come not close enough to discern her peculiar
lineaments and conformation. The writer must not be understood to mean
that the several misconceptions, which he shall have occasion to point
out, will be generally found to exist with any thing like precision,
much less that they are regularly digested into a system; nor will it be
expected they all should meet in the same person, nor that they will not
be found in different people, and under different circumstances,
variously blended, combined, and modified. It will be enough if we
succeed in tracing out great and general outlines. The human countenance
may be well described by its general characters, though infinitely
varied by the peculiarities which belong to different individuals, and
often by such shades and minutenesses of difference, as though
abundantly obvious to our perceptions, it would exceed the power of
definition to discriminate, or even of language to express.

A very erroneous notion appears to prevail concerning the true nature of
Religion. Religion, agreeably to what has been already stated, (the
importance of the subject will excuse repetition) may be considered as
the implantation of a vigorous and active principle; it is seated in
the heart, where its authority is recognized as supreme, whence by
degrees it expels whatever is opposed to it, and where it gradually
brings all the affections and desires under its complete controul and
regulation.

But though the heart be its special residence, it may be said to possess
in a degree the ubiquity of its Divine Author. Every endeavour and
pursuit must acknowledge its presence; and whatever does not, or will
not, or cannot receive its sacred stamp, is to be condemned as
inherently defective, and is to be at once abstained from or abandoned.
It is like the principle of vitality, which, animating and informing
every part, lives throughout the whole of the human body, and
communicates its kindly influence to the smallest and remotest fibres of
the frame. But the notion of Religion entertained by many among us seems
altogether different. They begin indeed, in submission to her clear
prohibitions, by fencing off from the field of human action, a certain
district, which, though it in many parts bear fruits on which they cast
a longing eye, they cannot but confess to be forbidden ground. They next
assign to Religion a portion, larger or smaller according to whatever
may be their circumstances and views, in which ho