s subject, also, is a remarkable principle
in our mental constitution, formerly referred to,--the relation between
certain facts or truths, and certain moral emotions, which naturally
arise from them, according to the chain of sequences which has been
established in the economy of the mind. A close connexion thus exists
between our intellectual habits and our moral feelings, which leads to
consequences of the utmost practical moment. Though we have little
immediate voluntary power over our moral emotions, we have a power over
the intellectual processes with which these are associated. We can
direct the mind to truths, and we can cherish trains of thought, which
are calculated to produce correct moral feelings;--and we can avoid or
banish mental images or trains of thought, which have an opposite
tendency. This is the power over the succession of our thoughts, the due
exercise of which forms so important a feature of a well-regulated mind,
in regard to intellectual culture;--its influence upon us as moral
beings is of still higher and more vital importance.

The sound exercise of that mental condition which we call Faith
consists, therefore, in the reception of certain truths by the
judgment,--the proper direction of the attention to their moral
tendencies,--and the habitual influence of them upon the feelings and
the conduct. When the sacred writers tell us that, without faith, it is
impossible to please God,--and when they speak of a man being saved by
faith,--it is not to a mere admission of certain truths as part of his
creed, that they ascribe consequences so important; but to a state in
which these truths are uniformly followed out to certain results, which
they are calculated to produce, according to the usual course of
sequences in every sound mind. This principle is strikingly illustrated
by one of these writers, by reference to a simple narrative. During the
invasion of Canaan by the armies of Israel, two men were sent forward as
spies to bring a report concerning the city of Jericho. The persons
engaged in this mission were received in a friendly manner, by a woman
whose house was upon the wall of the city;--when their presence was
discovered, she hid them from their pursuers; and finally enabled them
to escape, by letting them down by a cord from a window. Before taking
leave of them, she expressed her firm conviction, that the army to which
they belonged was soon to take possession of Jericho, and of the whol