the least insect and plant, than all the art of the zoologist or botanist: they show us the work, Religion the author. Religion alone unrolls the chain of causes, and explains the notion of cause; for there are no causes without the great First Cause: and what is true science but the theory of causation? Besides, what exercises give more grave or serious habits to the mind? What conceptions give a more vast sphere to its ideas, or place it at a point of view so elevated? What actions make it better comprehend order, that great instrument in the operations of the human mind? What influences introduce it better to meditation, rendering meditation easier, sweeter, and at the same time more profound? Religion is the lamp of the intellectual life, the inward teacher, carrying the eye of reflection over all the secrets of the soul. It is the polar star of genius, the supreme link of the greatest plans, the high revelation, which connects the visible to the invisible, the known to the unknown, the universe to thought. Thus poetry and the arts, when they attempt their highest flight, when they wish to immortalize their works, if they dare not directly invoke this celestial power, seek, at least in their fictions, the appearance of her shadow, and some features stolen from her venerable image.

Mind, without Religion, wanders through the universe, exiled, solitary, and, as it were, lost; perceiving only a surface, from which it is reflected, but finding no focus for its rays. With Religion it finds a country: her light becomes a vivifying ray, instead of being a fugitive spark.

What is most remarkable in the education, given by Religion to the affections of the heart and the powers of the mind, is, that in developing them, she directs with certainty, and by open and short paths; towards that moral perfection, which is their proper object.

There is not a single one of the duties, prescribed by natural morality, that Religion does not prescribe and ennoble by consecrating; there is no counsel of wisdom or prudence, that is not recommended by her, that is not raised to a higher degree of perfection, and established upon a firmer basis. The code of excellence receives from her an august promulgation; and as, in fact, this code is engraven on our hearts by God himself, morality, eternal as its author, is thus revealed in its origin and essence. The consequence re-ascends to its principal, to receive a new confirmation: it is not solely the law; it is the Legislator himself, who appears and unveils

himself, to declare and sanction his work in the sanctuary of conscience.

The understanding of the rules of duty may be obscure, and difficult; by this, all becomes clear, fixed, simple; rules take a form. Prescriptions of duty may appear dry and hard in abstract speculation; in religion, they become animated, personified, full of sentiment, and express themselves in most eloquent language. When presented to the religious man in their true aspect, the order of society appears to him as an institution founded by the Author of all things: the justice of human laws, becomes an expression of eternal justice; legitimate power, a delegation from on high; the place assigned to himself, a vocation: thus he accepts his lot whatever it is, and lives, because he knows whom he obeys, because in obeying he trusts him.

Man is but an instrument; Religion confirms this truth: but what a noble instrument he becomes in her hands. Of all visible agents he becomes the first, because he alone knows the invisible Mover to whom he serves as a lever; he alone associates himself in the designs of this great Director by the power of thought. If, in disposing of himself, he exercises a control, this control supposes an authority, a right. Who confers them upon him? This empire over himself, that we called a magistracy, we may now call a priesthood; for man becomes in regard to himself, the minister of God, and the dispenser of his benefits: an emancipated child, he rejoices in his liberty, because he may freely accomplish the paternal will. Invested with religious dignity, he respects himself; he esteems himself without pride; and, in circumstances reputed lowest by the prejudices of the world, claims a noble title, of which the world is ignorant. This sense of

dignity will be so much the more modest and benevolent, as it is more just. What does he possess but the benefactions of the common Father? and why does he possess them, but that he may spread them? Behold him freed from the tyranny of opinion. What imports the judgment of the frivolous spectators, who directed it? He moves in the presence of a high witness, even truth itself. Supported under the weight of his own weakness, secured in danger, comforted in grief, surrounded by an all powerful protection, attached to a better world by bonds which nothing can sever, he does not exhaust himself by a stern resistance, but seeks refuge in a serene and gentle resignation, born of submission and confi

dence. Through the sombre clouds, accumulated round him by heart-rending sorrows, wounded in all his affections, he sees that luminous ray, which, descending from heaven, shines through and dissipates the gloom. The religious man, alone, deserted by the whole world, still finds one to console him; condemned to unlimited suffering, still preserves hope.

Even the inferior order of our sensitive faculties is awakened, and escapes the narrow bounds of animal life, roused from the tomb of matter by the holy voice of religion; all nature takes a soul, and a language responding to our spirit; the universe is opened, as the temple of the Most High: meteors appear as his messengers; the fruits of the earth grow as witnesses and organs of his kindness; the simplest flowers speak his indulgent goodness; the sight of clear sky, a starry night, the air we breathe, the ocean, even the tempest, all speak to us of God. Public worship, spreading over the earth, like heavenly dew, vivifies, consecrates, decorates the imposing scene of creation, by associating it with His Spirit. Private worship favors by religious meditation the exercise of self-recollection and reflection. Domestic worship purifies and protects the obscure asylum, in which the days of our earthly life pass, and exhibits the holiest spectacle on earth, virtue in adoration of God; making of the little spot a sort of universe, filled as it is by the presence of God. Public worship transforms civil society into a moral community, and the concourse of individuals who were strangers to each other, into a family union. Its festivals are a necessary rest, both in rural and in city life; its solemnities break the monotony of time, and give a charm to the repose merited by long labor: its ceremonies hallow the most important eras of human destiny, as well as the revolutions of seasons; giving to joy a graver character, to grief a mysterious sweetness; nourishing pious remembrances, and keeping up a holy communion between those who survive and those who have departed, and covering the tomb with emblems of immortality.

HYMN ON THE SEASONS.

THESE, as they change, ALMIGHTY FATHER, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year

Is full of THEE. Forth in the pleasing Spring

THY beauty walks, THY tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;
And every sense, and every heart is joy.
Then comes THY glory in the Summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then THY sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year:
And oft THY voice in dreadful thunder speaks:
And oft at dawn, deep noon, and falling eve,
By brooks and groves, and hollow-whispering gales
THY bounty shines in Autumn unconfin'd,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter awful THOU! with clouds and storms
Around THEE thrown, tempest o'er tempest roll'd.
Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing,
Riding sublime, THOU bidst the world adore,
And humblest Nature with THY northern blast.

Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mix'd, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combin'd;
Shade, unperceiv'd, so softening into shade;
And all so forming an harmonious whole;
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze,
Man marks not THEE, marks not the mighty hand,
That, ever-busy, wheels the silent spheres;
Works in the secret deep; shoots, streaming thence
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring;
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth;
And as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.

Nature, attend! join every living soul, Beneath the spacious temple of the sky, In adoration join; and, ardent, raise One general song! To HIM, ye vocal gales, Breathe soft, whose Spirit in your freshness breathes:

Oh, talk of HIM in solitary glooms!

Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe,

And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,

Who shake th' astonish'd world, lift high to heaven
Th' impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.
His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills;
And let me catch it as I muse along.

Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound;
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,
A secret world of wonders in thyself,
Sound His stupendous praise; whose greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.

Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,
In mingled clouds to HIM; whose sun exalts,
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.
Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave, to HIM!
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Ye that keep watch in Heaven, as earth asleep
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,
Ye constellations, while your angels strike,
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day! best image here below
Of thy CREATOR, ever pouring wide,
From world to world the vital ocean round,
On Nature write with every beam His praise.
The thunder rolls: be hush'd the prostrate world:
While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn.
Bleat out afresh, ye hills: ye mossy rocks,
Retain the sound: the broad responsive lowe,
Ye valleys, raise; for the GRAET SHEPHERD reigns;
And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come.
Ye woodlands all, awake: a boundless song
Burst from the groves! and when the restless day,
Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,
Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charm

The listening shades, and teach the night His praise.
Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,
At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn; in swarming cities vast,
Assembled men, to the deep organ join

The long resounding voice, oft breaking clear,
At solemn pauses, through the swelling base;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardor rise to heaven.