this is true of a flower, how much more of the supermaterial, all-binding, and all-embracing law of God. Whilst it excites our modest inquiries, it bows our intellectual presumption to the dust.

Perhaps it will be said, that law, being a moral subject, and addressed to the moral faculties of the soul, is more comprehensible than even a flower. It may be so as to some of its first suggested causes; but will any one pretend he has sounded all the depths of the reasons by which an infinite intelligence governs an unbounded universe ?

It seems to me, that we do not make all the inferences we ought to, from the admitted fact, that there exists a divine revelation. Some sects, in profession at least, are more distinguished for their reverence for the Bible, than others; but I know no sect that reverences it enough. For only suppose that book to be an emanation from an infinite mind, and to be backed by all the reasons which can be presented to such a mind, and what a wide gulf must separate that book from all others! How deep the wisdom! how vast the views! from which its principles are drawn. Accordingly, we find that system after system has existed and passed away. Some of these systems were false, and ought to vanish. But even when they were true, they have scarcely been more permanent;-and why? Because the foundation was one superficial particle lying on the surface; it was unequal to the vast amplitude of nature. It was setting up only one light on the long bridge, when hundreds of such would be inferior to daylight, and hardly adequate to guide our way.

For this reason, the PURITAN's system is and he thinks it gives a death-blow to dark-metaphysics on one side, and an idle latitudinarianism on the otherthat obligation arises from bringing two quantities in comparison, the Creator on one side, and the creature on the other. For the most satisfactory account of virtue, you are not to look in the direction in which speculatists have been looking-you are not to derive it from qualities in man, or qualities in things, or qualities in virtue itself, separately speaking; but you are to see a God; a law; a dependent creature, with moral faculties; and obligation and virtue are the result of the comparison. This is an adequate foundation; there our duties will rest for ever.

At the same time, this does not preclude, for a subordinate purpose, our inquiring into some of the reasons of duty; into the nature of man, or virtue, or any other thing, where we can find these reasons. But then let us know what we are doing. We are picking pebbles on the shore, when a boundless ocean rolls beyond our sight.

This system, I know, strikes a death-blow to some of our popular writers, and popular systems; to Jonathan Edwards, and to Dr. Paley; to the soul of latitudinarianism, and to some of the cherished limbs of more complex creeds. As my correspondent says,

it is an anchor to the windward. But there let it hold, until the agitated church rides out the polemic storm. There let it hold; and, though mortal tongues condemn me, in God I am safe. This places the humble Christian at his Saviour's feet, and leads him to say with the immortal Chillingworth, "Propose to me anything out of this book, and require whether I believe it or no; and seem it never so incomprehensible to human reason, I will subscribe to it with heart and hand; as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this-GoD HATH SAID SO, THEREFORE IT IS TRUE." -Respiciam trementem sermones

Your country is having a silent though powerful influence on ours; and I have a great curiosity to learn from some trustworthy source, the nature of your institutions. You cannot be ignorant that innovations in our region is the order of the day; and that our old relics of past ages and feudal times, are disappearing like old pillars from a temple, which some architect has taken into his hands to repair. I myself am neither a strenuous conservative nor innovator; I have not yet joined any of the political or religious parties of the day; and I wish to hit the true point of middle wisdom, whenever it can be found. But I find that your example, in America, is having a powerful influence in all parts of Europe. It is true, it is less frequently quoted than you would suppose; but, you are aware that, in politics, the strongest objection against schemes of reformation, is derived from their alleged infeasibility; none say that they are not grand theories, fitted to captivate the youthful imagination, and roll in the declamatory periods of some popular orator. But the great question is, can they be put in practice? Are they not to be numbered with those sublime delusions, which speculation imposes on youthful minds at first, but all wise men are compelled to abandon them? This is the great problem; and this the example of your country is quoted as solving. In this way, you are having a silent influence, more powerful than that of fleets, and armies; an influence like the subjacent stream, which, low in its channel, glides by the walls of some mouldering castle; whose creeping power is not suspected, until the battlements fall and the ruin is complete.

But against this influence, there are numbers who struggle. They say that the nature of your institutions is not fairly represented. Neither your constitution nor its administration are known; and still less is known the happiness or misery which your government imparts. It is said, that your government, in some respects, is republican, rather in show than reality; that sometimes it is vastly lax, and sometimes despoti