especially marked during the last three centuries, and never more so than in the last fifty years.1 At no previous period have the laws and conditions that promote and regulate human happiness and progress been better understood, or more generally acted upon; the necessities or comforts of man more largely ministered to; or the finer feelings or higher principles of his nature more fully developed than at present.2

Religion is, indeed, one of the great means that have been at work in the accomplishment of this, but it is not religion as opposed to nature or science, or as independent of reason.3 3 On the contrary, it is religion as manifesting which are visible in the attainments of every individual mind; and still more in the wider contrast which the splendid results of science in whole nations, that may be considered almost as nations of philosophers now, exhibit when we think at the same time of the rude arts of the savage in his hut, or in the earlier cave, in which he seemed almost of the same race with the wild animal with which he has struggled for his home."-(Dr. T. BROWN: Human Mind.) "This progress, still steadily advancing, has depended on the gradual increase of man's knowledge of the world around him, and of his own nature."-(Dr. NEIL ARNOTT.) "The empire of man over the brute force of the lower animals is proportioned, not to his physical strength, but to the knowledge he possesses of their respective constitutions.' (DUGALD STEWART.) The progress of mankind depends upon the success with which the laws of phenomena are investigated, and on the extent to which a knowledge of those laws is diffused."(H. T. BUCKLE: Civilization.) "History presents no generalization more certain than that each great step towards a knowledge of the laws of things has facilitated men's operations on things; while each more successful operation has by its results facilitated the discovery of further laws."-(ĦERBERT SPENCER: Psychology.) "The arts and civilization have progressed in accordance with the gradual increase of man's knowledge of the universe."-(Dr. N. ARNOTT.)

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1 "There can be no doubt that in consequence of the teaching of Bacon the human mind has become a vastly more skilful instrument of discovery than ever it was before. In proof of this, I refer to the fact that more power has been gained over the agents of nature, and that they have been made to yield a greater amount of happiness to the human race, within the last one hundred years than for ten times that period before."-(President WAYLAND.) Young readers will be surprised to learn that when many of the persons now living were born there was not in the world a railway, a gaslight, a marine steam engine, an iron ship or house or bridge, photographic views or pictures, the penny postage, the electric telegraph."-(Dr. N. ARNOTT.)

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2 "It cannot be denied that in arts and sciences and the accommodations of social life and the extension of social freedom, the administration of social justice, the abolition of slavery, and many other respects men have improved and are improving."-(Prof. FLEMING.)

"Of course, it will not be supposed that I dare to anticipate any such consummation on the ground of a mere natural progress of the race.

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itself conformably to the laws and order of nature, as under the guidance and direction of reason, which, indeed, it is designed to supplement and perfect.1 In divine revelation,

God has simply given to man a higher knowledge of law and truth and right than he would ever have been able to obtain by means of unaided reason alone.2 In consequence

take the world, with all God's supernatural working, that of His providence, that of His Spirit: all Christianity, in fact, included in it."(HORACE BUSHNELL.) "Although Christianity cannot be understood except as something which, being above nature and reason, is communicated to them from a higher source; it stands, nevertheless, in necessary connection with the essence of those powers, and with their mode of development; otherwise, indeed, it would not be fitted to raise them to a higher perfection, and, in short, would be unable to exercise any influence upon them."-(NEANDER.) "To prove that the intellect has no power of itself to change the heart and purify the affections can surely do nothing to disprove the maxim that the faculty of thought is an indispensable instrument in the conversion of the soul, according to the ordinary method by which grace comes to man under the Christian dispensation, or without the sphere of it."-(S. T. COLERIDGE.)

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Though Christ hath brought greater light into the world, yet He never meant by it to put out any of that natural light which God hath set up in our souls."-(Whole Duty of Man.) "It is most absurd to imagine that a due use of reason is either unlawful or unnecessary in matters of religion. It has, indeed, its limits and bounds, which ought not to be transgressed; but to represent it as injurious or dangerous to revealed religion is disparaging to both. . . . . There is no opinion which does more disservice and more dishonour to religion than that which removes reason from it and sets them at variance."-(Rev. J. BALGUY: Sermons.) "The appeal made by revelation is to the reason of man, not only in regard to the proofs of its divine authority, but to the nature of its contents. The exercise of reason, then, is essentially required, in the first place, to judge of the evidence offered in attestation of Divine revelation; secondly, to interpret its meaning; thirdly, to classify its contents; fourthly, to trace the connection between what is mysterious and incomprehensible and what is already clearly understood and believed." -(Dr. DEWAR: Divine Revelation.) By reason we discover the relation, order, distinction, and dependence of revealed truths, and reject the vain opinions of men. To believe and not to understand the reason of our belief is to turn faith into folly and extravagance."-(Dr. BATES: Spiritual Perfection.) "Whosoever doth serve, honour, and obey God: whosoever believeth in Him, that man would no more do this than innocents and infants do, but for the light of natural reason that shineth in him, and maketh him to apprehend those things of God which, being by grace discovered, are effectual to persuade reasonable minds and none other, that honour, obedience and credit belong aright unto God."(HOOKER: Ecclesiastical Polity.)

"Religion only proposes a more perfect happiness and a more plain and direct way to it than nature of itself could. It only relieves and recruits our natural power by that of grace, and increases the light of reason by a participation of new rays of revelation."-(LUCAS: On Happiness.) Whatever has been by their Creator implanted in the essence

of his fallen and imperfect condition,1 it is not in man himself without the aid of a divine revelation to attain to that state of perfection of which nature is capable.

Yet, in

of human nature and reason, whatever has its ground in their idea and their destination, can only attain to its full realization by means of that higher principle, such as we see it actually realized in Him who is its source, and in whom is expressed the original type and model after which humanity has to strive." (NEANDER.) "The highest round in the ladder of philosophy is the lowest in the scale of Christian grace.' -(Prof. FERRIER.) "Christian faith is the perfection of human reason."-(Rev. J. MARSH.) "Revelation is natural reason enlarged by a new set of discoveries communicated by God immediately, which reason vouches the truth of by the testimony and proof it gives that they come from God." -(JOHN LOCKE.) "True religion and godliness are often in Scripture, and particularly in this Book of the Proverbs, represented, and so recommended to us, under the name and character of wisdom, because it is the highest improvement of the human nature, and the best and surest guide of human life." (Rev. MATTHEW HENRY.) Coleridge, in his 'Lay Sermon,' points out, as a fact of history, how large a part of our present knowledge and civilization is owing directly or indirectly to the Bible; that the Bible has been the main lever by which the moral and intellectual character of Europe has been raised to its present comparative height."-(S. SMILES.) "That the convictions of religion form the great foundation of moral conduct that piety in itself is fitted to exalt the human mind to its greatest degree of virtuous perfection are truths which every one acknowledges, and which the experience of mankind sufficiently proves."(Rev. A. ALISON: Sermons.)

1"The fall is demonstrable to the senses and understanding of every man, by every height and depth of nature, by every kind of evil, sin, and misery in the world, by everything he knows of God, himself, and the world he lives in."—(T. A' KEMPIS.) "Had man never fallen he would have enjoyed eternal truth and happiness; and had man never been otherwise than corrupt, he would have retained no idea either of truth or happiness." (PASCAL.)

"In vain has man in his search for the supreme good called into exercise his reason, his imagination, his heart, and his conscience; in vain has he laid all his powers under contribution; in vain has he done all that is possible for man to do; everywhere in his system there appear chasms, wide and deep. The triple object of all religion, to enlighten, console, and regenerate, is fulfilled neither by the one nor the other of these religions, nor by all of them together."-(VINET.) "Whatever may be the reach of the human faculties, they cannot, apart from revelation, attain to such a vision of God as will exert any real and permanent power over the heart and conduct."-(Rev. R. W. DALE.) "Revelation has laid open the great secrets of Providence from the creation of the world, explained the present state of things, and given man all the information that is necessary to quiet his anxieties, content him with his condition, and lead him safely to everlasting rest and happiness."-(LAW: Christian Perfection.) though the light of nature and the works of Creation and Providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God as to leave man inexcusable; yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and of His will which is necessary unto salvation."-(Westminster Confession of Faith.)

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every case do we find the seeds or elements of it within him; nay, more, we find him constantly aiming and striving after this higher and more perfect state, which yet it is impossible for him to reach without the aid of revelation.1 God has implanted in the heart of man a desire for happiness, and He has centred this happiness in the perfection of his nature. Man is thus happy in proportion as he is fulfilling

1" We discover abundant evidence of this connection between nature and Christianity when we observe human nature and reason, and see how, by virtue of this their original capacity, they do in their historical development actually strive after this higher principle which needs to be communicated to them in order to their own completion; and how by the same capacity they are made receptive of this principle, and are led onwards till they yield to it, and become moulded by its influence."— (NEANDER.) "Even amid all the ruins of our fallen nature, there are remembrances of its original glory; and there is a kind of want (if I may so express myself) in every noble and generous nature to purify itself from the frailties and corruptions which it at present experiences, and to raise itself to these higher and incorruptible classes of existence for which even here it feels that it was ultimately destined."-(ALISON: Sermons.) “It is from considering the relations which the several appetites and passions in the inward frame have to each other, and, above all, the supremacy of reflection or conscience, that we get the idea of the system or constitution of human nature. And from the idea itself it will as fully appear that this our nature, i.e., constitution, is adapted to virtue as from the idea of a watch it appears that its nature, i.e., constitution or system, is adapted to measure time."-(Bishop BUTLER: Sermons.) "That the ancient moralists had some inward feeling or other which they chose to express in this manner, that man is born to virtue, that it consists in following nature, and that vice is more contrary to this nature than tortures or death, their works in our hands are instances."-(Ditto.) "Man as man

is averse to what is evil and wicked; for evil is unnatural, and good is connatural to man."-(WHICHCOTE.) "If he (man) embraces error, it so impinges on something in his nature, so fails to satisfy his wants, is so pernicious in its tendency, or so violates great principles which he is constrained by the laws of his being to hold, that he is compelled to abandon it."—(ALBERT BARNES.)

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2" Man was made to be happy. . . . The desire of happiness is deeply implanted in the human constitution, accompanied in the beneficent arrangement of the Almighty Author of our being with both the capacity and the means of happiness."-(Dr. W. SYMINGTON.) Man, like every other sentient being, is necessarily actuated by a love of happiness," and "is placed in circumstances in which a vast variety of objects address themselves to this desire of happiness, some promising to gratify it in a higher degree, some in a lower, some appealing to one part of his nature, some to another. . . . He cannot but be attracted to those courses of conduct which his reason or his appetites, or both conjointly, assure him are likely to gratify his desire of happiness."-(HENRY ROGERS.) "This at least is beyond any doubt and indisputable, that all men wish good to themselves, nay, that they all catch at and desire to attain the enjoyment of the most absolute and perfect good. . . . And though, alas, it is but too true that, as we, are naturally blind, we run ourselves upon misery

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under the disguise of happiness, and not only embrace, according to the common saying, 'a cloud instead of Juno,' but death itself instead of life; yet even from this most fatal error it is evident that we naturally pursue either real happiness, or what to our mistaken judgment appears to be such."-(LEIGHTON: Sermons.) "The desire of happiness is the first, most powerful, and most universal principle of human actions; revelation and reason take this for granted; all laws, both divine and human, proposing our happiness as the sole and sufficient motive to our obedience." (LUCAS: On Happiness.) "Happiness is the object of human action in its most general form as including all other objects. The desire of happiness is the supreme desire. All other desires of pleasure, wealth, power, fame, are included in this, and are subordinate to it. Happiness is our being's end and aim.”—(Dr. WHEWELL: Morality.) "Viewed as a matter of fact, we must admit that his own happiness, whatever it may consist in, or whatever may be the means to be employed in the attainment, is the end which each individual has mostly at heart, and at which he ultimately aims."-(Prof. FERRIER.) "Human perfection and human happiness coincide, and thus constitute, in reality, but a single end." (Sir W. HAMILTON.) Socrates held that "if a man only knew and kept constantly in view what his true nature was, he would aim only at that which conduced to the well-being of that nature; and, aiming only at this, he would be unwavering in the practice of virtue, for it is by virtue alone that the well-being of his true nature is secured."—(Prof. FERRIER.) "Let a man reflect but ever so little upon himself, and he will soon perceive that everything he does is with a view to happiness, and that this is the ultimate end he proposes in all his actions, or the last term to which he reduces them. . . The desire of happiness is as essential to a man, and as inseparable from his nature, as reason itself.”—(BURLAMAQUI: Natural Law.) "It is manifest that man is by nature an end to himself; that his perfection and happiness constitute the goal of his activity, to which he tends, and ought to tend, when not diverted from this his general and native destination by peculiar and accidental circumstances." (Sir W. HAMILTON.) "The perfection of any creature is the foundation of its happiness, and the utmost happiness any creature is capable of is only to be obtained in the state of its utmost perfection." (Principal WISHART: Sermons.) "Happiness, in so far as it arises from the mind itself, will always be proportioned to the degree of perfection which its powers have attained."-(Dr. S. CLARKE.) Since happiness is necessarily the supreme object of our desires, and duty the supreme rule of our actions, there can be no harmony in our being except our happiness coincide with our duty. As moral beings, our happiness must be found in our moral progress, and in the consequences of our moral progress we must be happy by being virtuous."-(Dr. WHEWELL.) “If the generality of mankind were to accustom themselves often to sit down and consider what was the greatest happiness they were capable of attaining for themselves in this life, and if self-love were so strong and prevalent as that they would uniformly pursue this their supposed chief temporal good, without being diverted from it by any particular passion, it would manifestly prevent numberless follies and vices.” -(Bishop BUTLER: Sermons.) All virtuous action tends ultimately, and on the great scale, to universal happiness."-(HENRY ROGERS.) "Virtue is the health, true state, natural complexion of the soul; he that is vicious in his practice is diseased in his mind."-(Dr. WHICHCOTE.) Man has within him the feeling that he is made for perfection and happiness."-(VINET.) "Happiness is the pearl of price which all pursue though few find it. Our souls, as by a natural sense, feel their own original, and aim at the attain

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