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Miracle and Law.

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sonal presence, but to purify mankind, to save them from sin and remorse, and, by a supernatural arm, to reveal, not an unfeeling fate, but an infinite will, an immense personality, a holy and forgiving Father. They who trust to nature and to the development of their own minds alone may have a kind of religion, but it is a religion that can exist equally well without as with the belief in a God. But instinct itself in the soul exclaims against them. Nature in the human breast, feeble, erring, transgressing, cries out for the supernatural, and this demand of humanity darkling in sorrow and compunction is a greater argument for the supernatural than any ingenious, speculative thinker's reasoning against it. Beautiful and admirable is this outward law; but law cannot love me, as does the Power that Christ has manifested. With him, in spirit, as he heals the sick, and raises the dead, we do not coolly question and analyze, but, feeling this is the testimony and spirit that we need, yield ourselves in cordial trust, taking our own feebleness and inability to find out, each one for himself, a religion in the vast, bewildering world, as a reason why the Merciful One should come to us so wonderfully. Debtors to Christianity from our infancy, we are not now going to disown it, least of all for that which is its very pillar and claim. Not that we rest in the miracle for itself as an amazing fact, that we "may marvel," but we see in it the gate of heaven unfolding to let down upon us the flood of heavenly grace. Why should not our hearts open to receive it, for sanctity, for peace, for hope?

We conclude that the powers of nature, reason, and law can neither satisfy the wants of man, nor account for the facts of our religion, without revelation, inspiration, and miracle. Our whole treatment of the subject has convinced us, as it may have our readers, that the question whether Christianity is a human development or a Divine manifestation is impossible to be entertained. It is an insult equally great to the Gospel and to human nature to propose it. For the Gospel claims a Divine origin and superhuman descent, and if it be the work of man, man must have mixed an alloy of the most astounding falsehood in this composition of what is most precious in the world. What is essential to our faith, and inextricable from it without its destruction, must be

removed, before the favorite modern skeptical theory respecting it can be understood or have a hearing. In the attempt to cut away what in it is thought accidental, the knife must go too deep for its existence in order to find the preliminary condition of ascertaining its quality! When Christianity presents herself for examination, the first thing is to give her the lie!

Mr. Mackay's view of all religion as a " Progress of the Intellect," at once confounds every just idea of religion, contradicts the character of the Christian system, and comes into collision with the plainest admitted circumstances of the case. How has this "Progress of the Intellect" been illustrated for the last eighteen hundred years? What more perfect truth in relation to God, the soul, and immortality, has been developed since the teachings of Jesus Christ? What personage of loftier wisdom, purer excellence, and more divine spirituality than he exhibited, has appeared? Where is the last and most intellectual expression of theological doctrine or seraphic piety, which is to supersede all that has gone before? Is it Mr. Mackay's own book? Does he not know that will melt away and vanish like the thin frost of an autumnal morning, while the miraculous record holds still its aged, but never enfeebled, grasp upon the faith of men? Yea,

what is all this skeptical literature but as the grass which groweth up in the morning, and in the evening is cut down and withered, compared with the immortal substance and flourishing of that Word of Christ, which, though heaven and earth pass away, will not pass away.

We go back, then, from those regions of speculation, through which we have been passing, which are no part of the Gospel or of religion, to the simple understanding of Christianity, not as the attainment of men, but the gift of God. We gladly exchange the paths of solitary research for the communion of Christ's followers. We willingly part with the absolute privacy of a mind trusting only its own exclusive judgments, for the united faith and sympathy of the Church. We would put off the conclusions of our own ingenuity, with the devices and desires of our own hearts, for the sacred tradition which has put its arms of blessing round millions of our kind, among which millions are the best and wisest of past ages and the present time. Reason has her rights, and

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The Motive of Virtue.

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we would not evade her test of any thing we believe or do. But we would not be for ever going through her processes of doubt and inquiry about things which pertain to the very life and confidence and rest of the soul. We would not be ever putting our gold into the furnace out of which it has so repeatedly come pure. Passing beyond the ordeal of mere argument, we would live that life of our Lord, which, to all possessing it, is the most persuasive and incontrovertible evidence of his claim. From all later discoveries we go back to him. Nay, he is not behind, but yet in advance of us all. Nothing in the world has overtaken him. We would go forward, trying to keep him in sight, aspiring after his likeness. To our faith he is no mere historic being, but actually, as he promised, with his Church alway, even unto the end of the world. While feeling his real presence, and regarding his supper as no empty figure of speech, not a meeting which only one of the parties observes, but a true intercourse, we look on with mysterious expectation to that more manifest union, from which all earthly doubts and uncertainties will be seen passing off, as the mists and vapors of night roll away in the distance from the widening splendor of the sun.

C. A. B.

ART. II.—THE MOTIVE OF VIRTUE.

THERE is a fallacy quite extensively involved in the current education of the day, which seems to attract less attention than its importance demands; - we mean, the assumption that it is possible to reap where one has not sown. It appears in two principal forms; - the first, in which it is assumed that the show of virtue can secure the true rewards of virtue itself, and the second, where real integrity and elevation of character are supposed to command such goods of this world as are, in fact, obtained by means more akin to these ends.

Strange as it may appear, it is not easy to decide which of these errors actually produces the greatest amount of ultimate practical evil in the characters of VOL. XLIX. 4TH S. VOL. XIV. NO. III.

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young people, who find them, not only protruding at various points in the groundwork of their education, but sometimes brought into prominent notice. Strange, we say, it seems, at first glance, that perhaps as much harm is done by teaching the young that the possession of real excellence is the best means of securing the prizes of the world most sought after, such as wealth, reputation, power, &c., as by the doctrine that a pretence and appearance of virtue will command the most valuable reward of virtue itself. Nevertheless, such we fear is the fact, as the two doctrines are usually presented to the young; for while the latter is seldom brought forward in its naked ugliness to ingenuous minds, and is repelled by all such when distinctly perceived, the former is often openly taught, and meets with ready acceptance on the part of the very class of minds which would reject the baser, though hardly less erroneous, theory. And yet both tend practically to the same result, that of making the child look upon virtue and its counterfeit as means to an end, and that end a worldly one.

The doctrine, that the appearance will answer in place of the reality, is perhaps rarely inculcated openly, but it is indirectly taught in many of the forms and observances which come under the head of minor morals. Mere show, and what is understood to be such, both by master and scholar, parent and child, is constantly accepted as meeting the whole demand, and of course the influence upon the pupil cannot be otherwise than injurious. Its first effect is rather to lower the child's opinion of the world, and of the moral standard of his elders, than to change his own; but from this soon flows a train of evil consequences to himself, which are very evident, but which it is not our present purpose to discuss. On the other hand, it is quite a favorite practice with many teachers, to hold up to the minds of children the example of some one who has met with great worldly success as an evidence of the advantages of virtue; always assuming, directly, that virtue has brought about this success, which is rarely true, and indirectly, that such success is the appropriate and true reward of virtue, which is never true. We do not mean to deny that certain qualities, which are commonly and justly considered virtuous, tend to secure to their possessors

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Virtue not rewarded here.

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wealth, fame, and power. For example, industry, economy, and frugality are virtues tending to produce wealth; courage, prudence, and energy are virtues leading to power and renown; but love and meekness are virtues too, and higher ones, and they call upon us constantly, in gentle but commanding tones, to forego the wealth and the power which might be acquired by industry, economy, and courage, when severed from their alliance with those diviner qualities. Now the worldly prosperity pointed out to the eager and credulous youth, as the reward of virtue, is too often the result, not only of the severance of this holy alliance, but of a new and unholy one between energy, industry, economy, and selfishness. If we leave out of view the differences in intellectual ability, and their results, this moral combination commands what is called success more surely and more completely than any other, and for various sufficient reasons, the best of which is, that mankind readily perceives, and is favorably impressed, by the courage and the industry, without so surely discovering the lurking selfishness, which directs their action. But a virtue truly attempered, in which lowliness must play so prominent a part, can but seldom be followed by like results.

Now and then, the purest and humblest man, when possessed of an uncommon intellect, or placed by Providence in a commanding position, may make his virtue felt and admired through a wide circle during his lifetime, and may rise to the greatest eminence among his fellow-men by means of it. Such cases, however, are necessarily rare, and even when they do occur, they form no exception to the rule we have stated. The power and fame of such men may be the consequences, principally, of their intrinsic excellence, but surely they are never its reward.

There is frequently taught, it is true, quite a different doctrine from the one we object to, which asserts that virtue does not meet its reward in this world, and that long-suffering here is required to fit us for a reward to come in a future life. This doctrine is not often especially addressed to the young, and from them it meets with but little attention when they chance to hear it. It is accepted as a consolation by those whom the world has dealt hardly with, but is supposed to be too disheartening a view to press upon youthful and ardent minds, or even,

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