other cause can this be, if not that Being who exists by his own power? It is to this we must return; for we cannot imagine the slightest effect without a sufficient cause to produce it. And intellect, the noblest of all effects! can that which has itself no existence, can nothing be its cause? Common sense revolts at such an idea. We are then compelled to admit, by the most powerful demonstration, that there is an intelligent as well as a self-existent Being; or, in other words, that there is a God, such as we believe him to be. The infidel must either destroy these proofs, by opposing them with others equally strong; or he must acknowledge that the part, which he has gloried in taking, is that of folly and desperation.

To these we will add other arguments, which also have their weight. Has the world subsisted from all eternity? Or has it been produced by chance, without any directing cause? Or was it formed by an all-powerful intelligent Being? Let us discuss these three subjects of inquiry deliberately: one or other of these systems must be true.

Now, it is quite clear that the system of an omnipotent, intelligent Creator explains infinitely better than either of the others the formation of the universe; and it, at the same time, disengages the mind from many difficulties, into which each of them would lead it: then assuredly this is the

system which we ought readily to follow, when in so doing we act agreeably to common sense and the soundest reason.

The existence of the world from eternity, is a supposition which reason does not sanction, and which demonstration cannot sustain. It is opposed not only by all the information which the history of the world from the earliest ages gives us, but, by all the calculations, which we are able to make, of the increase of population, no less than by the daily discovery of fresh arts and sciences. Those philosophers, who have professed to believe the world eternal, have been led into such erroneous opinions by not having any fixed idea of the Creator; although they attributed to Him infinite power, they also embarrassed themselves with many vain questions; such as, What the Deity was employed in before he made the world, if that really had a beginning? If the infidel, of this day, will still encumber himself with such vain questions, we can only lament that he obstinately prefers darkness to light, at the expense of his eternal salvation.

The world could not have been thrown together by chance, as the Materialist asserts: such a system, if we consider it for a moment, we shall find equally full of absurdity. If motion be essential to matter, then the one cannot be separated from the other; no bodily substance can be, on that supposition, devoid of motion: now, we well know,

that such is not the case. The idea of matter is not, necessarily, accompanied by that of motion, which undoubtedly it ought to be, if motion were the essence of matter. Then, if motion be not essential to matter, it follows that motion is produced elsewhere. In this behold a cause! a Being clearly distinguished from matter, which impresses motion on it at pleasure. If the world had been produced by a blind unintelligent cause, it follows that we should not have been able to discover the remotest appearance of plan in the formation of any being. If the world had been formed by chance, the animals might have sprung from the earth, as the plants do. Why should this not be the case. If man, I speak of man as a being who reasons and thinks, came at first from the bowels of the earth, without any directing intelligent Cause to form him, why do not we meet with beings, of the intellectual powers of man, yet of bodily forms wholly different from each other? Why have not some three eyes or four arms? which would not interfere with the powers of either reasoning or speaking. But, notwithstanding the various qualities of the soil, men are of the same general make and shape every where; the interior and exterior are the same in all; and any variation from this is considered as a deformity. This is, of itself, a proof that man has not been formed by blind chance, but that of whatever na

tion he be, he is made of the same mould, by an intelligent Being; or, to speak with St. Paul, "That God hath made of one blood all nations of

We entreat the reader to consider these arguments with the utmost attention; the nature of the soul will furnish us with many others equally powerful.

*Acts xvii. 26.

CHAPTER III.

ON THE NATURE OF THE SOUL OF MAN, FROM WHICH IS DRAWN A FURTHER PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.

THE soul is immaterial: there is neither mixture, mass, composition nor assemblage of parts in it. There is nothing in its nature capable of separation or division: consequently there is nothing destructible in it, because the destruction of any thing is brought about by the division of its parts.

We agree with the wisest of the heathen philosophers, when we affirm, that the soul is not a substance; but these same philosophers were embarrassed in their expressions, when they came to define what was the true nature of that being, from whence ideas, reflections, negations and resolutions proceeded. That it was not a mass, they all agreed; but some imagined it to consist of atoms, so fine and light, that they were not distinguishable. At this point these philosophers lost themselves, they could form no idea of an existence, having no connection with either matter or space.