object of creation, then this righteous selfishness must be in extreme opposition to God. There are important deductions emanating from these reflections, which we are unwilling to deprive others the pleasure of drawing out for themselves. The use God makes of his creations proves the end for which he made them. We might rest here; but we have heard some say that God's object in creation was the happiness of all his sentient creatures. If so, then they all would be happy; which is not the fact. Human misery is the first object we behold everywhere. True, man can never have a very competent idea of God. His powers of thought are too low; his associations too trivial. But if the object God had in creation was the development of his own glory, then there can be no greater conformity unto God than there is knowledge of his character. Hence, where we see, hear, and learn the most of God, we become the most pure and holy. Holiness depends on a knowledge of God. The reason is obvious: a holy man is a more perfect exhibition of the Divine character. If so, then the happiness of man depends upon his perception of God. Therefore man can never be happy only in proportion as he is holy. But if the glory of God is the ultimate end of creation, and if the happiness of his rational creatures depends upon their perception of him, then the ultimate end secures in the highest possible degree their happiness.

The great cause of human misery will be found to proceed from the unquenchable desire in the unregenerate man to rebel against God-to set up a government of his own, more wise than he conceives the government of God to be; in fact, he does not perceive his government, for he has no perception of him.

We might deduce an argument in proof that a perception of God is happiness to man, from the formation of his mental powers. To whom does it not give deep distress to behold what we call talent and virtue hid in obscurity and bowed down beneath oppression and want? To whom does it not give great delight to perceive a lucid manifestation of these qualities? The great object in the individual creation of man is his improvement; his advance towards an approximation of being able to see God as he is. The business of angels and saints in heaven is to intensely seek after a more full knowledge of God.

If the happiness of man is thus dependent upon his perception of the greatness and power of God, then we may conclude that a continued manifestation of it is essential to him in producing

before his mind an increasing brilliancy of view of the great Jehovah.

The order and gradation in the power bestowed on the different objects his hand has made, displaying his foresight in the work of creation, from the seraph down to the veriest mite, would seem an arrangement that might furnish the mind of man or an angel with never-ending study, with a never-ending employment to find out God.

If the wide and permanent diversity of character and condition in the present world, and in that which is to come,-if the relations we find between man and man,-if the great sacrifice for sin and the redemption wrought therefrom,-if the eternal wrath of Jehovah against the incorrigible sinner, all in combination manifest the greatest display of the power and perfections of God; -in short, if the providences of God collectively, as we see them manifested in the world, are the true developments of his character, then it will follow that they all, in combination, terminate in the greatest good, and, in their external consequences, subserve to the greatest extent of happiness to which the human mind, in the pursuit of its only legitimate employment, is now or ever will be susceptible.

The first deduction is that sin must always be accompanied with misery, but that holiness is as surely accompanied with happiness, no matter what may be the physical condition. It may not be improper here to advert to one of the characteristics of our intellectual constitution, which is this: whatever is presented to the mind calling on its energy and our physical action can never be approached by us with any tolerable degree of perfectedness unless by constant and long-continued repetitions; whence we say, "practice makes perfect." Whereas, whatever is presented wherein we are wholly passive, repetition and familiarity are in constant action to diminish, weaken, and wash out the impressions first made. Examples in proof of the first position' are found in the necessary and long-continued exertions before we become adepts in the arts and practices of civilized life. In the African savage, often, many generations of constant exertion in the same direction are required before that race is found to have attained such a state of perfectibility in these things as is required to sustain a position in civilized life; and it is to this they owe their state of pupilage among the civilized races.

Examples of the second position are found in the ready and

quick adaptation of ourselves to the condition in which we are placed even our senses, from constant repetition and familiarity, often cease to loathe that which was obnoxious. The mind to which the starry firmament is first unfolded will be filled with astonishment and wonder; but the familiarity of a constant gaze does not even excite an emotion.

This characteristic of the human intellect gives strong proof of the power and wisdom of God. For through its means, all in civilized and Christian life and practice, from the king upon the throne down to the slave, are rendered equally happy and contented with their condition. Therefore he is not a correct philosopher who measures the happiness of a lower grade in life by his own feelings.

LESSON X.

FROM consideration of our previous lesson, we should make the deduction that Christianity is incompatible with savage life. The Christian can no longer be a savage, notwithstanding the habits of civilization may be yet too weakly established to guaranty against lapses to former habits. The habits of the savage must be changed so as to approximate civilized life before Christianity can be successfully taught him. Hence one error into which the missionary and the teacher of the Negro sometimes fall. They confine their labours to instructions concerning the more abstruse doctrines of Christianity; but the savage has no capability to comprehend them his mind has never been prepared for their reception.

The child can never comprehend the laws of astronomy till he has first learned mathematics. The savage must first be made to comprehend the necessity that individual wants must be supplied by individual labour, and all the consequent attendants of such a state of things, before the possibility can exist that he will comprehend the higher moral duties. Because, without that, he remains passive under such teachings; and in such case, the more familiar such lessons are made to him the less they affect him. Instances are not wanting where such a state of facts exists in circles of society where it would seem they should be the least expected! and from whence the great truth is deducible, that mental

and physical idleness is a most deadly poison to good morals and intellectual improvement, and the conduct of such men is always found searching the way back to a deteriorated condition.

The animal propensities require to be forced into habits contributive to the relations and duties of civilized and Christian life. The mind must be made to comprehend what our relative duties are, both experimentally and habitually, and also the impossibility of their being dispensed with, before it will be able to perceive the laws which bind our action to their performance. And it may be here remarked, that a perception of these laws sufficiently strong to influence the conduct of a man will at least place him in the position of Agrippa before Paul. The history of man does not point to an instance where an individual has regenerated himself from the depth of human degradation, except under the pupilage and control of a superior wisdom.

Upon this state of facts was founded the necessity of a Saviour for the children of men.

LESSON XI.

THE lowness of individual condition, in relation to our fellow ren, or to human society generally, is not incompatible with the humility of the Christian in the performance of our duty to man or God, because the Christian is not required to display intellectual powers which he does not possess, nor possessions not his own. If he has but one talent, its occupation alone is required, the desire to bestow one mite marks his character. It is therefore a very great error which some of the abolitionists seem to suppose, that, because a man is a slave, he is thereby prevented from being a Christian or hindered from the worship of God. On the contrary, so essential is humility to the Christian character, that Jesus Christ, in a lesson to his disciples, says, "Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant," Sov205, doulos, slave; a figure, a sentence, which the Divine Being could never have pronounced, if slavery was inconsistent with his doctrine, either as to the condition of the slave or that of the master. With great similarity of figure and sameness of the humility in the worshipper of God, David addresses Jehovah: "O Lord, truly I am thy ser

vant,” (7

abedeka, thy slave,) "I am thy servant (77

abedeka, thy slave) and the son of thy hand-maid," (

ama

theka, thy female slave,) "thou hast loosed my bonds." Compare with John viii. 36, also 1 Cor. vii. 22.

LESSON XII.

THE institutions of slavery and Christianity can never be antagonistic. Slavery enforces obedience in the inferior to a superior power, for the reciprocal benefit of both. Any deviation from the law of God pertinent to the case, to some extent lessens the benefit and diminishes what should have been the quotient of the general good. Slavery is therefore, however rude in its obedience or commands, an attempt at civilized life; and we may therefore judge of the amount of its abuses by its greater or less success in the cultivation of those virtues incident to that condition. True, this result is scarcely perceptible where the most elevated are still deeply degraded, as is for ever the case in all those regions where the light of Christianity has never been diffused. And it is from these facts we find the providence of God to be that slavery, in such regions, is always seeking abroad for a more enlightened

master.

LESSON XIII.

THE path of the Christian is described as strait and narrow; in it there are no broad provisions for licentiousness, immorality, crime, or sin of any kind, nor, at suitable distances, are there private apartments prepared, wherein cunning expediency may change her apparel; nor will the poor traveller be perplexed with ambiguous directions, whereby any thing is to be performed contrary to the plain understanding of the law. But each step therein must be in conformity to the directions of him who made, knows, and governs all.

How feeble then shall prove the man, swelled with the pride of his own supposed holiness, who shall attempt to straighten, alter,