feeding upon it, living upon it, hoping in it, rejoicing in it. She went about to establish no righteousness of her own, to form no notions of her own, to seek no path of her own, to lean on no strength of her own, but submitted herself to the righteousness of God in Christ. She believed God. In that belief, she found all her wants more than supplied. Her soul was filled with peace; yea, it overflowed with love; it brake forth in joy, it shouted in thanksgiving, it continually uttered praise, it did exalt and magnify the Lord our Saviour.

To these unusually clear and distinct views, Isabella's peculiar situation doubtless contributed in some degree. She was not placed in circumstances where any object, calling for the active exertion of her own mind, had seized upon it, with controlling power. Her health and her constitution were delicate, which withdrew her still more from the bustling thoughts and feelings of active employment, and which seemed to give a kind of serene calmness-a pure and lovely abstraction to her whole conversation and manner, that exhibited her faith in bold relief, more prominent perhaps, than the same measure of faith would have been, had she been compassed with the cares of life, and dwelt amid the din and bustle of active business. In this way, she became a more transparent medium for the transmission of the light of truth, than she would otherwise have been. The sustaining principles of her mind are more apparent, at least to the superficial observer, than they would have been in different circumstances. Her experience, however, is only the natural and legitimate effect of receiving Religion as a life, and the making of faith the continuous act by which the principle of life is sustained. We live by Faith, says the Apostle. We live so, because there is nothing of the spiritual life, which our souls demand in this world. It is required, therefore, in the outset, that we draw our sustaining strength from something above and beyond

us. Sickness, and the deprivation of friends, and of human comforts, are before us; and death itself is just in advance. There is no permanent rest here, all is feeble, and fleeing from our grasp. The soul seeks purity, and perfect joy, and fulness of delightsome occupation; but though it compasseth the whole world, it is wearied, dissatisfied, and returneth baffled and sad in its self.communion. No pure, permanent happiness has been found. And the universal testimony of all the dwellers upon earth is, that they have never found it; and the response, from mother Earth herself is, that it cannot be found in her bosom, which is ready to burst with its cares for the present, and its solicitude for the future. Faith then appears like a pure and lovely Moon, reflecting light from another world; and the soul rejoices in holding on its way by her guidance. It removes itself off from honour, and wealth, and beauty, and companionship, and learning, and all forms of Earthly power, and rests itself on the sure promise of God. It believes what God has said. It has no confidence in the flesh; it has unlimited confidence in God. It has no dependence on its own powers; but it rests undoubting on the offer-" my grace is sufficient for thee." And then it lives on God. On God manifest in Christ, God manifest in truths pertaining to Redemption; wherein his holiness is seen; his selforiginating mercy is seen; his justice is seen; his friendliness to sinners is seen; his abhorrence of sin is seen; and where he manifests himself in the atmosphere of all-comprehending love.

Religion seeks to give the soul not only a life, but a permanent life. The life we now live is not permanent, in its sources of happiness; it is not permanent, in the uniformity of its happiness; it is not permanent, in any of its hopes; indeed its very nature is, that it is transitory, a state of transition (in transitu.) It is therefore absurd, as well as impossible to suppose, that the sources of permanent hope,

joy, and peace, can exist in the elements of the world. And because of this impossibility, it is made essential, that we should live, in the life that is permanent, by FAITH; that is, that the whole combination of principles, and joyous emotions, that constitute spiritual life, should be received by FAITH. Unthinking men, whether they be Christians or not, forget this; and often allow themselves to speak of the difficulty of perceiving why Faith is made so essential in the scheme of Redemption. And when they do speak of it, they show in no equivocal manner, that they do not comprehend its absolute necessity. But in Religion, God regards our permanent being; and therefore adopts this sustaining power to the soul, not as a material, temporary existence, but as having immortality. The things of this world cannot carry it beyond the world.-The things of time cannot carry it beyond their boundary, nor stay it up when they themselves cease to be. Friends cannot, by pray. ers, or tears, or sympathies, render aid in the hour, when the only word that all can utter is, farewell. And therefore it is, that the commands come, "Walk by Faith," "Live by Faith,' "Let your life be hid with Christ in God," &c. God seeks to awaken in us that spiritual life, which will survive the ruin of the visible Universe, and therefore does he call, and demand, as an obvious necessity, that we should rise in our thoughts, in our affections, in our desires, in our whole spiritual being, above the world; so that our purest and most delightful joys shall spring from the other world— so that our sweetest hopes shall be there--so that the eye of our faith shall be ravished with its wonderful beauticsso that there shall dwell with us, the blissful earnest of a happiness that death and the wreck of worlds cannot destroy, which

"shall o'er the ruins smile And light its torch at nature's funeral pile."

I have spoken of religion as a Life, and of Faith, as the necessary condition of its being. But let it not be forgotten, that in contemplating the objects of Faith, something definite, something powerfully affecting, is contemplated. Faith is not assent to an unmeaning proposition, nor the reception of a vapid truth into the mind. If it was, it would be the veriest nonsense to apply the word Life to the spiritual state resulting from Faith. The objects of Faith involve, in themselves, the most astonishing pledges of God's love, and the most full, and satisfactory, and enrapturing views of his perfections, in the method of salvation; and also the most lucid and painfully distressing views of sin; and these so combined, as to produce the most purifying and life-giving influence in the soul. What is demanded of us, then, is the belief of these; the reception of them as realities. The reception of them, not as abstrac. tions, for they are not such-The reception of them not as general and indefinite representations, for they are not such -The reception of them, not as a well-adjusted scheme, or theory, for this is not their purpose. But a reception of them as a mode of life for the soul, as the curative for its fears and its sorrows, as the resting place of its hopes, as the out-bursting fountain of its joys, as the foretaste of its eternal blessedness. I am not speaking loosely and indefinitely, as though words had lost the better half of their meaning when applied to a subjeci; but I mean soberly and strongly, that the Word of God intends what it says, when it requires us to "Live by Faith," to "Walk by Faith," that if Disciples of Christ, "we are dead, and our life hid with Christ in God." I do mean that the spring of our pleasures, the source of our joys; yea, the deep joys themselves, do all come by Faith, and are to be possessed only in the exercise of Faith, in intercommunion with God, not merely through the Truth, but in the Truth.

A better illustration does not occur to me of the power.

fully affecting and definite character of Faith, than in the following extract from Mr. John Howe's works.

"The apprehensive mind of a sincere believer in this thing (that Jesus is the Christ) runs a vast compass; when it hears the name of Christ, it traverseth heaven and earth; it runs through all the creation; for as such an one Christ is considered " over all God blessed for ever." One that descend. ed; the same that afterward ascended, that he might fill all things. And he could not be Christ else: One that must have universal power over all minds, and over all creatures, and One that can do whatsoever he will, both in heaven and earth, and all deep places; but whose kindness and benignity inclines him to the doing of all the good that any recep. tive and capable subject shall admit of; and to make many a one capable and receptive that is of itself quite otherwise. When such mighty texts as we find upon record concerning Christ, these many glorious things that are spoken of him, come in view, O! how is such an one enlightened by the lustre of any such text that speaks concerning Christ! yes; that represents him to me, concerning whom my Faith hath its present exercise, that it is for Jesus to be the Christ, to wit, that Child born for us, that Son given to us, whose name is Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Jesus is the Christ; that is, he is the Wonderful Counsellor. When again we are told in Scripture, that this is he who was in the beginning with God, and that he was God, and by whom the worlds were made, and that without him nothing was made that was made; that came and descended the eternal Word and Wisdom of the Father, and was made flesh and dwelt amongst us, and his glory shone as the glory of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. Yes; this is my Christ! I believe that that Jesus who dwelt at Nazareth, born at Bethlehem, was such a Christ. He by whom all things were made, visible and invisible,