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not be withheld; yet a short season of expectation, and the blessing of increase shail amply reward the labourer's anxiety and care. I see the abodes of misery and vice sought out by the ministers of consolation; the offspring of the poor, once left unpitied to the dominion of their own fierce and evil passions, growing up beneath the sound of the gospel of peace; and, lastly, the bonds of Christian fellowship beginning to be felt and acknowledged by those who should never have allowed themselves to differ. Surely all this will not prove ineffectual and vain! For my own part, if I were allowed to see the first-fruits of that harvest for which prayer has so long been exercised, and expecta. tion undoubtingly entertained, methinks I could pass from earth almost in the spirit described by the Epicurean poet,—a contented and satisfied guest, not because I have drained the chalice filled with the pleasures of life to the dregs, and found a second draught denied, but as taught from my own experience, by peace and anxiety, by joy and sorrow, by the comforts as well as by the anxieties of a sufficiently varied and protracted career, that every dispensation of severe trial or unhoped-for deliverance which has attended my condition of existence here, has been mercifully meant to qualify and prepare me for one far better and more permanent hereafter.

ON NATIONAL STABILITY AND DECAY.

STATES and nations have been compared, with reference to their rise, greatness, decline, and fall, to the individuals of whom they are composed. Infancy, youth, manhood, old age, and death have their resemblances, it is thought, in kingdoms and empires, where man exists only as a component part or rather particle. It does not, however, follow from any logical deduction easily imagined, that because men grow old, states must therefore grow old, or that empires must expire for no other reason than that the transitory beings who constitute them are daily and hourly dying. Nations have, undoubtedly, from small beginnings, attained eminence, and have then declined and become extinct; and these stages of their existence have not inaptly been paralleled with corresponding stages in human life; but the similitude may be correct, and yet very erroneous if converted into an argument. The natural life of man is dependent upon natural causes, while the duration of an empire or its fall is generally to be traced to causes purely moral and political. The former belong to the material world-a world of decay and mutation; the latter to the intellectual world, where deterioration and dissolution are the consequences of error and evil, and where change ought to be unknown, except in the gradations of increasing excellence.

Empires have fallen, it is true, and perhaps not one of those now in existence, -even that of Britain, which stretches eastward and westward, and incessantly beholds the light of the sun reflected from its colonies or its provinces, may not be found, except as a name, upon the earth, at that fatal day, when the globe itself,

Yea, all that it inherits, shall dissolve,
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a rack behind.

We are not, however, to conclude that, because Egypt and Assyria, Greece and Rome are no more, there is an absolute term in the destinies of nations which they cannot outlast. On the contrary, we have many reasons to believe, that, as the duration of a people is connected, under important circumstances, with sacred and moral causes, there must be great differences in what may be termed the constitutional health and tendency to longevity in different states; and that some may, consequently, approximate to that divine and intellectual vigour, which is almost wholly without the principle of decay.

In the nations that have declined and fallen in ancient times, and in those in which we may now perceive symptoms of decline, there may always be observed a distinction of interests between those who

exercise the powers of government, and those who are governed,-between sedates, and the people-between sovereigns, and subjects-between the rich, and the poor. It is also worthy of remark, that, where the government and the governed have been most assimilated in their interests and their rights, there have been most stability and general prosperity. Unhappily, we know of none in which such an assimilation of rights and interests has ever been brought to any degree of perfection, or in which it has not been more or less counteracted by the selfishness of individuals or of combinations and factions, who have sought and established their own particular interests at the expense of the people over whom they acquired, by talents or intrigue, a paramount sway. In the despotisms of Egypt and Asia, there seems always to have been a

rtion of the priesthood, and a party out the throne, who shared among them e wealth of the people, and the only int in which the enslaved populace par. cipated in the proud interests of their lers, was that of the most abject dependce their subsistence was the precarious ages of their obedience, and the chain of rvitude extended from the throne to the umblest tiller of the soil. There have not een wanting writers, however, who have ontended that the gradation of dependence und in a pure despotism, is the perfection f political constitutions, and that under an bsolute monarch there is a more complete onsolidation of the interests of the comaunity, than under any other form of overnment. Such writers argue thus, that vere mankind completely enlightened, with espect to the mutual dependence of their eal interests, -were those real interests correctly understood,—did the spirit of Christianity prevail among us as it ought o do, then might a people entrust themselves to the dominion of a single ruler, and leave their happiness entirely to the care of him, and of such counsellors as he might choose to select. A distinguished liberal author of the present day, in his interesting work upon England, has not hesitated to startle the friends of freedom, who are among his principal admirers, with the intimation, that civilized men, as they find knowledge diffused among them, and with knowledge virtuous and religious sentiments, will gradually cease from the political factions and contentions, and voluntarily relinquish the anxieties and the suspicions implied in the very idea of a representative defence against the wrongs and errors of the executive power, and entrust themselves with confidence to the tutelage of a virtuous monarchy. Yesunder the dominion of that being who preached the doctrine of universal benevolence, and who, personifying in himself the human race, taught us that obedience to the Divine will is perfect freedom, the truths of Christianity will be our only statutes, and Christ himself our only sovereign; but, on the earth, and amid its empires, we have hitherto seen nothing to encourage mankind to trust their welfare to the despotism of a single man. Even were it possible that our progress in knowledge should effect such an improvement in our nature, that we might seldom be deceived in looking for harmlessness in one another, yet must we never expect, that, in any merely human state, we shall ever be able wholly to lay aside the wisdom of the serpent-which is caution. I do not

say this to detract in the smallest degree from the sublime imaginings of Mr. Bulwer respecting the nature of man when enlightened by knowledge, and purified by religion: on the contrary, I am certain that some well-meaning Calvinists impede, in no slight degree, the progress of civilization, by the terms in which they speak of the fall and the depravity of the human soul. Man, it is manifest, is capable of high intellectual attainments and great moral excellence; and he is permitted by his Creator to proceed with hope in the acquirement of science, in the enlargement of his virtuous sentiments, and in his acquaintance, through the Almighty word, with the Almighty himself. We may look forward, then, with the highest expectation, but we must look forward also with humility; sensible, from history, and from the prospect around us, what infirmity, what ignorance, what selfish viciousness has frequently blinded and enslaved us!

That dependence which gives strength and duration to nations, must not be that which has hitherto been observable in despotisms: it must be mutual. This was partly the case in the republics of Greece, but a want of political organization, and a mixture of slavery with liberty, rendered the stability of those republics less perfect than even that of the despotisms over which they triumphed. They were small, yet their deeds were mighty, and they carried the arts to an astonishing height of excellence. This resulted from the assimilation of rights which existed among the citizens, and enabled them to act upon any public occasion with unity. But this assimilation of rights (I speak of Athens, in particular,) was not attended with an assimilation of interests, and, consequently, it did not secure a constant harmony of action; for, instigated by selfishness, their very equality of political claims encouraged their competition for wealth, distinction, and power, and their liberty continually degenerated into licentiousness and turbulence. There was scarcely any established diversity of rank among the free-born citizens; but wealth, power, and splendid rather than useful talents, created diversities which were perpetually fluctuating from family to family, and from individual to individual; so that all was excitation, exertion, intrigue, corruption, envy, and servility. Such a state of society is undoubtedly advantageous to the fine arts, to eloquence, to the drama, to every species of public display: it furnishes the contemplative philosopher also with materials for moral theories; but the virtues are known only in the conversations and in

the writings of such a people, who, in the clash and confusion of their immediate interests, have no time to put them in practice. Life in Athens had no repose; existence was one continued struggle: but the intellect, ever in action, was ever bright and acute; and the Athenians, though they were never happy, were always splendid. Men of capacity were always at the head of their affairs, but men of pure principle never. Though the Athenians," says an historian, somewhat partial to them, "were sometimes directed by persons of integrity, virtue, patriotism, and magnanimity, they too often listened to the counsels of many whose characters were the reverse; for he who could best offer the incense of adulation to the people, was most certain of their confidence and esteem. Such qualifications as these enabled the turbulent and licentious demagogues, who most resembled the audience, generally to prevail in the popular assembly; and the reward which real merit deserved, was carried off by specious and even noxious qualities."

Not in the cold and settled servitude of a despotism, nor in the restless fervour of democratic competition, do we discover that mutual connexion and assimilation of interests between man and man, in which the happiness and stability of a state are to be expected; and I turn from Asia and Greece, to inquire in what degree the harmonizing principle existed in Rome. The government of Rome, during the period of the republic, was an aristocracy; but the plebeians, or common Roman citizens, were aristocrats as respected the rest of the world, and looked upon kings and satraps as infinitely beneath them. There was a common feeling in early Rome, more extensive and more intense than is perceptible in any other people recorded by history; this was a feeling of national pride, which rendered the glory of Rome a principle paramount to every other in the bosom of every individual. It was, in reality, the religion of Rome, to which its brilliant mythology was merely secondary and subservient. Nevertheless, strong and diminant as this principle of public glory and of the honour and greatness of Rome undoubtedly was, it must be regarded as an external rather than an internal motive of action; an impulse for display and unity abroad, not a source of comfort and concord at home; a trumpet-sound, which, when, as a summons to arms, either for defence or conquest, it was heard, was instantly obeyed with ardour and delight, but which, as it ceased, left

• Aspin's Systematic Analysis of Ancient History.

the mind in a state of ignorant exhaustion, a prey to discontent and turbulence. The senators and the citizens of Rome had no assimilation of interests, except in war; m peace their jealousies broke forth, and a season of domestic broils always succeeded a campaign of glory. As the military renown and the distant conquests increased, so did the dissensions of the patricians and plebeians, and the still more sanguinary contests among the patrician factions themselves, increase also. The wealth of Rome had not its source in industry or in com merce. The trade and even the agriculture of these masters of the world were chiefly conducted by slaves, and they were accordingly ill-managed, and uncertain in their returns and their produce. The wealth of the Romans was the plunder and tribute of conquered and enslaved nations. It was always casual, sudden, and temporary, exactly like the supplies of robbers; se that no city ever suffered more by rapid transitions from wealth to wretchedness, than did Rome during the last century of the republic. Rome declined and fell, because, by her devastations, she had exhausted the world; and when she sunk, unable to resist the hordes of barbarians that assailed her, to how dreadful a state of wretchedness were those people of Asia, Africa, and Europe found to have been reduced, which to the very last she ravaged, and from which she had drawn the latest dregs of her supplies.

It is not, then, in a state like that of Rome, that that unity of interests, on which national stability is founded, is to be met with. We must seek it elsewhere; and I turn towards Christian Britain with the most earnest hope of a more favourable result. Perhaps there is no people among whom the reciprocity of connecting interests is so well understood and acted upon as it is among Englishmen; and if it be not yet sufficiently felt and acknowledged by us, there can certainly be no doubt of the progressive state of that principle in the British community, both theoretically and practically. Nothing can impede that progress; we see daily that the distinctions of society, which in the days of feudalism were broad and hereditary, are becoming almost imperceptible; and persons of what are termed the lower orders, are attaining that intelligence, and power of investigation, which mentally obliterates all the distinctions of rank. It would be strange, indeed, that men thus situated, should not perceive that the prosperity of individuals is mutually depen dent on the prosperity of the whole, and gradually set aside all such customs and

stitutions, which, having originated in the ilitary feudalism of the Norman invaders, in the dominion of the papal church over ir ignorant forefathers, serve only to imde as well the reciprocity of both rights d interests, as the spread of the spirit of hristianity.

There is a pacific change gradually proeding among us, which, if it sometimes ems to threaten violence, almost immeately subsides and flows on in its regular, its destined course. It may indeed be iced, and sometimes observed in a turbunt state, from 'almost the earliest periods our history. When the Norman barons, resisting the tyranny of the crown, found necessary to call upon the representatives industry and of personal wealth in the ties and towns, to share with them and e sovereign in the legislature of the kingɔm, an assimilation of many rights and terests was established. Other rights of e people were claimed and admitted at suing periods, so that, instead of bringing own the aristocracy by violence, as was inously and hastily done at an early eriod of the French revolution, the people ere elevated, by accessions to the rights of eir representatives, to a level with the ristocracy. An evil resulted from this aproximation, which manifested itself strongly uring the reign of George the Third; but e remedy grew up by the side of the evil, nd at length obtained sufficient strength to urmount it, and materially if not wholly o subdue it. The representatives of the people became more assimilated with the ristocracy, in whose rights they had been Dermitted so largely to participate, in inerest also, so closely, that in a great degree he interest of wealth and power had become distinct and separate from the interest of he people. The laws were made by the aristocracy in one house, and by servile dependents on, and the wealthy aspirants to, aristocracy in the other. The people were not forgotten by this legislative association, but they were thought of as the sources of the production of wealth which was forestalled by an enormous national debt, and drawn up into reservoirs under the disposal of those who held the government itself at their disposal, by every means of taxation. It was then that the Struggle of the people of this country became more intense and more agitated than the constant competitions of the Athenians; but it was not turbulent, or politically injurious. It served to extend that sense of the connecting interests of society, on which, I contend, that the solidity and duration of empires are to be founded. The reform 20. SERIES, NO. 42.-VOL. IV.

bill enlarged the basis of that assimilation of rights and views, by which this country has hitherto steadily proceeded in the acumulation of wealth, and in diffusing and securing prosperity. Impediments still exist, and, perhaps, from the imperfections of human nature, must ever exist, to that perfect assimilation of such rights and interests, which ardent minds, in their benevolent and christian anticipations, are permitted to imagine; but, if we may not look for perfect happiness, we are not forbidden, either by reason or religion, to discourage the hope of approximating slowly and distantly to a state upon earth, in which men, labouring together for their mutual advantage, may bestow a healthful stability to their own nation. It is the part of a christian patriot to promulgate, as extensively as he can, the idea of this wide assimilation of interests in his native country; and it is with no small degree of satisfaction that I have, during many years of a life devoted to speculations of this character, traced in this country the progress of that assimilation in the connecting ties of all classes with each other, which removes farther and farther from us, those circumstances to which the decline and fall of empires have hitherto been assigned.

TWO SKETCHES FROM A WELL-KNOWN

CONTEMPORARY WRITER.

God Invisible. MUCH is seeing feeling man actuated by the objects around him. All his powers are roused, impelled, directed by impressions made on his sensitive organs, yet objects of sense have only a definite force upon him. A hundred-weight crushes a man's strength to a certain degree, and no more; he sustains it, and bears it away. On the edge of the ocean he may tremble at the vast expanse, but he tries the depth of the shore, finds it but a few feet, and no longer fears to enter it. The waves cannot overtop his head; or, is it deeper,-be can swim, and regards it no longer with fear. Nay, he builds a ship, and makes this tremendous ocean his servant, wields its vast. ness for his own use, dives to its deep bottom to rob it of its treasures, or makes its surface convey him to distant shores. A much smaller object shall affect him more, when his senses are less distinctly acted upon, but his imagination is somewhat roused. He travels in the dark, he starts at a slight but indistinct noise, he knows not but it may be a wild beast lurking, or a robber ready to seize on him. Could he 186.-VOL. XVI.

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have distinctly seen what alarmed him, he had, unalarmed, gone on;-it was only the moving of the leaves, waved gently by the wind. He stops to consider well, for he hears the sound of water falling, a gleam from its foaming surface sparkles on his eye, but he cannot tell how near he is to it, or how distant; how exactly it may be in his path; how tremendously deep the abyss into which he may fall at the next step; had it been daylight, could he have examined thoroughly, he had then passed it without notice: it is only the rill of a small ditch on the road-side; his own foot could have stopped the trickling current. This effort of indistinctness rousing the imagination, is finely depicted in Job iv. 14. Eliphaz describes it thus-"Fear came upon me, and trembling which made all my bones to shake; then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up; it stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof." The senses, in this description, are but slightly affected; the eye could not discern any specific form, the touch could not examine the precise nature of the object; the imagination, therefore, had full scope. The mind was roused beyond the power of sensible objects to stimulate it, and the body felt an agitation greater than if its senses had been more fully acted on; he trembled, and the hair of his flesh stood up. He could not discern the form; it might therefore be terrific in shape, or tremendous in size; "it stood still," as if to do something to him; to speak-perhaps to smite, to destroy; and how could he guard against that which he could not see, could not tell what, or where it was? That which (from what he could discern, and still more from what he could not discern) seemed to be no mortal substance to which he was accustomed, and with which, with care or courage, he might deal safely; but a spirit, utterly beyond impression, yet having unknown power to impress him even to who can tell what degree? The certainty of an object so near him, joined to the uncertainty of what might be its powers, intentions, and natural operations, impressed him deeply with awe, expectation, and anxiety.

How absurd, then, how contrary to all their feelings in other cases, is the conduct of infidels, who affect to despise God, to deny his existence, because they cannot see him! or, without affecting this, do actually neglect, forget, and do him despite, by occasion of this circumstance. Men who can be appalled by some distant danger, and grow courageous at one near at hand, who trembles at a fellow-man or a crawl

ing reptile, and only then shews careles ness and hardihood when their foe simighty! Without inquiring what Ele saw, let us apply these ideas to the suprase Spirit, let us meditate on an object f finitely greater, nearer importance-te invisible God-the more impressively inportant, because invisible. Let us, fr moment, suppose the contrary to be t case suppose the Deity to be the objec of our senses, he then loses much of majesty; he becomes fixed to one spot, te in which we can see him; must be distan from many other places; and, when reve ing himself in other places, must be f distant from us, even at a time when w most need his presence. Nay, we sho begin to comprehend him, to philosopers upon and attempt experiments with him. Were he vast as the starry heavens, could measure him; bright as yonder s we could contrive to gaze at him; energet as the vivid lightning, we should bring him down to play around us: in no form can conceive of his being the object of sense. but we sink him to a creature, give him some definable shape, reduce him to man, or a mere idol, and have need provide him a temple made with ba for his accommodation. If, indeed, there were any doubt of his existence-but t man is incapable of reasoning, who re sons thus. There are proofs enough the he is at our right hand, though we do m see him; that he works at our left bant though we cannot behold him. Instead of asking, with the sneer of doub "Where is he?" or, carelessly thinking, shall God see?" a much more rata behaviour is, with awe and reverence, say, "Whither shall I flee from thy p sence?" "Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Could any supposition take place even his momentary absence-that he were r off on a journey, or asleep and need must be wakened-it might be alleged, sanction the carelessness, provided th were aware of his absence, and knew de time of his drowsiness or distance. But an omnipotent Deity ought to fill® with seriousness, and the uncertainties a his operations-where? how?-when t will work-should fill us with deep, lasting, and constant awe! He exists! The thought makes a temple in every place: to realize it, is to begin actual wa ship: whatever I may be about-to ✯ dulge it, is to make all other existence fade away. Amid the roar of mirth, I hear only his voice; in the glitter of dissipe tion, I see only his brightness; in the

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