might be reckoned with

as, corresponding to a very dim perception of the objects of religion, there might still be as much in operation of the ethics of religion as might lay a distinct responsibility even on the most wild and untutored of nature's children. Within the whole compass of the human family there exists not one outcast tribe that might not be made the subjects of a moral reckoning at the bar of heaven's jurisprudence even though no light from the upper sanctuary hath ever shone upon them; and neither hath any light of science or of civilization sprung up among themselves. In each untutored bosom there do exist the elements of a moral nature; and the peculiar character of each could be seen from the way in which it responded to the manifestation of a Deity. And though only visited by the thought or the suspicion of a Deity, the same thing still could be seen from the way in which these children of nature were affected by it. Each would give his own entertainment to the thought; and, in the

longings of a vague and undefined earnestness that arose to heaven from the solitary wild, might there be evinced as strong an affinity for God and for godliness, as in those praises of an enlightened gratitude that ascend from the temples of Christendom. It is thus that the Searcher of the inner man will find out data for a reckoning among all the tribes of this world's population-and that nowhere on the face of our globe doth spiritual light glimmer so feebly as not to supply the materials of a coming judgment on one and all of the human family.

20. It is thus that even to the most remote and unlettered tribes, men are everywhere the fit subjects for a judgment-day. Their belief, scanty

though it be, hath a correspondent morality which they may either observe or be deficient in, and so be reckoned with accordingly. They have few of the facts in Theology; and these may be seen too through the hazy medium of a dull and imperfect evidence, or perhaps have only been shadowed out to them by the power of imagination. Their theology may have arisen no higher than to the passing suggestion of a God-a mere surmise or rumination about an unseen spirit, who, tending all their footsteps, was their guardian and their guide through the dangers of the pathless wilderness, who provides all the sustenance which this earth can supply, and hath lighted up these heavens in all their glory. Now in this thought, fugitive though it be, in these uncertain glimpses whether of a truth or of a possibility, there is that, to which the elements of their moral nature might respond so that to them, there is not the same

exemption from all responsibility, which will be granted to the man who is sunk in hopeless idiotism, or to the infant of a day old. Even with the scanty materials of a heathen creed, a pure or a perverse morality might be grounded thereupon-whether, in those longings of a vague and undefined earnestness that arise from him who feels in his bosom an affinity for God and godliness; or, in the heedlessness of him, who, careless of an unknown benefactor, would have been alike careless, although He had stood revealed to his gaze, with as much light and evidence as is to be had in Christendom. These differences attest what man is, under the dark economy of Paganism; and so give token to what he would be, under the bright economy of a full and finished revelation. It is thus that the Searcher of the heart will find out data for a reckoning, even among the rudest of nature's children, or among those whose spiritual light glimmers most feebly-for faint and feeble though it be, it affords a test to the character of him whom it visits whether he dismiss its suggestions with facility from his mind, or is arrested thereby into a grateful sense of reverence. Even the simple theology of the desert can supply the materials of a coming judgment so that the Discerner of the inner man, able to tell who it is that morally acts and morally feels up to the light he has, or up to the objects that lie within his contemplation, will be at no less for a principle, on which He might clearly and righteously try all the men of all the generations that be upon the face of the earth.

21. We read in the Epistle to the Romans of a