There are sentiments in our nature to which powerful appeal can be made, and they are, emphatically, its high and honourable sentiments. If you wished to speak in tones that should thrill through the very heart of the world, you would speak to these before all others. Almost all the richest poetry, the most admirable of the fine arts, the most popular and powerful eloquence in the world have addressed these moral and generous sentiments of human nature. And I have observed it as quite remarkable, indeed-because it is an exception to the general language of the pulpit that all the most eloquent preachers have made great use of these very sentiments; they have appealed to the sense of beauty, to generosity and tenderness, to the natural conscience, the natural sense of right and wrong, of honour and shame.

To these, then, if you would move the human heart, you would apply yourself. You would appeal to the indignation at wrong, at oppression, or treachery, or meanness, or to the natural admiration which men feel for virtuous and noble deeds. If you would touch the most tender feelings of the human heart, you would still make your appeal to these sentiments. You would represent innocence borne down and crushed by the arm of power; you would describe patriotism labouring and dying for its country. Or you would describe a parent's love with all its cares and anxieties, and its self-sacrificing devotion. Or you would portray filial affection watching over infirmity, and relieving pain, and striving to pay back something of the mighty debt of filial gratitude. Look abroad in the world, or look back upon the history of ages past, and ask for those on whom the enthusiasm

and pride and affection of men love to dwell. Evoke from the shadows of the times gone by, their mighty, their cherished forms, around which the halo of everlasting admiration dwells: and what are they? Behold the names of the generous, the philanthropic, and the good-behold, the voice of martyred blood on the altars of cruelty, or on the hills of freedom, for ever rising from the earth—eternal testimonies to the right and noble sentiments of mankind.

To these, then, religion ought to have appealed. In these sentiments it ought to have laid its foundation, and on these it ought to have built up its power. But has it done so? Could it do so while it held human nature to be utterly depraved?

But there is a farther question. Can any religion, Christian or heathen, in fact, entirely discard human nature? Certainly not. Must not every religion that speaks to man, speak to something human? Undoubtedly it must. What, then, is the end of all this zeal against human nature? Has it not been, I ask, to address the worst parts of it? There has been no scruple about appealing to fear and anxiety; but of the sentiments of admiration, of the sense of beauty in the human heart, of the deep love for friends and kindred that lingers there, religion has been afraid. Grant, indeed, that these sentiments and affections have been too low: it was the very business of religion to elevate them. But while it has failed to do this, in the degree it ought, how often has it spread a rack of torture for our fear and solicitude! How often has it been an engine of superstition, an inflicter of penance, a minister of despondency and gloom; an instrument effective, as if it were framed on purpose, to keep

down all natural buoyancy, generosity, and liberal aspiration! How often has religion frowned upon the nature that it came to save; and instead of winning its confidence and love, has incurred its hatred and scorn; and instead of having drawn it into the blessed path of peace and trust, has driven it to indifference, infidelity, or desperation !

And how lamentable is it! Here is a world of beings filled with enthusiasm, filled with a thousand warm and kindling affections; the breasts of millions are fired with admiration for generous and heroic virtues; and when the living representative of these virtues appears among us-a Washington, or some illustrious compeer in excellence-crowded cities go forth. to meet him, and nations lift up the voice of gratitude. How remarkable in the human character is this moral admiration! What quickening thoughts does it awa ken in solitude! What tears does it call forth, when we think of the prisons, the hospitals, the desolate dwellings, visited and cheered by the humane and merciful! With what ecstasy does it swell the human breast, when the vision of the patriotic, the patiently suffering, the magnanimous and the good, passes. before us! In all this the inferior race has no share. They can fear; but esteem, veneration, the sense of moral loveliness, they know not. These are the prerogatives of man—the gifts of Nature to him—the gifts of God. But how little, alas! have they been called into the service of his religion! How little have their energies been enlisted in that which is the great concern of man!

And all this is the more to be lamented, because those who are most susceptible of feeling and of en

thusiasm, most need the power and support of religion. The dull, the earthly, the children of sense, the mere plodders of business, the mere votaries of gain, may do, or may think they can do, without it. But how many beings are there, how many spirits of a finer mould, and of a loftier bearing, and of more intellectual wants, who, when the novelty of life is worn off, when the enthusiasm of youth has been freely lavished, when changes come on, when friends die, and there is care and weariness and solitude to press upon the heart-how many are there, then, that sigh bitterly after some better thing, after something greater, and more permanent, and more satisfying! And how do they need to be told that religion is that better thing; that it is not a stranger to their wants and sorrows ; that its voice is speaking and pleading within them, in the cry of their lamentation, and in the felt burthen of their necessity; that religion is the home of their farwandering desires; the rest, the heaven, of their longtroubled affections! How do they need to hear the voice that 66 says, Unto you, O men-men of care, and fear, and importunate desire-do I call; and my voice is to the sons of men-to the children of frailty, and trouble, and sorrow!"

III. Let us now proceed to consider, in the third place, and finally, from the relation between the power that speaks and the principle addressed, in what manner the one should appeal to the other.

The relation, then, between them, I say, is a relation of amity. But let me explain. I do not say, of course, that there is amity between right and wrong. I do not say that there is amity between pure goodness and what is evil in man. But that which is

wrong and evil in man is the perversion of something that is good and right. To that good and right I contend that religion should speak: to that it must speak, for there is nothing else that can hear it. We do not appeal to abstractions of evil in man, because there are no such things in him; but we appeal to affections, to affections in which there is a mixture of good and evil. To the good, then, I say, we must appeal, against the evil. And every preacher of righteousness may boldly and fearlessly approach the human heart, in the confidence that, however it may defend itself against him, however high it may build its battlements of habit and its towers of pride, he has friends in the very citadel.

I say, then, that religion should address the true moral nature of man as its friend, and not as its enemy; as its lawful subject, and not as an alien or a traitor; and should address it, therefore, with generous and hopeful confidence, and not with cold and repulsive distrust. What is it, in this nature, to which religion speaks? To reason, to conscience, to the love of happiness, to the sense of the infinite and the beautiful, to aspirations after immortal good; to natural sensibility, also, to the love of kindred and country and home. All these are in this nature, and they are all fitted to render obedience to religion. In this obedience they are satisfied, and indeed they can never be satisfied without it.

Admit, now, that these powers are ever so sadly perverted and corrupted, still no one maintains that they are destroyed. Neither is their testimony to what is right ever, in any case, utterly silenced. Should they not, then, be appealed to in a tone of confidence?