determinative of conduct and character. These, as well as the intellect, give to man his elevation above all the rest of animated nature. His religious susceptibilityhis spiritual perception-it is that make him sensitive to the breathings of Divine Love, and bring him into the presence and under the operative teachings of the Spirit of God. These precious visitations of grace to the soul are as gratefully felt and certainly heard, as by the outward sensation the breeze that stirs the leafy grove, or wakes the Æolian chord to music; but, it may also be, to the guilty conscience, that His voice shall be heard as in the storm and in the thunder of His lightnings. Yet is it the voice of God, whether heard in vindicatory punishment, or in whisperings of peace and comfort to the contrite and repentant, or when prompting to missions of blessed charities and Gospel love. All that is good must come from the Source of all goodness, whether in disciplinary correction or in the overflow of the fountain of goodness and mercy.

Let it be understood, however, that Friends do not discourage the acquisition of knowledge to any extent that the human capacity can truthfully develope it. It is only when the incessant occupation, or the sceptical spirit in which it may be pursued, tends to obstruct the growth of the precious seed of religious faith and feeling in the heart, that the pursuit is discountenanced. They fear not but that every truthful disclosure of the operations

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of nature will reveal the wisdom and goodness of the Creator, and, rightly understood, will prompt the tribute of praise and adoration to Him. Philosophy then becomes the handmaid of religion, and ministers to a more exalted demonstration; expels from an impure and unintelligent faith its superstitions and weakness, and permits the unclouded understanding to perceive the power and majesty of the Creator, and the heart of devotion to worship in the confiding faith of the goodness and mercy of God. But philosophy, without religion, is to the moral and religious susceptibilities, what the arctic snows are to the world, the blighting cause of a perpetual sterility; but with religion's warmth and genial feelings as the temperate zones, equally distant from the icy coldness of unbelief and the scorching heats of fanatic zeal and persecution, clothing life and character with consistency and beauty, and productive of blessed fruits. Light and knowledge, as means intrusted, will enhance the responsibility of a faithful stewardship, but without vital warmth and earnest purpose, in religious faith and Christian charities, cannot save. The faithless to these high gifts bury even the ten talents intrusted for improvement and increase, and from such even that he hath shall be taken away.

Men of the highest range of thought and success in philosophical attainment, have pursued their studies under the influence of a devout and prayerful spirit.

When the great task of forming the constitution of the United States hung in suspense from the prevalence of discordant views, the venerable Franklin moved that the favour of Heaven should be invoked, and the differences were composed. Sir Humphry Davy, in describing the qualifications of one so materially engaged as the chemical philosopher, says "his mind should always be awake to devotional feeling; and in contemplating the variety and beauty of the external world, and developing its scientific wonders, he will always refer to that Infinite Wisdom, through whose beneficence he is permitted to enjoy knowledge. He will rise at once in the scale of intellectual and moral existence; his increased sagacity will be subservient to a more exalted faith, and in proportion as the veil becomes thinner through which he sees the causes of things, he will admire more and more the brightness of the Divine Light, by which they are rendered visible." Dr. Rush, in the same spirit, entered upon his Inquiry into the Diseases of the Mind-as if "about to tread on consecrated ground," and thus prayerfully begins the task, "I am aware of its difficulty and importance, and I thus implore that BEING, whose govern ment extends to the thoughts of all his creatures, so to direct mine, in this arduous undertaking, that nothing hurtful to my fellow citizens may fall from my pen, and that this work may be the means of lessening a portion of some of the greatest evils of human life." And in

describing the character of Dr. Sydenham, Dr. Rush declares-"I am disposed to ascribe to his sublime and just conceptions of the Deity, much of that force and extent of mind which enabled him to produce a revolution in medicine."

It is apparent that piety and religion involve an experience of emotions and feelings different from the abstract deductions of the faculties of the understanding. It is also evident that the results of the inward teaching of the Gospel, commanding also the service of the mental faculties, immeasurably transcend all that mankind had before attained. At the Christian era, the Greeks had reached the highest civilization and knowledge of any people on earth; but the Apostle Paul found them superstitiously worshipping gods "dwelling in temples made with hands." Him whom they darkly perceived and ignorantly worshipped, and to whom they had erected an altar with this inscription, "To the Unknown God," he declared unto them as the "God that made the world and all things therein," and admonished them "that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us." Their philosophy had given them but an obscure idea of this the "only true God," and they knew as little of "the words of eternal life," as Pilate, when he asked our Saviour, under trial before him, "What is truth?" But let the fruits determine how much the Gospel first com

mitted to ignorant fishermen transcended the highest attainments of the most enlightened and acute philosophy the world had afforded. Socrates, the wisest and best of the Greeks, had a vague idea of an attendant spirit, but all superstitiously worshipped fancied deities represented in wood and stone; degrading practices and revolting crimes pervaded the heathen world, and their philosophy made no approach to the sublime and effective Truth as taught by Jesus, and brought home to the severest test of the highest sincerity of feeling. His disciples and followers were required to do unto others as they would be done unto; they were not to yield to even an imaginative impurity; and as they prayed in truthful sincerity to an all-seeing God, in the hope to be forgiven, were they to forgive all others, though enemies, their transgressions; to do good for evil; and to love even those that hated them. No merely human philosophy of man's intellect could have soared to results so sublimely pure, so authoritatively self-exacting. And it is through devotional and holy feelings, and the Divine grace and inspiration shed upon them, that such truths are alone truly and spiritually discerned, and made fruitful in their application. It is thus a witness to the truth is developed in the souls of men, answering to and appreciative of the numberless truths set forth in the Holy Scriptures, that will the most effectively set at nought all cavilling at their authenticity. Nothing can be more true than the