otherwise its clear and steady light will be exchanged for the transient meteor of exhalation on the one hand, or the frost of indifference on the other. The glow of enthusiasm, or the chill of carelessness; the fever of passion, or the collapse of scepticism; will characterize the manifestations of a mind which has embraced its truths but in part, and has, perhaps, embraced them with the narrow views of sectarian influence. Besides, a little acquaintance with the intellectuul nature of man will prove that he was originally designed for much greater attainments than are now within his grasp; and will show that some perverting agency has passed upon him, has circumscribed his knowledge, placed a limit every where to his researches, converted that which was once good into that which has an evil tendency, and made him what he now is, the willing slave of sin, instead of what he ought to be, the obedient servant of Christ. And if this state of things cannot be accounted for upon any known principle, it is surely not irrational to take the account which revelation gives of this sad change. And, if our conviction of this first and fundamental truth in revelation be thus confirmed, our faith in its remaining doctrines acquires a firmer basis. For faith, which is the gift of God, must be placed upon the conviction of want in the dependent, and of power, and knowledge, and goodness, in the Giver: and it must be supported by the understanding, or it will wither away, before the sophistries of the designing. Besides, the moral responsibility and free agency of man, his power to choose the good, and refuse the evil; and his loss of that power, in consequence of the gloomy inheritance bequeathed him from this first fall, and now prolonged to successive generations, derives support from the phenomena of mental manifestation and brainular peculiarity. The original character of the faculty of volition may be still descried through its mournfully altered phenomena: man's knowledge of good, and his conviction of truth, his preference of evil, and his choice of error, are stamped in undeniable characters upon his mental operations, and plainly indicate the necessity of some change, in order to convert the manifestations of his degraded temperament, into the offspring of truth, and justice, and righteousness; and thus also confirm the doctrine of a necessity for the influence of the Holy Spirit, to renew that nature, to change that heart, to subdue that rebellious will, to enlarge that contracted understanding, and to place its renovated feelings, and views, and principles, on another and a firmer basis, even the Rock of Ages. Yet, if this be true, it is clear that man is now in a state of imperfection; and still equally clear that the constitution of his nature must have originally destined him for a state of perfection. Man's immortal spirit is encumbered and imprisoned in its material tenement, which is destined, in a few short years, to lose its beauty, and to crumble into dust. Here, then, he is tending to decay; and therefore, if there be a state of perfection any where, it cannot be on earth. But he possesses within himself a consciousness of continued existence. It ¿s reasonable to conclude that perfection must be hereafter: and we now see him placed in a period of probation, during which, his powers are to be refined; and he is to be daily striving forward, after that nearer and still nearer approach to a perfect state, which is only attainable, as is revealed to us, when mortality shall be swallowed up of life, when the soul shall escape the burden of materiality, and when disenchanted from the thraldom of ignorance and vice, and released from the prison of the body, it shall know all things; when it shall be clothed in the robe of its Redeemer's righteousness, and shall be holy, even as He is holy. But, further, this being admitted, it is madness to rest satisfied with the possession of any measure of present wisdom. For if the original tendency of the human mind be the pursuit after perfection; and if any point of improvement be a step gained in advance towards this state; and if the acquisition of every fresh portion of knowledge be not only a triumph over ignorance, but a source of strength for the future useful application of mental power; and if the value of knowledge be estimated only by the end which it purposes, and by the means of its accomplishment; it is clear, that that wisdom which relates to a small section of man's existence, can only be valuable in proportion as it adds to his capacity for enjoying, and his means of obtaining, that eventual good which will constitute his happiness throughout futurity; and therefore, that every attainable portion of science should be earnestly desired, and should be employed directly or indirectly in seeking after that perfection which alone can thoroughly satisfy the heart that has been renewed by the Spirit of grace, since none but a Divine sanction can fully calm its fears, or expand the bosom with hope and confidence, or joy and love: nought but this can constitute the active Christian, the burning and shining light, during the darkness and the doubt which attach to his material existence. The doctrine of Providence, the bountiful care of the Almighty Creator, the harmony which pervades all his works, the beneficence which marks his designs, and the wonderful provision which has been made for all the emergencies of life, are explained and defined by the researches of natural philosophy; and thus phenomena which impressed the mind with fear, when ignorant of their cause, become sources of adoring gratitude, and motives to obedience, when explained. Every hour of man's eventful history affords a convincing proof of his dependance, and of the divinity of that power, which, unseen, sustains and governs all things with inconceivable benevolence. The light of science will exbibit this truth in a thousand every-day forms, and will prove how minutely and literally we live, and move, and have our being, through this Almighty agency. But if so, we are prepared to receive the revelation of God as the moral Governor of the universe, entitled to man's obedience, and enacting those paternal laws, the infringement of which must be followed by certain punishment, or by pardon proceeding upon a principle which can reconcile perfect holiness with perfect love. The obligations of a child to an earthly parent adinit not of comparison with those of man to his Creator: yet the former enacts laws, and requires implicit obedience to their spirit, punishes for their infraction, and only forgives upon submission of the offender, making a fancied atonement for error, and promising to do his will in future. But God, who is perfect holiness, can only forgive iniquity which has been atoned for; and since man has no power of his own to expiate sin, to obtain forgiveness for the past or strength for the time to come, a sacrifice has been provided, by which the harmony of the Divine attributes may be sustained, and God may be just, and manifest his hatred to sin, and yet be gracious to sinners, receiving to his favour all such as accept the proffered salvation, through faith in Christ, and obedience unto life. Nor is there any thing incredible in this provision; for, reasoning from the analogies of the physical creation, if God has wisely ordained a certain proportion of atmospherical air to sustain natural life; and if the slightest difference in the proportion of its constituent atoms occasion distress; and if the air we have breathed be contaminated, and rendered unfit to sustain animal life; and still more, if this air be peculiarly fitted for the support and nourishment of plants, which thus consume what man has impoverished, and again breathe it out purified and renewed: or if it has been wisely provided, that water, in assuming the form of ice, should become specifically lighter than in its pristine state, in order to prevent the devastating consequences of those inundations which must ensue, were the contrary the case; why, if this minute care (and the instances might be indefinitely multiplied) be taken of man's welfare (and science demonstrates that it is taken), can there be any thing incredible in the supposition, that at least equal care should have been taken of his moral, but contaminated nature, or that some provision should have been reserved, to rescue him from the devastations of sin, which come in like a flood? And can there be any thing less reasonable, less worthy of attention and of belief, in the provision which has been made in the sacrifice of Christ, for the latter instance,-recurring to the above mentioned physical facts,-than in the effect produced upon air by the respiration of plants, or on the specific gravity of water by the change of configuration in its particles on their becoming ice? Surely, then, my first propositions have been fully demonstrated; surely, we need not be afraid of considering reason and science as the handmaids of religion; or of seeking for an explanation of forms of being with which we are unacquainted, without at once referring them to a purely mysterious and spiritual agency. There is sometimes exhibited a fear of tracing effects to their causes, and of investigating the successive limits of action and impression, lest we should look to second causes only, and rest in these, forgetting the Great First Cause. But this fear arises from erroneous conception. When we look to the government of God, and endeavour to trace in our view its immensity, and its moral attributes, we can only refer such agency to an infinite mind, and can form no comprehensible idea of its operation; but when we look to this government as presiding every where, and as acting through the use of means which have been provided, and which scientific research enables us to understand, we can then form some idea of this wonder-working agency, in some infinitesimal portion of creation: and by the infinite multiplication of this sustaining power, our views of its grandeur, and goodness, and power, and love, are immensely increased; the rational mind is expanded, where feeling or prejudice would before have operated; and the conviction which results is of a far firmer and longer and more enduring quality, as well as more universally operative. God is every where: we acknowledge it as an abstract truth, or as a matter of faith: but when we trace his footsteps, we see and know it. The only evil attending this investigation consists in forgetting his primary agency; but this will be never realized where such research is undertaken with a view to his glory, and with a simple desire to be led into all truth. May God Almighty bless the present attempt to explain phenomena, which to many may ap pear inexplicable, and to show that He is a God of order, working by the agency of means, to the perversion, or diseased or morbid application, of which by sinful man, can alone be referred those deviations from consistency, which have often been ascribed to purely spiritual agency; but which really do, for the most part, own a bodily origin. I shall now proceed to consider superstition in general, which will lead me to notice its causes; and, among others, that which arises from the influence of irritated brain.-The writer's views on this subject will oblige him to glance at the cerebral functions in a state of health, and under the operation of morbid action; after which his hypothesis will be applied to account for various presumed supernatural appearances and influences, to dreams, visions, ghosts, and other kindred matters. I. Of superstition in general. The essence of superstition consists in the belief of the existence of some supernatural power; not, however, the agency of the God of the Christian revelation a Being of infinite purity and holiness, of unsearchable wisdom, of boundless mercy, and goodness, and love;—a God of order, requiring the obedience of the understanding and of the heart to laws which are framed by infinite knowledge of the delusions of the former, and of the aberrations of the latter; the object of the hope, the confidence, the affection of his creatures-dwelling with the humble and the contrite-preserving all things by the word of his power, and especially extending his protection to those who love and serve him: but a power, the character of which is mischievous, its attributes unknown, not founded on reason, inimical to science, unacknowledged by revelation, opposed to the happiness of man, introducing disorder into the mental functions and moral conduct, submitting the understanding and the heart to a blind and irrational impulse, prompting to evil, or paralyzing the power of doing well, and leading to distrust in the providence of God, and to disbelief of his promises. Exactly in proportion as real religion raises the tone of moral feeling, and stimulates the desire after intellectual attainment, superstition degrades the former and destroys the latter. Under the influence of religion, which he justly considers as the offspring of truth, the handmaid of science, the nurse of intellectual progress, the great source of mental action and passion, the regulator of the desires, and consequently as affording the means of happiness in the sunshine of prosperity, as well as of hope, of peace, and of consolation under the cloud of adversity; the only source of correct conduct, because it is the only system of morals which reaches to the thoughts, and feelings, and motives, and because none but a Divine sanction can renew that heart, or subdue the rebellious will, change the course of natural passion, substitute the love of God for self-love, or implant the desire of obedience to his will, in the room of that treasonable pursuit of independent existence, which is the spontaneous fruit of practical Atheism. It is under such an influence that man, civilized man, cultivates his faculties, and should devote them to God who gave them. He finds, indeed, a natural barrier placed to his researches; but he does not with his own hands construct an artificial impediment to his progress: he busily employs his talents, and, under the influence of the Spirit of God, he every where thirsts after the perfection of knowledge, and power, and action; and is arrested only by the insuperable difficulty I have just mentioned, and beyond which it would be the merest presumption to attempt to pass: he acknowledges the feebleness of his reasoning powers, but he directs his inquiries into every proper channel; and with a chastised imagination, endeavours to form an acquaintance with the causes of the phenomena which surround him, so far as these have been placed within his reach. But how different is this portrait from that of the heart and soul of man under the agency of debasing superstition! He has no longer to think for himself, or to seek the guidance of a merciful God in his researches. The powers of his reason are laid aside, to make room for a nameless impulse, under the influence of which his mind takes a peculiar form: its manifestations assume the tinge of this prevailing bias; the power of the will, the ability to choose good and to refuse evil is converted into the desire of warding off some dreaded misfortune: the mind is clouded by prejudice; its credulity is that of the blind man who fears all that he is told by those who are interested in keeping him from advancing; and religion itself is blamed for that which owes its origin exclusively to the want of this principle. Superstition assails us in a number of forms, which however may be all traced to the same causes.—Thus, for instance, we have a variety of signs, and portents, and warnings of death, or misfortune,-more indeed than it would be easy to enumerate,-beginning with the equality or inequality of numbers, or the mode of the flight of birds, and terminating with the winding-sheet on our candles, or the peculiar howling of the midnight dog under our window. So, again, from the same principle, fear is developed in darkness, or during the exhibition of any natural unexplained phenomena; an eclipse has sown terror in the hearts of mil lions; the power of unknown evil rests upon the sable wing of midnight; the spirit of the storm arises, in that peculiar agitation of the atmosphere which precedes its immediate approach; the thunder of the summer cloud has been considered as the warfare of the spirits of the air; and even at the present day, and in this Christian country, it is very frequently deprecated as an object of apprehension, instead of being gratefully received as the source of great good; and as the appointed means of expressing the eternal unchanging benevolence of the Almighty to his ungrateful creatures, rather than as an indication of his anger. We are next assailed with a long list of tales of supernatural appearances, of sudden lights, and peculiar forms, of ghosts and sundry other matters; and these have not only constituted a ground for unnecessary alarm, but have even formed a basis for precaution, for suspicion, for unjust, or injurious, or absurd action: and thus some ocular spectra, the offspring of a diseased brain, have become motives for conduct; and, still worse, this very conduct which is a remote consequence of disobedience to God, is made to assume the appearance of doing the immediate will of Him who is infinitely wise and holy. Another demonstration of the same principle is to be found in the history of certain revelations and impressions, producing a very considerable influence upon the modes of thought, and habits of action. An idea, and very frequently an insane idea, depending upon some recollected image, whose law of association we may perhaps be unable to trace, is invested with an attribute of sanctity, as being the immediate suggestion of Him who constantly watches over his creatures. In a mind predisposed to superstition, this idea gains 80 great an influence over the attention, that it presently engages it exclusively; and the patient has now approached the confines of that undefined territory, in which he will range lawlessly, from an impression that he is acting under the immediate agency and guidance, sanction and direction, of that Being, with whom originated, as he verily believes, the early delusive impression, that formed the first. link in this chain of deviation from healthy function. A variety of the same tyrant principle may be observed in ascribing the operation of natural bad passions to direct satanic influence; by which means persons sometimes excuse their misconduct on the plea of not acting from the will, but under the resistless impulse of a power of evil superior (by the supposition) to the highest effort of that will. I am aware of what the Scriptures of truth teach us respecting the existence and the agency of that spiritual enemy, who goeth about seeking whom he may devour: but the worst that he can do against us is in the way of evil suggestions, adapted to our corrupt propensities. The Creator has endued him with no active power over us; he cannot operate upon us except through the medium of our own will; but persons are often better pleased to throw the blame of that which is evil in their hearts upon the influence of Satan, than upon their own indulgence of sinful passion and corrupt propensity: asif the facility with which they fall into the snare of the devil, and are taken captive by him, did not equally prove that permanent tendency to wrong which showed that the heart was deceitful and desperately wicked. What is commonly called (and very frequently is) temptation, is often ascribed to this especial agency, when it really consisted in the aptitude of the mind for certain evil modes of action, which are embraced when presented to it, because there exists a corresponding feeling, a principle from within, harmoniously combining with every outward action of a similar character. Another step in advance, and we meet the whole tribe of dreams, visions, reveries, and the like, frequently the offspring of recollected impressions disjoined from their original trains of association; or resulting from a bad habit of indulging the love of mental wandering without guidance, or fixed rule, or definite object; or depending upon the organ of mind, variously irritated by immediate or intermediate connexion or sympathy with the morbid action of that other organ of the body which may happen to form the preponderating disorder of functions which overturns the balance of health. Next appears for consideration the lengthened train of vulgar prophecies. We need not go beyond such an instance as Joanna Southcote, to perceive that there is no folly so great but that it will find a corresponding trait of imbecility in the character of many with which it will readily assimilate; and if this future should happen to possess a pretended association with religion, the dupe of the designing, or of the infatuated and misled, may become the disciple, or the founder, of a new sect, a zealous partisan of its views, a devotee to his newly formed opinions, and a worshipper at the altar he has erected; he receives the seal of his safety, and becomes the fully formed enthusiast. One step more in the descending scale of credulity, and we meet with a belief in the performance of vulgar miracles: as if the Author of nature would permit his laws to be interrupted, except to prove his own divinity, to show that His is the creative power, that this power is superior to the laws of the universe, and that therefore he is God. Of the claims to miraculous agency in these latter days, the history of animal magnetism may be referred entirely to a well timed employment of certain known physical laws on the part of the designing magnetizer, and to the influence of an exalted imagination under such physical agency on the part of the magnetized. The sacred advantages arising from the possession of the holy scapular,* may be adjusted, partly by the * Some of my readers may not be aware that the holy scapular is supposed to be in imitation of a portion of the dress of the Virgin Mary, which, having been consecrated by the priest and sold to the people, will defend the purchaser and wearer from many imminent dangers, from death in a thousand forms, and from various other evils. The history of the holy scapular forms an interesting and valuable monument of the influence of a secular priesthood, and of the degradation of human selfish and avaricious influence of a crafty priesthood-partly by the falsehood of the narrative-and partly by purely physical and mechanical agency. The existence of Ann Moore without taking any sustenance, has been satisfactorily traced to imposture; and the astonishing cures of Prince Hohenlohe, if authentic, are to be explained upon the principle of unlimited credence, producing such an effect upon the animal fibre as to suspend for a time the morbid action which was previously going on; and which, in certain constitutions, might then be entirely suspended by the commencement of a new train of healthy associations. The same explanation will apply to the agency of charms in dispelling the returns of ague, and other intermittent irritations depending upon a law of the nervous system, by which a certain periodicity of action is observed; and the same functions, whether healthy or diseased, commence at similar hours, and are continued by habit, and by the persistence of similar conditions. To this enumeration may be added, lastly, the whole system of dupery, involved by the mystic science of astrology, and its pigmy offspring-divination, casting nativities, and fortune telling. The influence of this latter form of superstition upon the mind, is very considerable; and even at the present hour exerts an agency, far greater than could be believed by those who contemplate the barefaced knavery which it involves, had it not been actually traced by those who have obtained extensive opportunities of observation; aye, and this agency is exerted even upon those whose minds by education and situation ought to have been exempted from this grossest fanaticism. Now all these several forms of superstition may be referred to one or more of the following causes. (To be continued.) From the Christian Examiner and Church of ON GOD'S FORGIVENESS. nature, by which it is placed in a situation for believing such monstrous absurdities, and for revering, nay adoring their authors! of indiscriminating attachment. Such conduct, indicating as it does, rather the absence of strong feeling than the presence of it, awakens not so much our reverence as our pity. But when one evidently of lively sensibilities, and true and generous emotions, one who can well appreciate what is praiseworthy and what blameable, has been injured by a being which it loved, and yet upon the returning penitence of the offender exhibits the utmost readiness to forgive and (if it might be) to forget; when we see the strong energies of a heart fraught with genuine feeling, pouring themselves forth towards a repentant criminal not in the way of exaggerating the magnitude of its own sufferings before the transgressor's eyes, but of expatiating to itself, as it were, on the depth of that newly awakened sorrow in another; when we see its solicitudes to be altogether, that the tears which are now falling fast along the cheeks of the late object of its disapprobation, may be dried up at once by the strong warmth of a full and free forgiveness; when we see this, it is impossible not to be affected; there is a forgetfulness of self which commands our love and admiration. We have no need, we trust, here to remark what a manifestation God has made of his readiness to pardon sinners, if they do but repent and turn to him by faith in Jesus Christ. These pages can hardly fall into the hands of any who have not heard the gospel message sounding in their ears. To all who read this feeble essay, the angelic message has long since been delivered, "Unto you is born a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord ;" and surely they who have heard of Jesus, have no need to be told that the divine compassions fail not. "Greater love," said the blessed Redeemer himself, "greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." True, earth's records furnish nothing beyond this; but upon the pages of the heavenly volume is written that which far exceeds it; for there we read of one who, while we were yet enemies, poured out his blood for our deliverance. It was for Jesus to be the exemplification in his own person, how far the love of God exceeds all human devotedness. That love which led the Author of creation to disrobe himself of the bright investments of his original eternal glory, which bad him amid the wondering regards of astonished angels, Now, if this be true, (and true it is) as con- descend upon this poor polluted speck of earth, cerns the intercourse of man with man, how to walk a weary though a brief pilgrimage upon much more powerfully does it hold good in its sin-stained face; to wash it with his tears; what regards the intercourse of man with yea, to moisten it with his blood; and this, God. For between man and man there is the that he might say to many of his persecutors bond of a common nature. No matter how and his blasphemers in the last day, "Come low one may have fallen in the extent of his ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom transgression against another, no matter how prepared for you from the beginning of the frequently offence may have followed upon world," that he might tell those who would pardon, till kindness was almost worn out; not in his distress, watch with him one hour, still this recollection must remain, that we "I go to prepare a place for you, that where carry in our bosoms the seeds of the self-same am, there ye may be also;" this is that love evil which has lately manifested itself in un- which defies the power of eulogy, and forbids kindness towards us. We must, if we think the possibility of praise. It must come to the justly, remember our frame, that it is but dust, perishing soul, and commend itself there by and that it is nothing but the interfering hand its splendid simplicity. Human language of a gracious Providence, which prevents our seems but to impair its beauty, the Spirit of occupying the place of those who have done God speaking in the recesses of the heart, he evil in our sight, and that there is that in us, can utter what the love of Christ is, and he which, if fully developed, might lead us to alone can do it. And if there be those who commit excesses that should humble us in the having heard of the gospel, have never heard dust, and make it necessary for us to sue from the gospel, who surrounded by all which others the pardon which is now solicited at should awaken emotion, have continued as the our hands. But with God is no possibility of unconscious dead, and while the brightness of error. Through the past durations of eternity, the Sun of Righteousness has fallen around or throughout the ceaseless flow of futurity, them on their path, have never seen its light the mind of Jehovah must be essentially inca- or felt its warmth upon their souls; let us here pable of the reception of evil. There is a implore such to pray, that God would reveal "cannot be tempted," a magnificent impecca- this unto them. That he who alone can teach bility, which sheds its glory around the throne, would set before them, in its breadth, and where sits the "King of kings, and Lord of depth, and height, that love of Christ which lords." Consequently, if God show a readiness passeth knowledge; that the divine attraction to pardon, a facility of return to every thank- of the cross, may swiftly draw them from the less prodigal, who, presuming on his good- error of their ways, to follow the Lamb whitherness has insulted it; it is from no internal re- soever he goeth. To hear of God's love to miniscences of conscious weakness, it is from sinners in the everlasting gospel, and yet not no awakening considerations of a similar for- to have embraced the offers of that love, and getfulness of what is right being within his to have felt its power in the soul; what can own reach. No. God knows himself un- be more melancholy? Surely this is the ingrachangeable; and therefore, if he manifest to titude which is as the sin of witchcraft; surely creatures who continually lapse, and sin, and this is the iniquity which puts all lesser sins fall away, the ready indications of his paternal into the shade, and calls forth the astonishforgiveness; it is a case which admits of no ment of angels and the exultation of the adparallel there is nothing like such compas-versary of mankind. What can such expect, sion within the range of infinity. I but to hear at the last day, "Depart from me |