PRELIMINARY ESSAY.

In the class of modern religious biographies, this work is peculiar peculiar from its destitution of all interest, except that founded in religion. There were no incidents, in the life of Isabella Campbell to excite interest, and though she lived in the midst of natural scenery, both wild and beautiful, there is no attraction given to the Memoir from that, or indeed any other incidental circumstance. The value of the biography consists in the peculiarity of the religious character displayed; and on this account it is worthy of the most attentive and studious perusal. I am of opinion, that the nature of personal religion has not been sufficiently studied among us; and while the press has been teeming with religious controversy, with biblical criticism, with missionary intelligence, and with plans and persuasives pertaining to benevolent enterprise, comparatively little has been written upon religion, as a mode of life, as a course of action, as the perfection of spiritual existence. And because it has not been thus studied, the church in our land, is very deficient in eminent examples of living piety;-examples that throw a holy radiance about them, which warm and animate all within the sphere of their influence. It bodes ill, that we have so many, in the high places of our Zion, who rather give us the light of a wintry sun, than those golden rays, which give perfection and maturity to our fruits.

Religion has too long been studied, as a system to be explained and conformed to reigning opinions on intellec.

tual philosophy, rather than something to be believed; to be believed, not as a chain of arguments, of which, about as much may be said on the one side as the other, but believed as in itself furnishing the sustenance of the soul—that from which its daily life comes, and in which it consists. Many a weary battle has been fought with Motives, and Volitions, and Tastes, and Moral Power, and Moral Tendency, and no very perceptible advantage gained, because the parties had forgotten that the victory that overcometh the world is our FAITH. Religion is a system of truths to be believed. And if BELIEF does not express enough to thoughtless minds, then, I say religion is a system of TRUTHS, in which our moral life is to have its being. Here is the suste. nance, the peace, the purity, the happiness, of the soul. Life and immortality are here; joy and bliss are here. By argu. ments, a variety of things may be made known; but not life and joy; these must be felt to be known. Many, many things may be said of the why and the wherefore in reli. gion, the cause and the reason abundantly stated, without the least advance in the knowledge of religion as a life. And yet it is only as a life, that God has condescended to speak of it to us; and he that would be godlike must contemplate it, and speak of it; nay, and should teach it only as a life. O! how full of folly are those, who are wasting their time, and their temper, and their energy in pulling down and building up the ungainly scaffolding of the Christian temple, which men as full of folly as themselves, have hereto. fore erected to the marring of its beauty, and the utter destruction of its imposing grandeur.

Isabella Campbell treated religion as a life. She lived in it. It was the life of her life. And she received it not from the arguments of man, nor from the opinions of man, nor from any source in man, but from God. But she had not seen God, and as the only possible way, she received it by Faith, adopting it, as she received it, to her necessities;

feeding upon it, living upon it, hoping in it, rejoicing in it. She went about to establish no righteousness of her own, to form no notions of her own, to seek no path of her own, to lean on no strength of her own, but submitted herself to the righteousness of God in Christ. She believed God. In that belief, she found all her wants more than supplied. Her soul was filled with peace; yea, it overflowed with love; it brake forth in joy, it shouted in thanksgiving, it continu. ally uttered praise, it did exalt and magnify the Lord our Saviour.

To these unusually clear and distinct views, Isabella's peculiar situation doubtless contributed in some degree. She was not placed in circumstances where any object, calling for the active exertion of her own mind, had seized upon it, with controlling power. Her health and her constitution were delicate, which withdrew her still more from the bustling thoughts and feelings of active employment, and which seemed to give a kind of serene calmness-a pure and lovely abstraction to her whole conversation and manner, that exhibited her faith in bold relief, more prominent perhaps, than the same measure of faith would have been, had she been compassed with the cares of life, and dwelt amid the din and bustle of active business. In this way, she became a more transparent medium for the transmission of the light of truth, than she would otherwise have been. The sustaining principles of her mind are more apparent, at least to the superficial observer, than they would have been in different circumstances. Her experience, however, is only the natural and legitimate effect of receiving Religion as a life, and the making of faith the continuous act by which the principle of life is sustained. We live by Faith, says the Apostle. We live so, because there is nothing of the spiritual life, which our souls demand in this world. It is required, therefore, in the outset, that we draw our sustaining strength from something above and beyond

us. Sickness, and the deprivation of friends, and of human comforts, are before us; and death itself is just in advance. There is no permanent rest here, all is feeble, and fleeing from our grasp. The soul seeks purity, and perfect joy, and fulness of delightsome occupation; but though it compasseth the whole world, it is wearied, dissatisfied, and returneth baffled and sad in its self.communion. No pure, permanent happiness has been found. And the universal testimony of all the dwellers upon earth is, that they have never found it; and the response, from mother Earth herself is, that it cannot be found in her bosom, which is ready to burst with its cares for the present, and its solicitude for the future. Faith then appears like a pure and lovely Moon, reflecting light from another world; and the soul rejoices in holding on its way by her guidance. It removes itself off from honour, and wealth, and beauty, and companionship, and learning, and all forms of Earthly power, and rests itself on the sure promise of God. It believes what God has said. It has no confidence in the flesh; it has unlimited confidence in God. It has no dependence on its own powers; but it rests undoubting on the offer--" my grace is sufficient for thee." And then it lives on God. On God manifest in Christ, God manifest in truths pertaining to Redemption; wherein his holiness is seen; his selforiginating mercy is seen; his justice is seen; his friend. liness to sinners is seen; his abhorrence of sin is seen; and where he manifests himself in the atmosphere of all-com. prehending love.

Religion seeks to give the soul not only a life, but a permanent life. The life we now live is not permanent, in its sources of happiness; it is not permanent, in the uniformity of its happiness; it is not permanent, in any of its hopes; indeed its very nature is, that it is transitory, a state of transition (in transitu.) It is therefore absurd, as well as impossible to suppose, that the sources of permanent hope,

joy, and peace, can exist in the elements of the world. And because of this impossibility, it is made essential, that we should live, in the life that is permanent, by FAITH; that is, that the whole combination of principles, and joyous emo. tions, that constitute spiritual life, should be received by FAITH. Unthinking men, whether they be Christians or not, forget this; and often allow themselves to speak of the difficulty of perceiving why Faith is made so essential in the scheme of Redemption. And when they do speak of it, they show in no equivocal manner, that they do not comprehend its absolute necessity. But in Religion, God regards our permanent being; and therefore adopts this sustaining power to the soul, not as a material, temporary existence, but as having immortality. The things of this world cannot carry it beyond the world.-The things of time cannot carry it beyond their boundary, nor stay it up when they themselves cease to be. Friends cannot, by prayers, or tears, or sympathies, render aid in the hour, when the only word that all can utter is, farewell. And therefore it is, that the commands come, "Walk by Faith," "Live by Faith," "Let your life be hid with Christ in God," &c. God seeks to awaken in us that spiritual life, which will survive the ruin of the visible Universe, and therefore does he call, and demand, as an obvious necessity, that we should rise in our thoughts, in our affections, in our desires, in our whole spiritual being, above the world; so that our purest and most delightful joys shall spring from the other world-so that our sweetest hopes shall be there--so that the eye of our faith shall be ravished with its wonderful beautiesso that there shall dwell with us, the blissful earnest of a happiness that death and the wreck of worlds cannot de.. stroy, which

"shall o'er the ruins smile And light its torch at nature's funeral pile."