accomplished, and even this world be changed into a region of peace and joy and Christian perfection? Will there be no difference, also, in the satisfaction of him, whose opinion it is, that evil predominates in the visible creation, and that this world is a state of suffering, and of him who discerns, even here, the preponderance of happiness, and reposes, with satisfaction, on the proofs of divine benevolence, even in this state of human probation? Be assured, my friends, the doctrines of revelation are not less designed to promote our tranquillity than to advance our moral improvement. Especially consider, I beseech you, how important to our peace is that doctrine of Christianity, which assures us of the pardon of sins upon repentance; which presents to us the God, whom we have all offended, in the light of a Father willing to be reconciled; which satisfies us of the ground upon which this pardon is dispensed, and directs us to the mediation of the Son of God. The settlement of human opinion on this single particular may be supposed to operate most powerfully on the sum of general and individual happiness.

As to the comparative effect of different views of Christianity upon the peace of those who entertain them, it is a subject too copious for this occasion. Allow me to suggest, however, that, when any opinions upon this interesting subject produce habitual gloom and misanthropy, the nature of religion must have been misapprehended, and certainly the object of it defeated. In your search, then, after happiness, labor to acquire the most enlarged views of God's character and designs, as declared by revelation; and these, united with the benevolent exertion recommended under the former head, will go far towards securing you all the

happiness which is to be enjoyed in this narow sphere of the existence of an intellectual being.

If, in the third place, we consider the influence of the imagination upon our habitual tranquillity, we shall feel the importance of ascertaining the means of regulating its influence in a manner the most favorable to human happiness. There are many, I know, who derive little either of pleasure or of pain from the imagination; but there are others, to whom it is a source of exquisite distress, giving them the most dreary prospects of futurity, harassing them with the terrors of superstition, or depressing them with the dark uncertainty of skepticism.

We have unintentionally anticipated, under the last head, some observations which belong more properly to

this.

When the imagination is extremely lively, either from original constitution or from early cultivation, if it is not made a sweet fountain of felicity, it is usually converted into one of the most distressing sources of misery. Here, too, as before, the religion of Jesus enters, and offers the imagination an inexhaustible store of higher objects. The scenes, which it discloses, beyond the grave, are sublime and consolatory, on the one hand, and fearful and mortally oppressive, on the other. Can you, then, whose minds are formed to derive much happiness from remote anticipations, hesitate, a moment, to secure the favorable influence of the Christian's prospect of felicity? My peace," says our Savior to his disciples, "I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you." This is most true, my Christian friends; and all the imaginable happiness, which a mere philosopher can derive from the tranquillity with which he may be able to look forward to the events of to

morrow,

or even the remainder of his days, is less than nothing, in the estimate of human happiness, compared to the joys of a Christian's hope.

But, in the wise ordination of Providence, the overpowering nature of these high anticipations is relieved by their remoteness; and the effect upon the Christian's happiness is not to raise him to perpetual ecstasy, but to keep up in his mind the glow of perpetual hope.

The last circumstance, which we mentioned, as exercising a powerful influence on human happiness, is the temper. We hear truly good men often lamenting, as the bane of their happiness, an instinctive irascibility. It is often, indeed, united with strong affection and benevolence, and often, alas! destroys the happiness which might be expected from a life of active exertion; not so much from the ill effect it produces on the mind as from the misfortunes to which it leads, and these we are not always able to alleviate by the consciousness, that they are entirely undeserved.

Ill-humor is still more unfavorable to happiness than this irascible temper. It commonly originates in self-dissatisfaction, and leads him, who feels it, to refer the causes of his discontent to the imaginary faults of others, and keeps him in a state of perpetual peevishness. I need not, my hearers, tell you, that, to enjoy this life, it is necessary to possess a temper candid to the faults and mistakes of others, disposed to mutual accommodation, not easily provoked, and willing to see everything, that occurs, in the most favorable light. Every one knows that he, whose disposition is most favorable to his own happiness, is most agreeable to others, and that these common qualities of pleasing and being pleased mutually react upon and generate each other.

But, my friends, the Christian doctrine carries this subject of the temper much further, and represents those dispositions as essential to happiness, which we, in our worldly meditations, are too apt to despise, as if they exposed a man to insult or ridicule. If we read the beatitudes in our Savior's sermon on the mount, we shall find the utmost meekness under injuries, the most unbounded forgiveness, represented as the disposition which leads to happiness. We shall find a blessing pronounced upon that compassionate temper which sympathizes with all the miseries of human life, which shares in all the pains it meets, weeps with the weeping, and mourns with the bereaved. Still further does our Savior bless the patient and resigned disposition which bears, without a murmur, the severest afflictions of life, while we are disposed to envy the hardness of the man who can avoid or repulse them.

Ye proud spirits, who cannot endure the humble genius of the religion of Jesus, weigh well this subject of happiness, before you reject this self-denying system. Experience will decide against you, and vindicate the beatitudes of the sermon on the mount. For us Christians it is enough, that Jesus has pronounced such tempers happy.

My friends, I have attempted to lay open to you the true sources of happiness. Follow the stream, and it will bear you away to the full ocean of eternal bliss. Do you again ask, who will show you any good? Jesus, my friends, calls to you from heaven: Whosoever drinketh of the water of life shall never thirst again.

SERMON XIV.

MATTHEW vi. 13.

LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION, BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

THE life of every man of established religious principles has been a series of struggles. He has found it far more easy to form than to keep his best resolutions; and he has discovered, also, with alarm, that any course of conduct is far more easily depraved than it is amended. Every moral observer knows, also, that mankind do not agree to approve a character which is to-day wicked and to-morrow good, which is habitually scrupulous in one duty and remiss in another; but we give the title of virtuous to that man only, the sum total of whose habits are uniformly on the side of virtue. This is one of the difficulties which make virtue laborious.

Upon further inquiry, we find that no man's goodness is innate and instinctive, but it is to be acquired by labor, and it is also corruptible by circumstances. Sanctification is progressive. Before habits of virtue can be established, temptations must be resisted, pleasures forborne, pains endured, danger encountered, sacrifices made, false steps recovered, and not a few moments embittered by the tears of penitence and remorse.

Nothing truly great is given to mortals without labor; and think you that moral goodness, that most sublime and