CHRISTIANITY does much toward moulding the moral feeling of communities, by the exemplifications of individual and social morality which it furnishes in its professors. We are aware, that this may be denied by the scornful skeptic, who sneeringly points us to Smithfield, and the slaughtered Huguenots; but as it is not for the skeptic that we are writing, we shall only reply, in passing, that in these enormities Christianity had no agency. There is not among her doctrines nor duties one word, which, by any possible construction, can be forced into an apology for deeds so dishonorable to her name. She retired from these scenes of cruelty and wept, or remained, not to light the fagot, but, like an angel of mercy, to cheer the sufferer. Nor shall we stop, either to disprove the aspersions which are cast upon professing Christians of the present day, or to estimate the exact amount of influence which the improved morality of the regenerated world exerts. We are content to refer to the emphatic declaration of him who pronounced his disciples "the salt of the earth." In all the defections of the nominal church, there has been no period, when there were not a few, at least, who retained their savor, and to whom this original appellation belonged. In the midst of the densest darkness such individuals have been lights;-shining the more brightly for the gloom that was around them; and they could not but enlighten. So is it now. The highest standard of social morality is in the church; and we venture to say, that everywhere the morality which is without the church is proportional to the elevation of the morality within. This, then, is one mode by which Christianity stamps her image on communities.

But in every period of her history she has also proved herself the benefactress of society, and has thus secured authority and obedience. She has awakened and developed the nobler ideas of our nature. She has encouraged industry; she has ennobled and sanctioned justice; she has fostered letters; the arts and science, freedom, peace, and civilization are her daughters. She claims their maternity, and they acknowledge it. In her right hand is wisdom, and in her left, riches and honor. She has thus conferred whatever blessings exalt and distinguish enlightened life;

and society, with all its ingratitude and irreverence, cannot cast off her influence.

Moreover, her precepts appeal, for their recti tude and obligation, directly to the conscience. This citadel in the soul, though besieged for six thousand years by the hosts of depravity, has never disowned its allegiance to God. Never Created under the law of right, conscience still seeks to enforce within us its stern requisitions. When, therefore, Christianity utters her voice in the precepts of her uncompromising yet simple and beautiful morality, she commands reverence. Even infidelity itself stands silent while she speaks, having nothing to answer; or is forced to bestow its reluctant praise.

Thus, by furnishing examples of excellence,— by conferring those blessings which elevate the race,-by stating and enforcing precepts, whose righteousness and obligation are acknowledged by the conscience,-she interfuses her principles through communities. She expels from the moral feeling much that has debased it, and imparts to it somewhat of her own spirit. And since, by a law of our nature, the moral feeling of commu nities, just as of individuals, must manifest itself in an outward aspect, which shall perfectly exhibit its own character, there will be a proportional improvement of public morals. As men come under the dominion of better principles, they will spontaneously exhibit a better mode of living. In just so far as they are reformed inwardly, will they be reformed outwardly. The whole face of society, its laws and manners, its commerce, its domestic life, will reveal the kindly influences which preside within the heart. Vices, which have been practiced in day-light, and without rebuke, will retire into darkness, and receive reprobation; and virtues, which have been rare and unhonored, will become numerous and esteemed. The desert, which once in rank abundance yielded noxious and poisonous plants, becomes, under an influence, thus reversed, one wide oasis, beautifu and fragrant.

It may, however, be objected, that Christianity influences multitudes, through whose minds these thoughts have never passed. We admit it; but we insist, that most men act upon principles and reasonings which they never state definitely to

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their own minds. Christianity has gained its sway by degrees. It has influenced generation after generation, until its principles have become inwrought in the general moral feeling; and men obey Christianity, without thinking, perhaps, once in their whole lives, that they are obeying it. Many an infidel even, who, in the pride of his heart, spurns the Christian religion, and offers his own exemplary life as an argument against its necessity, is indebted for his morality to that Gospel, which he so contemptuously disowns. We recollect a case in point, of an unbeliever, who admitted the excellence of the Christian morals, but disdainfully added, "the Bible contains nothing but the veriest truisms!" Truisms, to be sure!-but not elsewhere found; and it was ingratitude in him to spurn them thus, when they had originated all the morality of his own life! As the fingers of a skillful performer touch without a conscious effort the intended key, so in the great portion of our conduct, we act upon general principles, so deeply fixed within, that we are not conscious of their presence.

The truth of the mode above stated, by which Christian principles attain their authority, we think, may be shown by simple illustrations. Place two individuals, the one a Christian, and the other not, in intimate connection, and separated from the influence of any but each other. The Christian we will suppose to be a man whose spirit, and conversation, and example, indicate an inward life of faith. Make allowance, then, for the counter influence of the other upon him, and for his own frailties,-for the best man is frail. And, after this deduction, it will be found that Christianity, as exemplified in him, will, of necessity, influence for good the morality of the other,--just as the vase of roses will impart somewhat of its own fragrance to everything within the room in which it is placed. When parents instill into the minds of their children the instructions of religion, and add to their instructions the force of a pious spirit and conduct, from the laws of the mind, we may prophesy a happy result. Let a few pious families be introduced into a neighborhood, which is not only without religion, but vicious,—as such neighborhoods always will be,-let them furnish, in their own lives, examples of an elevated morality; let them seek to promote industry, and good order, and learning; and, as their growing influence will authorize, let them urge the uncompromising precepts of the Gospel,—and this development of Christianity, through them, will give a new tone to society, and effect a transformation in the outward character of the place. Now a nation is but a multitude of individuals, and families, and

neighborhoods, and the laws by which mind is operated upon are universal. Just, therefore, as Christianity develops itself, and effects its influence in private friendships, at the fireside, and in limited communities, so it diffuses its principles through nations;-and nations, in the spirit and forms of law, in the quiet and prosperity of welldefined freedom, in the praise of virtue and rebuke of vice, in the reverence of the Sabbath, and the institutions of religion, exhibit the presiding power, which, through the good works of the regenerated few, has attained an important sway over the public mind.

Regarding man as placed in a world, in which his outward condition is to be supported and blessed by his toil, Christianity encourages and demands industry. Regarding him as a moral and social being, she inculcates and exemplifies a social morality, whose product is happiness. In the state, her exponent is justice. While she gives authority to law, she makes law kind; and while she demands submission to constituted authority, she makes that submission freedom. Regarding man as an intellectual being, she dictates and encourages learning. She excites and nourishes the love of the beautiful and the true. She leads the disciple to the feet of the Arabian patriarch, to listen to the stern majesty of his song, -to the palace of Israel's king, to enkindle piety, by his wrapt devotions,-to Judea's flowerdressed knolls, to learn the providence of God. The church, in its corruptest days, was the repository of learning. When the imperial city lay at the feet of the barbarian conqueror, “the relics of Greek and Roman literature were collected and preserved by the ministers of religion. The cell of the monk [became] the cradle of refinement and learning. His remote and quiet habitation was the sacred ark where the memorials of the past were treasured, and where knowledge was sheltered in security." Even then, too, as the church was the repository of learning, so was it also, to a great extent, "the willing instrument of its communication." The venerable universities of Europe, whose histories extend back to the middle ages, were, without an exception, founded by the church. And when Christianity laid aside the cowl, and came forth from the cloister, she opened the fountains of learning by the side of the waters of life. Christianity and letters made equal progress. Our own pilgrim fathers consecrated Harvard "to Christ and his church;" and reared that ancient seat of learning which honors Connecticut, almost as soon as they had erected their temples of worship, or even their own dwellings. Over all New-England, by the side of the village church, stands the school house; and over

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our wide empire, wherever you behold our colleges, inviting the rich and the poor alike to the walls of learning, you behold, with scarcely an exception, the consecrated work of the disciples of Christ. These are the blessings of Christianity. Standing at the portals of her own temples, she may point to the fields and lawns which industry has created from the desert, and to the distant ocean, where rides the ship which industry has loaded with the commodities of honest commerce, to the halls of legislation, where freedom demands security for the rights of the governed, and to the tribunals, where justice holds her even scales, to the universities, whose opened doors invite approach, and where letters and science refine and expand the mind;-she may point to these, and declare, "these are my gifts." Nay,

more.

She may point to every improvement of advancing civilization, as the product of her beneficence. Poverty, and old age, uttering their grateful voices from the generous almshouse-disease, alleviated at the public hospital—the dumb, recording with grateful heart, and the blind blessing with cheerful voice, the benefits of the asylum, and the once naked and chained maniac, now sitting clothed and quiet at the retreat,—all utter her praise. And vice, as it hurries away from her presence, and oppression, as it withers at her glance and recedes at her approach, and war, as it gives up its ferocities, and retreats toward its doomed and everlasting exile,—in their very flight, proclaim the improvement in the character and condition of the race which she has effected. And every step of this advancing improvement has fixed more deeply in the heart a reverence for her authority, and augmented her influ

public mind, and her precepts most strictly obeyed, in the forms of law and in the outward morality. It seems plain, therefore, that her progressive influence is to be further secured, by promoting, yet further, the improvement of man. The church ought still to be the patron of industry, and justice, and learning. While bound to check worldliness, and to warn against regarding this life as the whole, or the best of existence, the church is nevertheless to encourage the improvement of our outward condition, to the extent that the means of improving it are placed, by our beneficent Father, within our reach. The church is bound to seek the diffusion of the blessings of good order and freedom, in itself setting an example of these things, and enjoining them whereever it has influence. It is still to promote the spread of knowledge, by opening, to all classes, the school and the college, and by encouraging discoveries in every yet untrodden field. It is to multiply the generous homes of poverty, and to alleviate and bless the children of affliction. history is to be a perpetual comment on the good. ness and truth of the Christian faith; written as in the tints of the rainbow on the lowering sky. Under such influences, society will be less earthly, the race will be elevated. And, taking advantage of the increasing authority of Christianity, the church is to urge on this improvement still further and more rapidly. Rising itself toward heaven, in every succeeding age, it is to raise society with it. And as the race ascends, it will cast off its vices, improving outwardly as it does inwardly, until its morality is not merely the product of Christian influences acting upon communities of regenerated and unregenerated men, but a visible and universal exhibition of an inward and common faith in Christ. Happy spectacle! God speed the day when the world shall present it.

On the friends of my youthful days,

Where are they now, oh, where? Fled, as the summer's gladdening rays

When wintry storms appear.

In distant lands some may be found,
Whom fate has severed wide;
Some sleep beneath the grassy mound,
And there in peace abide.

Some lie low on the battle field,

Who fought for glory's crown, And loved in country's cause to wield The sword, and win renown.

Some, perchance, in the ocean deep
Have found a watery grave;
We sigh for them-we mourn and weep
For youthful hearts and brave.

Few are left of the happy throng

That filled our hearts with glee; Hushed is the soul-enlivening song, Once sung so merrily.

Oh! the friends of our youthful days, Where are they now, oh! where? Fled, as the summer's gladdening rays When wintry storms appear.

Its