and he thought that the strenuous deliberate exertion of a power of thought like Mr. Hall's, after he had been so deeply conversant with important and difficult speculations, might perhaps have contributed something towards such an alleviation. But even Mr. Hall could have effected nothing of this nature for a mind which would not exercise a childlike faith. Carry our knowledge up to the last point to which the strongest mind ever created could advance it, and there is still the same need of faith,-contented, quiet, submissive faith. And how is faith ever to be tried, how can it be proved that it is the faith of an humble and submissive mind, except in the midst, or on the border of great difficulties?

Mr. Foster speaks, almost with a feeling of disappointment, of that peculiarity in Mr. Hall's mental character, by which he appeared "disinclined to pursue any inquiries beyond the point where substantial evidence fails. He seemed content to let it remain a terra incognita, till the hour that puts an end to conjecture." We confess we see a deep wisdom and beauty in this trait of character. It was wrought into Mr. Hall's constitution not by nature only, but by the power of grace divine. And the more the soul is absorbed with the known realities of our being, and the overwhelming importance of what is clearly revealed of our destiny in the world to come, the more anxious it will be to press that knowledge, the more unwilling to distract the attention from it by the pursuit of doubt and inquisitive speculation, and the more content to leave the obscure and the mysterious to the hour when we shall see as we are seen, and know as we are known. "My efforts," said Mr. Foster, in his journal, "to enter into possession of the vast world of moral and metaphysical truth, are like those of a mouse attempting to gnaw through the door of a granary." It was also a curious remark which he made, that "one object of life should be to accumulate a great number of grand questions to be asked and resolved in eternity." In

quisitive wonderer in the presence of mysterious and incomprehensible truth! Art thou now in a world, where faith is no longer needed? Or do the answers that in the light of eternity, the light of Heaven, have burst upon thy redeemed spirit, only render necessary a still higher faith, and prepare thee for its undoubting, beatific, everlasting exercise?

THE RELIGION OF
OF EXPERIENCE,

AND THAT OF IMITATION.*

We have happened upon an age, in which there is a great resurrection and life of old, dead, exploded errors. These errors, in this new life, are beginning to stalk about so proud and populous, that in some quarters truth retires and is hidden, or is even stricken down in the streets and churches. Error puts on the semblance of truth, and religion itself, in a form of mere earthly aggrandizement, becomes one enormous, despotic, consolidated lie.

The difference between the religion of experience and that of imitation, is a theme which at this crisis is occupying many minds;-nor is this wonderful, for it is all the difference between a missionary piety, and a piety of pride, intolerance, and self-indulgence. In the introduction of our subject, we shall, in few words, designate the two.

The world is to be saved, if saved at all, by the religion of Experience, and not that of Imitation. The religion of imitation is that of forms; the religion of experience is that of realities. The religion of imitation is Churchianity; the religion of experience is Christianity. The religion of imitation, except when it oppresses, is that of profound quiet and weakness; the religion of experience is that of conflict and power.

* An Address delivered before the Society of Inquiry on Missions, in Amherst College, August, 1843.

Imitation will do for calm times, and gorgeous forms and rites, and magnificent cathedrals; but experience is needed in the midst of danger, in dens and caves of the earth, or to support the bare simplicity of the gospel. Imitation may be a persecuting religion, experience alone can be a suffering one. Imitation goes to books, schools, forms, names, institutes; experience to God. Imitation takes Anselm, Bernard, Calvin, Edwards, Brainard, Emmons, anything, everything, but God's word. Experience goes to the living truth, and drinks into it. Imitation has the

semblance of experience, but not its essence or its power. Imitation takes at second-hand what experience originates. Imitation studies systems, and reads the Bible to prove them. Experience studies the Bible, and reads human systems for illustration. Imitation is not a missionary spirit; experience is. Imitation may fill the world with the forms of piety, and with most of its refining influences. You may bring men away, in great measure, from their vices, and you may refine their manners, and yet bring them no nearer to Christ. And here I am constrained to remark, that one of our greatest dangers in the missionary enterprise lies in the fact, that so much, in reality, may be done without the religion of experience, the co-operation of the Holy Spirit. The world might be filled with a nominal Christianity, yea, an evangelical Christianity, and tho Spirit of God have very little to do with it. There might be all the ameliorating influences of Christianity, except that of real conversion, following in the train of our efforts in every part of the world, and even the instrumentality of a prayerless church might be sufficient for such an evangelization. The dome of some gorgeous and heartless establishment, with all its decency and refinement, might be let down to cover every form of idolatry and heathenism, and to bring all tribes and communities of the gentile world in obedience to its rubrics and beneath its power. But what then would be gained? Why, this spiritual quack

ery on a vast scale, this healing of the world's hurts slightly, would only put off to a more distant period the real prevalence of Christ's kingdom, and render a thousand times more difficult the real redemption of mankind from sin.

Now, it is to be feared that the religious characteristic of this age, compared with some other ages, is that of imitation rather than experience. This, in some respects, is the natural course of things. It is so, intellectually. An age of eminently original genius is ordinarily succeeded by an imitative age; or, if not imitative, the contrast between the splendor of genius, and the poverty of mere talent, makes it appear such. For example, the Elizabethian age in England, the age of Shakspeare, Milton, and Bacon, was an age of originality and power; the age of Queen Anne afterwards was an age of comparative imitation and weakness. These two ages, or something near them, may also be taken as corresponding examples of the religion of experience and that of imitation. The presence and agency of God's Spirit, and the power of God's Word, marked the one; that of human morality, speculation, and understanding, the other. Bunyan and Baxter, and we may add Leighton, may stand to personify the one; Tillotson and Locke may be the interpreters of the other. The seventeenth century, both in literature and religion, may, in a general comparison with our century, be said to stand in the contrast of an age of experience with an age of imitation.

For this inferiority of one age to another, there may be natural inevitable causes in respect to the development of mind and genius, but in religious things we are sure it ought not to be so. An age of religious imitation marks a period of departure from God; this is undeniable. An age cannot be destitute of deep and original religious experience, if it enjoy the word of God, and the ordinances of religion, without a great falling off from duty, and a great