the Bible God speaks to us, and both confer upon us honour indescribable. Passing by the antiquity of its history, the pathos of its narratives, the beauty of its imagery, how sublime are its doctrines, how precious its promises, how free its invitations, how salutary its warnings, how intense its devotions! "Precious Bible! when weighed against thee, all other books are but as the small dust of the balance." Nor less pleasant is the holy remembrance of the Sabbath. "I was glad," exclaims the Christian, "when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord :" and there, when standing within the gates of Zion, surrounded with the multitude that keep holy day, he repeats, amidst the years of his manhood, the song of his childhood, and from the fulness of his joy, he exclaims "Lord, how delightful 'tis to sce A whole assembly worship thee; The sweetly-solemn engagements of the sacramental feast; the flow of brotherly love, called forth by social prayer, together with the ardour of benevolence, inspired by the support of public religious institutions; in these exercises is true happiness to be found, if indeed it is to be found any where on earth. 8. As a last proof of the pleasures derived from religion, I may appeal to the experience of its friends. Here the evidences accumulate by myriads on earth, and millions in heaven. Who that ever felt its influence, will doubt its tendency to produce delight? Go, go, my children, to the saints of the most high God, and collect their testimony, and you shall be convinced "that light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart." Go not to the christian of doubtful character, for he has only just religion enough to make him miserable; go to the most holy, and you shall find them the most happy. And then there are also two or three other circumstances which are connected with the pleasures of religion that deserve attention. It is pleasure that never satiates or wearies. Can the epicure, the voluptuary, the drunkard, the ball-frequenter, say this of their delights? "How short is the interval, how easy the transition, between a pleasure and a burden. If sport refreshes a man when he is weary, it also wearies when he is refreshed. The most devoted pleasure-hunter in existence, were he bound to his sensual delights every day, would find it an intolerable burden, and fly to the spade and the mattock for a diversion from the misery of an unintermitted pleasure. Custom may render continued labour tolerable, but not continued pleasure. All pleasures that affect the body must needs weary, because they transport; and all transportation is violence; and no violence can be lasting, but determines upon the falling of the spirits, which are not able to keep up that height of motion, that the pleasure of the sense raises them to: and therefore how generally does an immoderate laughter end in a sigh, which is only nature's recovering herself after a force done to it; but the religious pleasure of a well-disposed mind moves gently, and therefore constantly; it does not affect by rapture and ecstacy, but is like the pleasure of health, which is still and sober, yet greater and stronger than those which call up the senses with grosser and more affecting impressions." And as all the grosser pleasures of sense weary, and all the sports and recreations soon pall upon the appetite, so, under some circumstances, do the more elevated enjoyments of exalted rank, agreeable company, and lively conversation; it is religion alone that preserves an unfading freshness, an undying charm, an inexhaustible power to please; it is this alone of all our pleasures which never cloys, never surfeits, but increases the appetite the more it gratifies it, and leaves it, after the richest feast, prepared and hungry for a still more splendid banquet. And then another ennobling property of the pleasure that arises from religion, is that as the sources and the seat of it are in a man's own breast, it is not in the power of any thing without him to destroy it, or take it away. Upon God alone is he dependent for, its enjoyment. Upon how many other agents, and upon what numerous contingencies, over which he can exercise no control, is the votary of worldly pleasure dependent for his bliss. How many things which he cannot command, are necessary to make up the machinery of his schemes. What trifles may disappoint him of his expected gratification, or rob him of his promised delights. A variable atmosphere, or a human mind, no less variable; a want of punctuality in others, or a want of health in himself: these, and a thousand other things, might be enumerated as circumstances, upon the mercy of each one of which the enjoyment of worldly pleasure depends. "But the good man shall be satisfied from himself." "Whoever shall drink of the water that I shall give him," said Jesus Christ, "shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." The piety of his heart, produced by the Holy Ghost, is this well-spring of pleasure, which a good man carries every where with him, wherever he goes. He is independent of all the contingencies of life for his bliss. "It is an easy and a portable pleasure, such an one as he carries about in his bosom, without alarming the eye or the envy of the world. A man putting all his pleasures into this one, is like a traveller putting all his goods, as it were, into one jewel; the value is the same, and the convenience greater." For "Nor is this kind of pleasure out of the reach of any outward violence only; but even those things also, which make a closer impression upon us, which are the irresistible decays of nature, have yet no influence at all upon this. when age itself, which of all things in the world will not be baffled or defied, shall begin to arrest, seize, and remind us of our mortality, by pains, aches, and deadness of limbs, and dulness of senses, yet then the pleasure of the mind shall be in its full youth, vigour, and freshness. A palsy may as soon shake an oak, or a fever dry up a fountain, as either of them shake, dry up, or impair the delight of conscience; for it lies within, it centres in the heart, it grows into the very substance of the soul, so that it accompanies a man to his grave; he never outlives it, and that for this cause only, because he cannot outlive himself." How comes it to pass then, that in opposition to all this, the opinion has gained ground that religion leads to melancholy? The irreligious judge of it by their own feelings; and as they are not conscious of any pleasurable emotions, excited by sacred things, they conclude that others are in like manner destitute of them. But is their testimony to be received, before that of the individual who has tried and found it by experience to be bliss? Again, irreligious people form their opinion by what they see in many professors, some of whom, though professing godliness, are destitute of its power; and being more actuated by a spirit of the world than of piety, are strangers to the peace that passeth understanding; others are not yet brought out of that deep dejection, with which the earlier stages of conviction are sometimes attended. The sinner, when first arrested in his thoughtless carcer, is filled with deep dismay, and the most poignant grief; reviewed in this state of mind, his appearance may produce the idea that religion is the parent of melancholy. But wait, he that sows in tears shall reap in joy. His tears, like showers in summer from a dark and lowering cloud, carry off the gloom which they first caused, portend a clearer and a cooler atmosphere, and are ultimately followed by the bright shining of the sun. An unfavourable impression against religion is sometimes produced by the constitutional gloom of some of its genuine disciples. It should be recollected, that in these cases, religion does not cause the dejection, for this would have existed had there been no piety. All that can be said is, that it does not cure it, which is |