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work, when the Lectures before us were received; and the subject of them is well calculated to encourage the reflections with which we have commenced this article, and which we may be allowed to pursue a few moments longer.

If, according to the foregoing remark, the study of morals is an early study of mankind, we think it may also be added that, even among the uninspired, it has been a successful one. The difficulty with mankind is not, that they do not know, or cannot easily learn their duties. No thinking man can read the work of Cicero, to which we have referred, without admiration for the beauty, and dignity, and truth of the lessons, which he lays down for his son, and for mankind. Certainly the Gospel, and before it the Law of Moses, have given some rules of moral duty which, as if to show the superiority of their source, exhibit a moral excellence above all that Greece and Rome had heard. But the number of these is not very great. Socrates (or Plato) had gone so far as to forbid the negative of our Saviour's great rule of conduct between man and man. He forbade us to do to others what we would not be willing that they should do to us. Cicero plainly adopts the same rule, a rule that calls forth our admiration by its approach to inspiration on the one hand, while on the other, it leaves room for the towering superiority of the positive precept of the Redeemer," so that in all things he might have the pre-eminence." In like manner, the injunction in the law to remember the poor, the precepts about gleaning, the limitation of servitude to seven years, the command to deliver our neighbor's ox, and not to muzzle the mouth of the animal, and many others, attest, even in the reproached law of Moses, a higher and better humanity than was known to the philosophers of Greece.

This superiority in the precepts of the divine legislation is distinctive; but it is not its most peculiar feature. The great peculiarity of revealed religion is, that by it, man is placed in an actual intercourse of discipleship and obedience to his Creator and Judge. This is an entire new head, in addition to all that the light of philosophy had revealed. It places man in a condition entirely new; it changes the whole principle of moral obligation, or rather introduces a principle of obligation for the first time. Ethics, as a science, became as new, on the publication of the Gospel, as Astronomy after the discoveries of Kepler and Newton. We now receive rules written by the Creator for the government of those he has created. These rules are not the operation of natural appetites within us; but something different from, and often in opposition to them. They are either not written upon the natural heart, or not observed by it. By him those rules are actually and especially given; by us they are actually heard and read; so that we find ourselves in the relation of subjects, and pupils, and children, to

the God of all worlds. of subjects, and p

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In the next place, the laws of God are enforced by sanctions ;by rewards and punishments." On these two hang all the law and the prophets." If even the gross and imperfect legislation of man needs to be enforced by the powerful anticipations of good or evil, how just and reasonable does it appear that a law, which can embrace no shade of error, should be enacted with the highest sanctions.

Cicero had prescribed to his son the observance of justice and temperance. When the same great man came to arraign Verres before the Roman people, for aggravated violence, plunder, and bloodshed, in his government of a province, he reasoned from such topics as he knew; and Verres no doubt grew pale from the apprehension of confiscation, or banishment. But when, in the next century, Paul appeared before another Roman governor, equally flagitious, he had been divinely taught, and he knew of other topics. He reasoned not only of righteousness and temperance, but of judgement to come; and the rapacious governor trembled before a man in chains.

We have brought up the contrast of these two trials, not because it exhibits anything which is new, but for the sake of newly impressing truths which, however important, seem stale, and are almost forgotten. In the midst of overflowing privileges and redundant light, we forget how great those privileges are. If anything could impress upon the youth of our country the value of such a series of lessons as are contained in these Lectures by Dr. Sprague; we think it would be a fair comparison of Christian doctrine proposed to youth, with all its magnificent hopes, and most solemn sanctions, and under the eye of a present God, on the one hand, and on the other, the brightest moralist of ancient days proposing to his son a system of morals, just indeed for the most part as to practice, but destitute of accountableness, unfortified by any reverence for the divine name, without pardon or purification for sins, and not adorned by any glimpse of immortal hope. Let the studious and ingenious youth then ponder upon the treatise De Officiis, and in that splendid system of heathen ethics let him observe that no higher reason is given for any duty, than because it is "naturæ hominis aptissimum," and the like. The father can quote to the son no higher authority than that of Cratippus and the Stoics. If interest or passion should urge the youth to break over these barriers of reason, it is a case unprovided for, and the parent had no remedy. He heard no superior and revered command he saw no stay of fear, or prop of hope, or smiling spirit of comfort, or avenging arm of wrath, to keep the steps of erring youth in the path of rectitude. When the whole administration of things around us is so manifestly formed upon a principle of retribution, it seems wonderful that the operation of this principle was not discovered by heathen antiquity; or if discovered, that it was * But adapted to the nature of man. Cicero De Officiis, Lib. I.

not applied to some more important purpose than to give zest to a fable, or bedeck a poem.

Taking their system of morals, such as we admit it to be, we have often tried to imagine what would have been the effect, if their poets and mythologists had adorned that system with imagery derived from revelation. If their Elysium, instead of being peopled with warriors drinking nectar, had been peopled with the pure and sweet spirits of the just made perfect, employed forever in studying the works, doing the will, and singing the praise of one all-perfect, just, and good Ruler :-suppose its inhabitants collected from all the scenes of great tribulation,-their sorrows assuaged, their sins forgiven, their tears all wiped away,-and this from unmerited and unexpected favor:-Suppose their Tartarus filled with none but those who rejected the just government of a kind Ruler, and persisted to mar the bliss of his creation-and were therefore necessarily held up as "ensamples, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire :"-finally, if the unimaginable realities of the judgement had been produced as the fiction of poetry :-how would the world of taste have pursued and dwelt upon the splendid pageant! How beautiful, and sweet, and right, if imaginary :-how repulsive to the same hearts, if true!

The plan of these Lectures seems to be to take youth in precisely that situation in which they are placed by the providence of God: that is, exposed to temptation, error and allurement. The introductory address, by the Rev. Dr. Miller, is conceived with great felicity, and is happily adapted to answer the purpose for which it is designed. The first discourse impressively points The out the importance of the period of youth. The next three are upon the three great dangers which beset its course: danger of evil company; of evil instruction or bad principles; and The next Lecture brings into contrast the of a life of pleasure. favor of the world, and the favor of God; and in the sixth, Religion is shown to be a principle, which ought to pervade the whole character, and as demanding the homage of the intellect, the heart, and the life. In subsequent discourses, the young are urged to embrace religion; their excuses for not doing so are met and answered; they are exhibited as awaking to its influence and embracing it; the personal evidences of it are examined, and the nature, qualifications, and importance of a public profession of it, are then stated. The thirteenth Lecture is upon Defence against temptation; and the four last upon Christian Decision, upon growth in grace, upon doing good, and upon the triumphant close of the young Christian's course.

Without any ostentation of method, we see in this arrangement something for the young in every condition which regards religion, or the want of it. The opening of the first Lecture is very striking. After stating the season of youth as the commencement of existence

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of a rational existence-and of an existence, the character and destination of which is all in doubt, the author proceeds :

"Collect now the several circumstances which have been mentioned under this article, and tell me whether they do not invest the morning of human life with peculiar interest. It is the period in which a rational soul commences a career as unlimited as the existence of Jehovah, and attended by joy or woe which imagination in its boldest flights never conceived. And over the whole path of the soul's existence, there hangs, at present, a fearful uncertainty; no one can say, in what manner these unfolding faculties are hereafter to be employed; whether in serving God or in opposing him; whether in bringing upon the soul a perpetual shower of blessings, or an everlasting torrent of wrath. Is that an interesting moment, when the experienced adventurer steps from the shores of his native country, and trusts himself to the mighty deep, to be borne to some far distant region? How much more interesting the period, in which an immortal soul commences the voyage of life, not knowing how much he may be tempest-tossed during his passage, or whether he may not even be wrecked on the dark coast of eternity! If, in the former case, the eyes of anxious friends follow the mariner as he goes off into the deep, is it not reasonable to suppose, in the latter, that the watchful regards of angels are attracted by the condition of a young immortal, whose character is yet to be formed, and whose destiny is yet to be revealed?"

The interest of the following extract from the second Lecture, we trust will justify its length.

"Another sentiment which is brought into operation in aid of a vicious habit, by associating with wicked companions, is the dread of being singular.

There is nothing that goes to the heart of a young man like "the world's dread laugh;" or the idea of standing alone; or of being charged with superstitious scruples of conscience and this is a principle of which the abettors of vice are always sure to avail themselves, in regard to those who are inexperienced. When a young man, whose mind has been stored with good sentiments through the influence of education, falls into their company, it is wonderful to observe how their invention is quickened for devising means for his destruction. They take care not to display to him all the mysteries of iniquity at once, lest it should produce a shock which should drive him from their society. At first, perhaps, he discovers in them nothing more than an excessive cheerfulness; and so far, he thinks they may be imitated without much danger. But it is not long before he must take another step; and if he hesitates and falters now, he sees on one side, a reproachful frown, and on the other, a contemptuous smile: one, perhaps, charges him with un manly superstition, and another with the want of independence; or it may be, the whole fraternity of them set up one general shout of ridicule. At such a moment, I look upon a young man as suspended between life and death; and as the experiment which is now going forward may result, I expect his eternal destiny will be decided. If I could look into his heart at this awful crisis, I should expect to find it in a state of fearful agitation; and if the power of reflection had not deserted him, to find him proposing to himself some such questions as these:-"What step is this which I am now tempted to take? Whither will it conduct me? May it not ruin my character, and ruin my soul? What mean these counsels and warnings of my early youth, that now come knocking at the door of my heart? If I yield, will not the hearts of my pious friends bleed with tenfold deeper sorrow than if I were to die;-nay, will it not almost send a pang of agony down into the graves of my departed parents, who dedicated me to God, and with their dying breath charged me to beware of a life of sin? But how can I sustain the anguish of being singular? How can I bear to be thought mean and spiritless; to hear these shouts of ridicule, and witness these expressions of contempt? No, I will not submit to this intolerable burden: I will rush headlong into the haunts of sin, and endeavor to stifle conscience and drown reflection. Cease, then, to trouble me, ye recollections of my early days. Ye pious friends, who have followed me all my life with affectionate wishes and good offices, I can heed you no longer. I will sooner pierce all your hearts with anguish, than to stand alone and try to stem this torrent of ridicule. And you too, departed parents,

even if I knew I should disturb the repose of your graves, and plant a thorn in that pillow which sustains your head in yonder lonely mansion,-I could not bear to be singular. Leave me therefore, friends; leave me, conscience; leave me, every tender and endearing recollection; leave me too, ye gloomy forebodings of future misery; and let me sacrifice myself as quietly as I can! I can hazard anything else, even the eternal burnings of hell; but I cannot, I will not, hazard the odium of being singular!" I do believe, my hearers, that many a young man, who now sits in the seat of the scoffer, if he would honestly tell you his whole experience, would be obliged to relate the story of some such conflict as this which I have here supposed; and it may be that there are young persons before me, who can recollect something like it in their own experience. But if I knew there were such a case, I should hardly think it premature to call upon you to begin even now to mourn for the death of an immortal soul.

The third Lecture is the most argumentative, and yet with little parade of argument. We extract as a specimen the head on miracles in which, arguing a posteriori, the lecturer puts his supposed opponent to account for known facts, upon any other supposition than the truth of them.

"You must be able to show that the miracles of which the Bible contains a record, either were never performed, or if they were, that they do not prove its divine authority. If you take the former side of the alternative, and say that these miracles were never performed, you must still admit either that they were pretended to be performed, or they were not. If they were pretended to be performed, as recorded in Scripture, it behooves you to show how it was that so many competent witnesses, and among them the most malignant enemies, in circumstances the most favorable for detecting imposture, and for several years in succession, should actually have been deceived. If you say that they were not pretended to be performed, then you have to account for the fact that such a record of them as that which the Bible contains should have been made, at the very time when the imposture-if it were one-was most open to detection; and that it should have been circulated first among the very persons who would have been most interested and most able to detect it; who yet never even pretended to call the facts in question. If you say that the record of these miracles was not made during the age in which they were professedly performed, but that it was palmed upon some succeeding age, then you have to account for the fact that the whole mass of historical testimony fixes the date of this record to nearly the period in which they are alleged to have been performed; and you have this additional difficulty to solve, how a record of facts, purporting to have occurred under the observation of the very people to whom the record was first given, could have been received by them as a true record, when, at the same time, no such facts had ever fallen within their knowledge.

"But if you choose the latter side of the alternative, and say that these miracles were actually wrought, but still do not prove the Bible to be a divine revelation;-you have then to show either that the God of truth would give the stamp of his authority to falsehood, or else that these mighty works were performed by the aid of evil spirits; for that they transcended the limits of human power, admits of no question. The former of these suppositions-that Jehovah has lent his sanction to falsehood-you will not dare to admit, even in thought. If you admit the latter, and refer the miracles of the Bible to diabolical agency, then you have this great moral phenomenon to explain-how the enemy of all good came to be so heartily and earnestly engaged in the destruction of his own Kingdom; for the manifest tendency of all the miracles of the Bible was to promote the cause of righteousness."

Towards the close of the fourth Lecture is the following earnest appeal :

"The consequence of your being brought before the last tribunal, and of receiving a formal and final sentence from the lips of the Judge, will be still more tremendous. At the close of this awful transaction, you will behold, with a be

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