nds, having stepped into these waters, have been healed of their
disease; thousands, touching the hem of His garment, have found 'virtue
go out of it.' Beggared then of every other resource, try this.
'Acquaint yourself with God, and be at peace.'" His Lordship may
designate this language by that expressive monosyllable, cant; and may
possibly, before long, hunt us down, as a sort of mad March hare, with
the blood-hounds of his angry muse. But we hope better things of him. We
assure him, that, whatever may be true of others, we do not "hate him."
As Christians, even he who professes to be unchristian is dear to us. We
regard the waste of his fine talents, and the laboured suppression and
apparent extinction of his better feelings, with the deepest
commiseration and sorrow. We long to see him escape from the black cloud
which, by what may fairly be called his "black art," he has conjured up
around himself. We hope to know him as a future buttress of his shaken
country, and as a friend of his yet "unknown God." Should this change,
by the mercy of God, take place, what pangs would many passages of his
present work cost him! Happy should we be, could we persuade him, in the
bare anticipation of such a change, even now to contrive for his future
happiness, by expunging sentiments that would then so much embitter it.
Should he never change; yet, such an act would prove, that, at least, he
meditated no cruel invasion upon the joys of others. Even Rousseau
taught his child religion, as a delusion essential to happiness. The
philosophic Tully also, if a belief in futurity were an error, deemed it
one with which it was impossible to part. Let the author then, at all
events, leave us in unmolested possession of our supposed privileges.
_He_ plainly knows no noble or "royal way" to happiness. _We_ find in
religion a bark that rides the waves in every storm; a sun that never
goes down; a living fountain of waters. Religion is suffered to change
its aspect and influence according to the eye and faith of the
examiner. Like one side of the pillar of the wilderness, it may merely
darken and perplex his Lordship's path: to millions it is like the
opposite side of that pillar to the Israelites, the symbol of Deity; the
pillar of hallowed flame, which lights and guides, and cheers them as
they toil onward through the pilgrimage of life. Could we hear any voice
proclaim of him, as of one reclaimed from as inveterate, though more
honest, preju