Nature, a temple worthy thee,
That beams with light and love;
Whose flowers so sweetly bloom below,
Whose stars rejoice above,

Whose altars are the mountain cliffs

That rise along the shore;
Whose anthems, the sublime accord
Of storm and ocean roar;

Her song of gratitude is sung
By spring's awakening hours;
Her summer offers at thy shrine
Its earliest, loveliest flowers;
Her autumn brings its ripened fruits,
In glorious luxury given;

While winter's silver heights reflect
Thy brightness back to heaven.

On all thou smil'st; and what is man
Before thy presence, God?
A breath but yesterday inspired,
To-morrow but a clod.

That clod shall mingle in the vale,
But, kindled, Lord, by thee;
The spirit to thy arms shall spring,
To life; to liberty.

HYMN TO THE DEITY.

GREATEST of beings! source of life,
Sovereign of air, and earth and sea!
All nature feels thy power, and all
A silent homage pays to thee.

Waked by thy hand the morning sun
Pours forth to thee its earlier rays,
And spreads thy glories as it climbs;
While raptured worlds look up and praise.
The moon to the deep shades of night
Speaks the mild lustre of thy name;
While all the stars, that cheer the scene,
Thee, the great Lord of light proclaim.

And groves, and vales, and rocks and hills,
And every flower, and every tree,
Ten thousand creatures warm with life,
Have each a grateful song for thee.

But man was formed to rise to heaven;
And blest with reason's clearer light,
He views his Maker through his works,
And glows with rapture at the sight.
Nor can the thousand songs that rise,
Whether from air, or earth, or sea,
So well repeat Jehovah's praise,
Or raise such sacred harmony.

taste.

WITHOUT GOD IN THE WORLD.

THE exclusion of a Supreme Being, and of a superintending providence, tends directly to the destruction of moral It robs the universe of all finished and consummate excellence even in idea. The admiration of perfect wisdom and goodness for which we are formed, and which kindles such unspeakable rapture in the soul, finding in the regions of scepticism nothing to which it corresponds, droops and languishes. In a world which presents a fair spectacle of order and beauty, of a vast family nourished and supported by an almighty Parent; in a world which leads the devout mind, step by step, to the contemplation of the first fair and the first good, the sceptic is encompassed with nothing but obscurity, meanness, and disorder.

When we reflect on the manner in which the idea of Deity is formed, we must be convinced that such an idea, intimately present to the mind, must have a most powerful effect in refining the moral taste. Composed of the richest elements, it embraces, in the character of a beneficent Parent, and almighty Ruler, whatever is venerable in wisdom, whatever is awful in authority, whatever is touching in goodness.

Human excellence is blended with many imperfections, and seen under many limitations. It is beheld only in detached and separate portions, nor ever appears in any one character whole and entire. So that when, in imitation of the Stoics, we wish to form out of these fragments, the notion of a perfectly wise and good man, we know it is a mere fiction

of the mind, without any real being in whom it is embodied and realised. In the belief of a Deity, these conceptions are reduced to reality: the scattered rays of an ideal excellence are concentrated, and become the real attributes of that Being with whom we stand in the nearest relation, who sits supreme at the head of the universe, is armed with infinite power, and pervades all nature with his presence.

The efficacy of these sentiments in producing and augmenting a virtuous taste, will indeed be proportioned to the vividness with which they are formed, and the frequency with which they recur; yet some benefit will not fail to result from them even in their lowest degree.

The idea of the Supreme Being has this peculiar property; that, as it admits of no substitute, so, from the first moment it is impressed, it is capable of continual growth and enlargement. God himself is immutable; but our conception of his character is continually receiving fresh accessions; is continually growing more extended and refulgent, by having transferred upon it new perceptions of beauty and goodness; by attracting to itself, as a centre, whatever bears the impress of dignity, order, or happiness. It borrows splendor from all that is fair, subordinates to itself all that is great, and sits enthroned on the riches of the universe.

LOVE TOWARDS GOD.

We know no property of human nature more undoubted than its capacity and fulness of affection. We see its love overflowing in its domestic connections, in friendships, and especially in its interest in being separated by oceans and the lapse of ages. Let it not be said, that the affections, to which we here refer, have fellow beings for their objects, and do not, therefore, prove our capacity of religious attachment. The truth is, that one spirit runs through all our affections, as far as they are pure; and love to mankind, directed aright, is the germ and element of love to the Divinity. Whatever is excellent and venerable in human beings, is of God, and in attaching ourselves to it we are preparing our hearts for its Author. Whoever sees and recognizes the moral dignity of impartial justice and disinterested goodness in his fellow creatures, has begun to pay homage to the attributes of God. The first emotion awakened in the soul, we mean filial at

tachment, is the dawning of love to our Father in heaven. Our deep interest in the history of good and great men, our veneration towards enlightened legislators, our sympathy with philanthropists, our delight in mighty efforts of intellect consecrated to a good cause, all these sentiments prove our capacity of an affectionate reverence to God; for he is at once the inspirer and the model of this intellectual and moral grandeur in his creatures. We even think, that our love of nature has an affinity with the love of God, and was meant as a preparation for it; for the harmonies of nature are only his wisdom made visible; the heavens, so sublime, are a revelation of his immensity; and the beauty of creation images to us his overflowing love and blessedness. To us, hardly any thing seems plainer, than that the soul was made for God. Not only its human affections guide it to him; not only its deep wants, its dangers, and helplessness, guide it to him; there are still higher indications of the end for which it was made. It has a capacity of more than human love, a principle or power of adoration, which cannot bound itself to finite natures, which carries up the thoughts above the visible universe, and which, in approaching God, rises into a solemn transport, a mingled awe and joy, prophetic of a higher life; and a brighter signature of our end and happiness cannot be conceived.

We are aware that it may be objected, that many and great obstructions to a supreme love of God, belong to our very constitution and condition, and that these go far to disprove the doctrine of our being framed for religion as our chief good. But this argument does not move us. We learn from every survey of man's nature and history, that he is ordained to approach the end of his creation through many and great obstructions; that effort is the immutable law of his being; that a good, in proportion to its grandeur, is encompassed with hardship. The obstructions to religion are not greater than those to knowledge; and accordingly history gives as dark views of human ignorance, as of human guilt. Yet who on this ground, denies that man was formed for knowledge, that progress in truth is the path of nature, and that he has impulses which are to carry forward his intellectual powers without end? It is God's pleasure, in his provisions for the mind, as well as for the body, to give us in a rude state the materials of good, and to leave us to frame from them, amidst much conflict, a character of moral and religious excellence; and in this ordination we see his wise benevolence; for by

this we may rise to the unutterable happiness of a free and moral union with our Creator. We ought to add, that the obstructions to the love of God do not lie wholly in ourselves. Perhaps the greatest is a false theology. This interposes thick clouds between the soul and its Maker. It darkens and dishonors God and his works, and leaves nothing to sustain our trust and love.

The motives which are most commonly urged for cherishing supreme affection towards God, are drawn from our frailty and weakness, and from our need of more than human succor in the trials of life and in the pains of death. But religion has a still higher claim. It answers to the deepest want - of human nature. We refer to the want of some being or beings, to whom we may give our hearts, whom we may love more than ourselves, for whom we may live and be ready to die, and whose character responds to that idea of perfection, which however dim and undefined, is an essential element of every human soul. We cannot be happy beyond our love. At the same time, love may prove our chief woe, if bestowed unwisely, disproportionately, and on unworthy objects; if confined to beings of imperfect virtue, with whose feelings we cannot always innocently sympathize, whose interests we cannot always righteously promote, who narrow us to themselves instead of breathing universal charity, who are frail, mutable, exposed to suffering, pain, and death. To secure a growing happiness and a spotless virtue, we need for the heart, a being worthy of its whole treasure of love, to whom we may consecrate our whole being, in approaching whom we enter an atmosphere of purity and brightness, in sympathizing with whom we cherish only noble sentiments, in devoting ourselves to whom we espouse great and enduring interests, in whose character we find the spring of an ever enlarging philanthropy, and by attachment to whom, all our other attachments are hallowed, protected, and supplied with tender and sublime consolations under bereavement and hlighted hope. Such a being is God.

TRUST IN GOD.

THOU art, O Lord, my only trust,

When friends are mingled with the dust,

And all my loves are gone.