burn and blaze for nought. Its energies are consumed, without making any permanent impression on the world-like the meteor that flashes along the sky, and then leaves all as dark as before. At any period of the world, there is talent enough for all the purposes of moral improvement, which may be demanded; but it is melancholy to reflect how much of that genius burns for nought, and then sinks in night. No small part of the talent of men employed in the purposes of wickedness, and that might have extended its influence far down the track of ages in an enterprise to do good, wastes itself in some wild and abortive scheme of ambition; in some gigantic, but unsuccessful project of crime and blood; in some useless, and wasted attempt at song; in some quickly-arrested career of vice. Again;-the faculties of man in a career of sin, soon waste themselves. Vice preys upon the powers, chills their energies, exhausts their vigor, produces torpor, gloom, decay. God never tempered the human frame for the high pressure of the exciting passions of drunkenness, of ambition, of luxury. The delicate machine is not adapted to the consuming energies of crime, and lust. Under the influence of exciting passions, the frame of man, like the machine without balance-wheel or governor, hastens to ruin, and tears itself to pieces.-Besides, a life of crime, and vice, cuts off a man's influence on his fellow-men. It lessens confidence, destroys affection, creates suspicion, disgust, and alarm. What a wicked man does over others, he does by the force of money, of power, of fear, of office-influences far less for promoting permanent effects, than confidence, affection, love.-Perverted talent consumes itself like the rapid motion that alarms us, and dies;-talent rightly directed, is like the star that sheds his steady beams from age to age. He Further; if a man wished to make the most of his powers-to prolong his life and name to the utmost-he would be a good man. He would bring his soul and body under the influence of virtue. If he wished to give all his faculties their fairest proportions, and most prolonged action, he would be temperate, chaste, industrious, just, benevolent. would call up his powers just where a pure life would dictate; he would restrain the violence of passion; he would silence the voice of raging ambition; he would seek to put out the burning fires of anger, lust, and malice-passions that prey upon, and consume the frame; and he would temper all his conduct by the laws of benevolence, and of God. The Lord Jesus Christ pursued the very course of life, adapted to produce health, and length of days. It was not miraculous power that kept him from sickness and disease; but it was the regular effect of a life of temperance, and purity.-We ask, in full confirmation of this, when has any profligate ever recommended a life of vice and crime? All have seen and known the value of a life of virtue, temperance, purity; and the voice of the world, as well as of the Bible, has settled it, that if a man wished to make the most of his powers, he would devote them to the cause of virtue-in other words, he would be a righteous man. A few examples may make this still more clear. Take the case of Howard. Is it possible to conceive that that remarkable man could have done as much permanent evil, as he has done permanent good? Evil he might have done. He was a man of wealth; he might have been an infidel, and a profligate. He might have pursued a distinguished career in his own generation, in corrupting the morals of the young, and extending the reign of profligacy and wo. Nay, more. Though not a man of the most splendid genius, though not fitted perhaps to tread the higher walks of literature, yet he had talent, of a certain kind, of a high order; the talent of perseverance, of skill, of indefatigable enterprise. The exhaustless energy, "an energy which the limits of the human mind forbade to be greater, and which the character of the individual forbade to be less"-evinced in exploring the prisons of the world, and bringing hidden depravity to light, might in some way, have been employed in filling those prisons and multiplying human woes. would his influence in evil ever have equalled his influence in goodness? Would his name ever have stood out as effecting decisive changes in the human condition, as it does now? In his own circle and time, Howard might have been known as a profligate. Hundreds of young men might have cursed his existence as their corrupter; and in that generation his influence had died, and his name have been given to contempt and scorn. Howard, as a profligate and a libertine, or a tyrant, could never have sent his name and power around the world, or made it travel down to future generations of men. But Now take another example. Suppose that Byron had sung like Cowper, or Watts. What a change would have been made at once on the influence of that man. We admit that his influence has been mighty, and yet will be. But is there any man that believes that Byron is to influence as many minds as Cowper and Watts? The mass of men will not love cold misanthropy, or the display of corrupt and malignant passions, or the disgusting details of vice. An increasing number of our race will turn from his sour and gloomy pages, to dwell upon the lovely piety, the sweet simplicity of the renovated heart in Cowper; and to breathe out the language of pure devotion in the delightful strains of Watts. Already more, many more minds have been influenced in the most tender scenes of life by the sweet language of Watts, than have been or will be influenced by Byron. The language of the sacred singer is breathed into our ears in the cradle; it is echoed in the Sunday school, by tens of thousands on each Sabbath day; it warms the devotions of millions in the sanctuary, it is poured forth in the bed of sickness, and it cheers and sustains the soul in the hour of dying. Where the book of the noble bard is laid aside and hated, the sacred singer is welcomed and hailed; and his sweet language expresses the most lofty, and pure feelings of the spirit, even as it bursts away from a world of sin, plumes itself for its eternal flight, and as the last accents of hallelujahs here melt and die away in the anthems of praise eternal in the heavens. We ask whether it was possible for Watts to have done as much evil as he has good?And when shall the influence of Cowper die? When shall man forget his sweet numbers? Never; no, never. His influence shall be felt far as our native tongue shall be uttered. It shall go down into the advancing and deepening glories of the millennium, when, in his own inimitable language, "The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round." There is another instance perhaps still more to our purpose. We allude to that man of which Cowper has said, the man "I name thee not, lest so despised a name, "Whose Pilgrim marks the road, And guides the progress of the soul to God." It is probably not saying too much to affirm that "The Pilgrim's Progress from this world to that which is to come," has already influenced more minds, and done more to form habits of thought, than all the works of Celsus, Porphyry, Julian, Volney, Voltaire, Hobbes, and Shaftesbury put together. These men have spoken to elevated ranks of society; comparatively few in number, and always comparatively unimportant in the estimate of the sum total of human happiness. But for one such man, Bunyan has been the guide of thousands. Infidel books, also are read, not in the moments when men read to mould their character, but in moments of idleness, and leisure, and sin. Bunyan has woven his sentiments into the very texture of life; he speaks in times of temptation and affliction; he is heard in those turning points when the character is formed, and when thoughts fix themselves in the very soul. It is further to be added, that the book of the imprisoned tinker, is one of those great works that are to live when the world shall be Christian, and when the proudest works of infidel genius shall "lose discountenanced, and like folly show." It speaks the language of the heart. It utters the sentiments of renovated man. It is in religion what Shakespeare is in the drama, a book having the character of universality. Infidels could no more have written a page of this book, than they could create a world; and when all that they have ever penned shall repose in useless grandeur and neglected pomp, on the shelves of the library, the Pilgrim's Progress shall be extending the sentiments of religion in lands now pagan or unknown, and Bunyan shall be guiding ransomed sinners still to their eternal home. But what we are principally concerned in remarking, is, that it is impossible to conceive that this man should have done as much permanent evil, as he has good. He might have lived an infidel; he might have continued to be a model of profaneness and vulgarity; he might have corrupted a few strolling companions; but in what possible circumstances of evil could this man of profaneness have diffused an evil influence far to other nations, and to the end of time? Another instance: The name of Wilberforce shall soon be known in all the extended plains, and in all the high hills of Africa. His influence shall be felt not only on Britain's isles, but through every vein of empire in the new world. It shall flow again across the Atlantic to a benighted, injured continent. His eloquence shall make more shackles fall, than the most cruel tyrant with imperial power ever yet riveted on human sinews; and the accents of his philanthropy shall diffuse peace and prosperity through more villages, and towns, and plains, than all the Cæsars ever fired or desolated. Our next observation is, that such is the constitution of society, that crime comes to a consummation; it meets with something to arrest its progress and to stay its career. There are, in the very stamina of things, obstacles laid that it cannot surmount. But there may be no limit to plans of goodness. The empire of crime and terror has usually been short. Our minds will instantly recur to the obstacles laid in the guilty career of the ancient world; of Sodom, of Babylon, of Thebes. We shall remember guilty Jerusalem; Athens corrupt and effeminate by luxurious indulgence; Rome intoxicated with empire, and weakened, and ruined by crime. We shall remember the horrid deeds of the French revolution, and the obstacles which outraged human nature rose to place in the way of universal desolation. Somewhere in the constitution of society, or in some fearful visitation of Heaven, there shall be placed a barrier to the progress of crime. The most mighty combination shall be stayed; the gigantic plan shall be broken up; the empire of evil shall be reduced to its original elements; and society shall be organized anew. Such has been thus far the history of every mad scheme of vice, and crime. But now suppose, for example, that Sodom, and Babylon, and Rome, had been as virtuous as they were wicked. Suppose those vast combinations and resources had been really for some purpose of human improvement. Suppose that those powers had been called forth to foster industry, to promote education, to extend the influence of peace, and to diffuse the blessings of religion. Suppose the talent called forth in war had been expended in promoting the blessings of peace; the genius that exhausted itself in inventions of human butchery had been employed in designs of promoting the welfare of men; and is there any prospect that there would have been a limit to such endeavors ?-We have an illustration in these times. No small part of the talent which in times of war would be called forth to devise plans of conquest, and of blood, is in one land employed in schemes for promoting the welfare of mankind. The result is seen. Institutions have risen which shall throw their influence into advancing ages, |