inquire, even concerning them, if they were not susceptible of a wider and fuller development! Were their intellects, capacious as they were, susceptible of no further expansion? Had they attained the utmost limit of which their minds were capable? You shall hear the confessions of one of these great men, as they fell from his own lips. Says the immortal Newton, "I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble, or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered before me." If these are the confessions of the greatest intellect that ever lived-if he only trod on the shore of the boundless ocean of truth, what must be the case with the great mass of men? If even his intellect did not reach its maturity before he was hurried off the stage of being, how can we say, concerning the race of man, that they are susceptible of no greater development; that they have capacities of no higher order than have been brought out and cultivated here? We argue, then, inasmuch as nothing is made without some worthy object and end, that there must be some other allotment to mortals; some other state of being in which these embryo faculties shall expand into full maturity. Change is indeed one of the allotments of Providence; we see its working every-where. "Few things are in that state now in which they are hereafter to remain. The bird destined for the air sleeps in his shell; the beautiful insect that is to flutter in the sun crawls in the earth till his season of glory is come. The child that requires the hand of a parent to give him food may soon be changed into a saint or a sage. So, also, says the great apostle, is it with This is not its resting-place; it was never the soul of man. Brewster's Life of Newton. intended to remain here, and to be always as it now is; it will be changed as the seed is changed; the corruptible will put on incorruption; the mortal, immortality. The object for which it was created will be made manifest; at the very moment when it seems to perish, it is passing into a higher order of creatures and getting hold of a better life."* If there be not this allotment, this new and more glorious state, then must be impeached not only the Divine goodness, but also the Divine wisdom. For if man be not immortal; if there be no future state in which these faculties may expand to their full maturity; if the vast ocean of truth is never to be crossed or surveyed, and the unfath-. omed mines of knowledge to remain forever unexplored, why was he endowed with such capacities and desires— capacities that can never be filled up, and desires that can never be satisfied in this state of existence? Was the creation of mind an aimless freak of the God of nature? Did he endow it with its transcendent powers, but allot to it no time nor sphere for the development of these powers? Doth he every-where exhibit the most perfect wisdom and goodness in his creation-except in its noblest part? Doth he clothe the fields with verdure, and the lily with beauty; doth he feed the young ravens when they cry; and doth he not provide for him whom he hath created to be in his own likeness and image? In the creation of such a being did his skill forsake him, did his right hand forget its cunning? Reason and religion answer, no! conscience and experience answer, no! all that is elevated in the hopes or dear in the expectations of an immortal being answer, no! This idea, expressed by Addison in thought and style of such transparent beauty, that, though repeated a thousand Sidney Smith. "How can it," times, it can never become worn by use. says he, "enter into the thoughts of man, that the soul, which is capable of such immense perfections, and of receiving new improvements to all eternity, shall fall into nothing almost as soon as it is created? Are such abilities made for no purpose? A brute arrives at a point of perfection which he can never pass. In a few years he has all the endowments he is capable of; and were he to live ten thousand more, would be the same thing he is at present. Were a human soul thus at a stand in her accomplishment, were her faculties to be full blown, and incapable of further enlargements, I could imagine it might fall away insensibly, and drop at once into a state of annihilation. But can we believe a thinking being, that is in a perpetual progress of improvements, and traveling on from perfection to perfection, after having just looked abroad into the works of the Creator, and made a few discoveries of his infinite goodness, wisdom, and power, must perish in her first setting out, and in the very beginning of her inquiries? "Man, considered in his present state, seems sent into the world only to propagate his kind. He provides himself with a successor, and immediately quits his post to make room for him. 'Heir urges on his predecessor heir, He does not seem born to enjoy life, but to deliver it down to others. This is not surprising to consider of animals which are formed for our use, and can finish their business in a short life. The silk-worm, after having spun her task, lays her eggs and dies. But a man can never have taken in his full measure of knowledge, has not time to subdue his passions, establish his soul in virtue, and come up to the perfection of his nature, before he is hurried off the stage. Would an infinitely-wise Being make such glorious creatures for so mean a purpose? Can he delight in the production of such abortive intelligences--such short-lived, reasonable beings? Would he give us talents that are not to be exerted? capacities that are never to be gratified? How can we find that wisdom, that shines through all his works in the formation of man, without looking upon this world as the nursery for the next? and believing that the several generations of rational creatures, which rise up and disappear in such quick successions, are only to receive their first rudiments of existence here, and afterward to be transplanted into a more friendly climate, where they may spread and flourish to all eternity."* But, again, if there be not a future state—a future life— designed for the fuller development and play of our mental faculties, the endowment of man with an intellect, a "spirit," was not merely useless, but absolutely a curse instead of a blessing to the human race; for what avail to him all the acquisitions of knowledge if he is not immortal? They are scarcely worth thought or care. Instinct would have answered every purpose of his present being, just as it does for the brute, and man would have been spared all this feverish solicitude, this anxious and unceasing care for the future. The beast lies down in death with as little thought and as little care as if to a night's repose, but man shrinks back with horror from the chill and misty shadows of the grave. His proud reason stands appalled before "the King of Terrors," and can meet him in peace only when irradiated with the glorious hope of immortality. If, then, this hope is baseless, empty, and vain; if this last stay and support of reason is but a crushed reed; if it is only the precursor of eternal nothingness, then may we deprecate the power * Spectator. that gave reason birth; and it would be a fit cause for mourning to the human race that we were born with higher powers than the brute if we are destined to the same common fate. If, as "the frail and feverish beings of an hour," we are "Doomed o'er the world's precarious scene to sweep, Swift as the tempest travels on the deep, To know delight but by her parting smile, And toil, and wish, and weep a little while" then, rent by all the agonies of despair under this dark and blighting destiny, we may exclaim, with the same poet, "Melt, ye elements, that formed in vain, This troubled pulse and visionary brain! Against such a dark and cheerless conclusion all within and all around us utter their solemn and impressive protest. The mortal shall perish, shall return to its native elements; but the spiritual shall live on forever. As the insect flutters from out its chrysalis to soar on wings of beauty and revel amid the glories of nature, so shall this immortal soul, purified by the blood of atonement, go forth from its chrysalis state to contemplate and enjoy the ineffable glories of the spiritual world. Then shall it find scope for all its powers; then shall it reach the consummation of its highest and grandest hopes. Then cheer up, wayworn and sorrowing pilgrim! Sorrow and darkness may surround thee here, but "hereafter thy voice shall be attuned to angel harmonies, and thy home be in that city whose walls are jasper and whose gates are pearl-along whose streets murmurs the crystal river, and in whose midst blooms the tree of life." "O, listen, man! A voice within us speaks that startling word, |