so to regard it. But may there not be some mistake in the case? May not the demand for feeling sometimes be made to the prejudice of feeling, and to the prejudice, also, of real practical virtue? I confess that I have been led at times to suspect that the craving of some for great religious feeling in the preacher, though right in fact, yet was partly wrong in their minds. A person conscious of great religious deficiency, conscious of weekly and daily aberrations from the right rule and the religious walk, will be glad, of course, to have his feelings aroused on the sabbath; it gives him a better opinion of himself; it puts him on a better footing with his conscience; it, somehow, brings up the moral account, and enables him to go on as if the state of his affairs were very well and prosperous. This, perhaps, explains the reason, if such indeed be the fact, why, in some cases, a very pathetic and fervent preacher seems to do less good than a man of much inferior endowments. In this latter case the congregation cannot depend upon the periodical and passive excitement, and is obliged to resort to something else to some religious activity of its own.

It appears to me, also, that the great religious excitements of the day answer the same purpose, however unintentionally, of keeping the people satisfied with general coldness and negligence.

But I was about to observe that this urgent demand for feeling is probably one of the causes of religious insensibility,—that is to say, the directness, urgency, and reiteration of the demand are unfavourable to a compliance with it. This importunity, with regard to feeling, does not allow it to spring up in the natural

way. If it were applied to feeling on any other subject to friendship, filial attachment, or parental affection-how certainly would it fail of success! Human feeling, in its genuine character, can never be forced, urged, compelled, or exhorted into action. The pulpit, I believe, has occasion to take a lesson from this principle of analogy. It is not the way to make the people feel, to be telling them constantly that they must feel, to be complaining continually of their coldness, to be threatening them perpetually with heaven's judgments upon their insensibility. And he who has used only these methods of awakening emotion, need not wonder that the people have no feeling about religion. No, let the preacher himself feel; let him express his feeling, not as if he had any design upon the feelings of others, but as if he could not help it; let him do this, and he will find hearts that sympathize with him. The chill of death may have been upon them-it may have been upon them for years; the rock may never have been smitten, the desert never cheered; but there is a holy unction-a holy unction of feeling, which is irresistible. It is like the rod of miracles in the hand of Moses; the waters will flow at its touch; and there will be life, and luxuriance, and beauty, where all was barrenness and desolation before.

I do not say that there will, of necessity, be actual regeneration in the heart where this feeling is excited; I do not say that there will certainly be fruit where all this verdure and beauty are seen; for the importance of feeling is often exaggerated to that degree that it is made a substitute for practical virtue. And thus the mistake we are considering is made unfavourable to religious sensibility in another way; for, although at

first view it seems to favour sensibility to make so much of it-although, in fact, it exaggerates its importance; yet, as the nature of the exaggeration is to make feeling all-sufficient of itself, the effect, of course, is to draw off attention from that basis of principle and habit which are essential to the strength and permanency of feeling. This is so much to admire the beauty and luxuriance of vegetation in one's field, as to forget and neglect the very soil from which it springs. Of course the luxuriance and beauty will soon fade away. And so the common religious sensibility is like the seed which was sown upon stony places; forthwith it springs up because it has no deepness of earth; and because it has no root, it withers away. Or it is like the torrent after a shower. There has been a commotion in the moral elements of society; there have been thunderings in heaven, and an outpouring from the skies; and fresh streams are gushing forth and flowing on every side; and how many, in their agitation, their enthusiasm, and their zeal, will mistake these noisy freshets for the deep, pure, silent, ever-flowing river of life!

Nay, this vehement demand for feeling tends to throw an interested and mercenary character over it, which are also extremely unfavourable to its cultivation. There is that trait of nobleness still left in human nature, that it will not barter its best affections for advantage. He who is striving with all his might to feel, only because feeling will save him, is certain to fail. This is the reason why none are ever found so bitterly complaining of the want of feeling, as men often are in the midst of a great religious excitement." They see the community around them aroused to

great emotion; they are told that this is the way to be saved; the fear of perdition presses upon them; under this selfish fear they strive, they agonize, they goad themselves, they would give the world to feel; and the result is, that they can feel nothing! Their complaint is, and it is true, that their heart is as cold as a stone. No;-men must feel religion, if at all, because it is right to feel it. The great subject of religion must sink into their hearts, in retirement, in silence, without agitation, without any thought of advantage. They must feel, if at all, involuntarily; they must feel, as it were, because they cannot help feeling.

This, too, is one of the reasons, as I believe, why there is so little religious sensibility in theological seminaries. There is a perpetual demand for sensibility; society demands it; religious congregations demand it; the student is constantly reminded by his fellows, by every body, that he cannot succeed without it, that his eloquence, his popularity, depends upon it; and every such consideration tends directly to chill his heart. He is ashamed to cultivate feeling under such influences. Let him, then, forget all this; let him forget that it is his interest, almost that it is his duty, to feel; let him sit down in silence and meditation; let him spread the great themes of religion before him, and with deep attention, ay, with the deep attention of prayer, let him ponder them, and he will find that which he did not seek; he will find that feeling is the least thing, the easiest thing, the most inevitable thing in his experience.

II. In the second place, there are mistakes-and they arise, in part, from the one already stated,-concerning the characteristics and expressions of religious

sensibility; and these mistakes, too, like the former, are unfriendly to its cultivation.

I shall not think it necessary to dwell long upon this topic-or, at least, not upon its more obvious aspects. Every one, unhappily, is but too familiar with the extravagances, and the extravagant manifestations, of religious feeling. They are as public as they are common. Their effect, in repelling and estranging the feelings of multitudes from religion, is no less clear.

In a celebrated volume of Essays published some years ago, you will remember one "On the aversion of men of taste to Evangelical religion." The aversion is there taken for granted; and, indeed, it is sufficiently evident. Whether the taste be right, or the religion be right, the fact of their contrariety is indisputable. The whole body of our classic English literature-that literature with which the great mass of readers is constantly communing and sympathizing— is stamped with nothing more clearly than an aversion to what is called Evangelical religion. The peculiarities of its creed, of its feelings, of its experiences, of its manners, of its tones of speech, have all been alike offensive to that taste which is inspired by the mass of our best English reading.

But the effect unhappily does not stop with repelling the mind from religion in the Evangelical form. It repels the mind from religion in every form. And more especially it begets a great distrust of all religious earnestness. Hence all the solicitude then is, especially among the cultivated classes, to have every thing sober, calm, rational, in religion. Hence the alarm that is so easily taken at every appearance of zeal and enthusiasm. It seems to be thought by many,