"Within this wondrous volume lies
The mystery of mysteries:

Thrice happy they, of human race,
To whom our God has given the grace
To read, to mark, to learn to pray,
To lift the latch, and force the way!
But better had they ne'er been born,
Who read to doubt, and read to scorn."

I believe these lines are not the writing of Lord Byron, but of another modern poet. But his adopting them, and transcribing them into the blank leaf of his Bible, is as strong if not a stronger proof that he felt and adopted the sentiment, than if he had actually been the author.

Nor is it Christianity alone to the excellence of which infidels have unwittingly confessed; they have sometimes borne testimony to the wisdom of its means of propagation. Thus does Gibbon testify to the importance of public worship, one of the great Scripture appointments for the preservation and extension of true religion. "The devotion of the poet or the philosopher may be secretly nourished by prayer, meditation, and study; but the exercise of public worship appears to be the only solid foundation of the religious sentiments of the people, which derive their force from imitation and habit; the interruption of that public exercise may consummate in the period of a few years, the important work of a national revolution. The memory of theological opinions cannot be long preserved without the artificial aids of priests and of books.'

、

Nor does this testimony stand alone. Dr Adam * Decline and Fall, Vol. iv. p. 83.

66

Smith, the celebrated author of the Wealth of Nations, who though he expressed some fine views in the first edition of his Theory of Moral Sentiments, pointing by the light of nature to the Scripture doctrine of atonement, may yet unhappily be pronounced an infidel, in as much as he said of the great sceptic Hume, "that he came as near as human frailty admits, to the idea of a perfectly wise and good man;" even Smith, I say, testifies to the importance of Christianity and its means, when, in a letter to a friend, he says of Sabbath schools, though then but in their infancy, No plan promises to effect a change of manners with equal ease and simplicity since the days of the apostles." What is the moral changing power in the Sabbath school? It is the gospel of Christ presented in an attractive form to children. And what are Christian churches but larger schools for a more advanced class, where substantially the same instructions and impressions are communicated? Is this not the testimony of infidelity, and philosophy, and political economy, to the value of the despised gospel of salvation?

I cannot better conclude than by quoting the testimony of the same writer on the doctrine of atonement, above referred to, one of the great doctrines on which the gospel of free salvation rests.

"If we consult our natural sentiments, we are apt to fear lest, before the holiness of God, vice should appear to be more worthy of punishment, than the weakness and imperfection of human virtue can ever seem to be of reward. Man, when about to appear before a Being of infinite perfection, can feel but little

confidence in his own merit, or in the imperfect propriety of his own conduct. In the presence of his fellow-creatures, he may often justly elevate himself, and may often have reason to think highly of his own character and conduct, compared to the still greater imperfection of theirs. But the case is quite different when he is about to appear before his infinite Creator. To such a Being, he can scarce imagine that his littleness and weakness should ever seem to be the proper object either of esteem or of reward. But le can easily conceive how the numberless violations of duty, of which he has been guilty, should render him the proper object of aversion and punishment; neither can he see any reason why the Divine indignation should not be let loose, without any restraint, upon so vile an insect, as he is sensible that he himself must appear to be. If he would still hope for happiness, he is conscious that he must entreat it from the mercy of God. Repentance, sorrow, humiliation, contrition at the thought of his past conduct, are, upon this account, the sentiments which become him, and seem to be the only means which he has left for appeasing that wrath, which he knows he has justly provoked. He even 'distrusts the efficacy of all these; and naturally fears lest the wisdom of God should not, like the weakness of man, be prevailed upon to spare the crime, by the most importunate lamentations of the criminal. Some other intercession, some other atonement, he imagines must be made for him, beyond what he himself is capable of making, before the purity of the Divine justice can be reconciled to his manifold offences. The doctrines of revelation coincide in every respect with those original anticipations of nature; and, as they teach us how little we can depend upon the imperfection of our own virtue, so they show us, at the same time, that the most powerful intercession has been made, and that the most dreadful atonement has been paid for our manifold transgressions and iniquities."

And

Who reading this, and not aware of the author, would not have imagined that he was perusing the page of some able analytic Christian divine? yet, these are the words of one who pronounced David Hume to have come as perfectly near to the idea of a great and good man, as human frailty admits of! Christians may have their inconsistencies; but it would seem, the superior and boasted reason of Infidelity does not protect her from her full share of them, and that in the grossest form.

JOHN G. LORIMER.

THE END.

Glasgow:-Edward Khull, Printer to the University.