wn into an
established rule, that when the latter were unobjectionable, the former
were not to be questioned; and on the other hand, that in reference to a
Being who searches the heart, our motives, rather than our external
actions, would be granted to be the just objects of inquiry. But we
exactly reverse these natural principles of reasoning. In the case of
our fellow-creatures, the motive is that which we principally inquire
after and regard. But in the case of our Supreme Judge, from whom no
secrets are hid, we suffer ourselves to believe that internal principles
may be dispensed with, if the external action be performed!

Let us not however be supposed ready to concede, in contradiction to
what has been formerly contended, that where the true motive is wanting,
the external actions themselves will not generally betray the defect.
Who is there that will not confess in the instance so lately put, of a
wife and a child who should discharge their respective obligations
merely from a cold sense of duty, that the inferiority of their
actuating principle would not be confined to its _nature_, but would be
discoverable also in its _effects_? Who is there that does not feel that
these domestic services, thus robbed of their vital spirit, would be so
debased and degraded in our estimation, as to become not barely lifeless
and uninteresting, but even distasteful and loathsome? Who will deny
that these would be performed in fuller measure, with more wakeful and
unwearied attention, as well as with more _heart_; where with the same
sense of duty the enlivening principle of affection should be also
associated?

The enemies of Religion are sometimes apt to compare the irreligious
man, of a temper naturally sweet and amiable, with the religious man of
natural roughness and severity; the irreligious man of natural activity,
with the religious man who is naturally indolent; and thence to draw
their inferences. But this mode of reasoning is surely unjust. If they
would argue the question fairly, they should make their comparisons
between persons of similar natural qualities, and not in one or two
examples, but in a mass of instances. They would then be compelled to
confess the efficacy of Religion, in heightening the benevolence and
increasing the usefulness of men: and to admit that, granting the
occasional but rare existence of genuine and persevering benevolence of
disposition and usefulness of life, where the religious principle