wars with the soul, and thus it wars with God. We read in theologians and poets, of angels fighting against the Creator, of battles in heaven. But God's throne in heaven is unassailable. The only war against God is against his image-against the divine principle in the soul, and this is waged by tyranny in all its forms. We here see the chief curse of tyranny; and this should teach us that civil freedom is a blessing, chiefly as it reverences the human soul, and ministers to its growth and power.

Without this inward, spiritual freedom, outward liberty is of little worth. What boots it, that I am crushed by no foreign yoke, if, through ignorance and vice, through selfishness and fear, I want the command of my own mind? The worst tyrants are those which establish themselves in our own breasts. The man who wants force of principle and purpose, is a slave, however free the air he breathes. The mind, after all, is our only possession, or, in other words, we possess all things through its energy and enlargement, and civil institutions are to be estimated by the free and pure minds to which they give birth.

It will be seen from these remarks, that I consider the freedom or moral strength of the individual mind, as the supreme good, and the highest end of government. I am aware that other views are often taken. It is said that government is intended for the public, for the community, not for the individual. The idea of a national interest prevails in the minds of statesmen, and to this it is thought that the individual may be sacrificed. But I would maintain, that the individual is not made for the state, so much as the state for the individual. A man is not created for political relations as his highest end, but for indefinite spiritual progress, and is placed in political relations as the means of his progress. The human soul is greater, more sacred than the state, and must never be sacrificed to it. The human soul is to outlive all earthly institutions. The distinction of nations is to pass away. Thrones, which have stood for ages, are to meet the doom pronounced upon all man's works. But the individual mind survives, and the obscurest subject, if true to God, will rise to a power never wielded by earthly potentates.

A human being is a member of the community, not as a limb is a member of the body, or as a wheel is a part of a machine, intended only to contribute to some general, joint result. He was created, not to be merged in the

whole, as a drop in the ocean, or as a particle of sand on the sea-shore, and to aid only in composing a mass. He is an ultimate being, made for his own perfection as his highest end-made to maintain an individual existence, and to serve others only as far as consists with his own virtue and progress. Hitherto governments have tended greatly to obscure this importance of the individual, to depress him in his own eyes, to give him the idea of an outward interest more important than the invisible soul, and of an outward authority more sacred than the voice of God in his own secret conscience. Rulers have called the private man the property of the state, meaning generally by the state, themselves, and thus the many have been immolated to the few, and have even believed that this was their highest destination. These views cannot be too earnestly withstood. Nothing seems to me so needful as to give to the mind the consciousness, which governments have done so much to suppress, of its own separate worth. Let the individual feel, that, through his Immortality, he may concentrate in his own being a greater good than that of nations. Let him feel that he is placed in the community, not to part with his individuality, or to become a tool, but that he should find a sphere for his various powers, and a preparation for immortal glory. To me, the progress of society consists in nothing more than in bringing out the individual, in giving him a consciousness of his own being, and in quickening him to strengthen and elevate his own mind.

In thus maintaining that the individual is the end of social institutions, I may be thought to discourage public efforts and the sacrifice of private interests to the state. Far from it. No man, I affirm, will serve his fellow beings so effectually, so fervently as he, who is not their slave, as he who, casting off every other yoke, subjects himself to the law of duty in his own mind. For this law enjoins a disinterested and generous spirit, as man's glory and likeness to his Maker. Individuality or moral self-subsistence is the surest foundation of an all-comprehending love. No man so multiplies his bonds with the community, as he who watches most jealously over his own perfection. There is a beautiful harmony between the good of the state, and the moral freedom and dignity of the individual. Were it not so, were these interests in any case discordant-were an individual ever called to serve his

country by acts debasing his own mind, he ought not to waver a moment as to the good which he should prefer. Property, life, he should joyfully surrender to the state. But his soul he must never stain or enslave. From poverty, pain, the rack, the gibbet, he should not recoil; but for no good of others ought he to part with self-control; or violate the inward law. We speak of the patriot as sacrificing himself to the public weal. Do we mean, that he sacrifices what is most properly himself, the principle of piety and virtue? Do we not feel, that, however great may be the good, which, through his sufferings, accrues to the state, a greater and purer glory redounds to himself, and that the most precious fruit of his disinterested services, is the strength of resolution and philanthropy which is accumulated in his own soul?

I have thus endeavoured to illustrate and support the doctrine, that spiritual freedom, or force and elevation of soul, is the great good to which civil freedom is subordinate, and which all social institutions should propose as their supreme end.

(To be Continued.)

What is prayer? It is of all human actions the most solemn and important, for it is the connection between man and God, the appointed medium by which a sentient creature may approach the presence of his Creator. Under its influence, the mind is imbued with spiritual musings, and filled with rapturous anticipations of a joyful heirship in heaven. When wrapt in devotion, the soul is conscious of immortality-feels that she is now a pilgrim and a sojourner, and yearns for her abiding home. Disdaining this mortal coil, she wings her way to ethereal regions, and claims to be a denizen of purer climes; she pants to be disembodied from this weak tenement, and seeks for the realities of her vivid imaginings. Communing with her God, she would fain approach the more immediate glory of his presence, and bathe in the purity with which he is

surrounded.

"Then the soul,
Too joyous to be bound to earth, upsoars
And wings its glorious passage to an orb
Beyond philosophy's proud ken-the throne
Where the Divinity sits clad in light,

And gives his spirit welcome! he forgets
That he is wrapt in mortal clay-becomes
A presence all ethereal, lifts his eye

Undazzled towards the smiles of heavenly love,
And takes his seat with angels.'

What is prayer? It is a reverent prostration of the soul, before the Author and Giver of life, an offering of gratitude and thankfulness for his innumerable blessings, and an awakened and deep conviction of sin, before him who is too pure to behold iniquity; it is the sincere dedication of a broken and a contrite heart, filled with a solemn and powerful abhorrence of guilt, accompanied by genuine remorse for past transgressions, with an humble seeking for heavenly aid, to become well pleasing in the eyes of God. It is with lowly fear to draw near, and enter the presence of that Being who would not that any should perish; to crave the protection of his all-powerful arm, in a successful striving against and triumphant resistance of temptation; to supplicate that his grace may overshadow and ripen the young repentance of the heart, into the goodly fruit of permanent reformation.

What is prayer? It is seeking God, and blessed be his name, it is the appointed means by which he may be found; by which the Christian can approach his heavenly Father- -can obtain consolation in privations and sufferings-can gather strength and support amidst the storms and trials of life; and by means of which, he can cast his cares and sorrows on one who careth for him, and refresh his soul with that enduring peace which the world has not to bestow. Here is the source of his devout aspirings to walk with God, to become his by the spirit of adoption, and to be assimilated and fashioned to his image. Thus viewing, with the eye of faith, the world to come, and enjoying a foretaste thereof in his daily communings, he learns to prepare himself for his great change, by earnest endeavours to become a living sacrifice, and by purifying and adørning his heart to render it a temple filled with the grace of the Supreme.

What is prayer? It is peace to the troubled spirit— balm to the broken-hearted-the never-failing support of the world's victims. It claims no fellowship with things of earth, for, emanating from the human heart, it soars to the throne of the Eternal, and its business is with eternal

* Bowring's Matins and Vespers.

things. It is an individual action, a personal duty, a spiritual connection between earth and heaven, a mental volition which no human power can coerce-ethereal, immaterial, it is not to be fettered or controlled by man's daring presumption. Possessing nothing in common with temporal and decaying things, it allies itself with immortality; to the earth, and the earth's might, it owes no allegiance; it bows not submissive to the behests of authority; it obeys not the requirements and assumptions of power; it spurns its dictations equally with its anathemas; is regardless of its multifarious influences; its commendations or its frowns. It soars in faith, from the things which are seen and temporal, to those which are not seen and eternal. ZACCHEUS.

Extracts from a Posthumous Volume of Sermons by the late Rev. James Scott.*

[MR. SCOTT is stated to have "bestowed much care on his compositions for the pulpit; so that they might be plain, methodical, intelligible, pertinent, scriptural, and impressive." To assist the readers of the Christian Pioneer in judging, whether "he accomplished his purpose;" to show that, "as became a wise and faithful teacher, he availed himself of seasons, and of circumstances, and of special occasions, for the selection of fit topics of address, nor overlooked the wants and the improvement of his various hearers," I shall make a few extracts from a volume of his sermons, which is now, happily, before the world. N.]

The perpetual fluctuation and rapid succession of human beings.

66

According to the usual computation, 5,810 years have elapsed since the creation of the world. From the formation of Adam, to the flood in the days of Noah, when the life of man was protracted to a very extended period, we read only of ten generations existing during two thousand years. From the deluge, when the term * Sermons and Occasional Services, &c.

"Written at the close of 1810."

"The usual computation allows 2,000 years from the creation to the deluge; and 2,000 from that period to the birth of Christ. Strauchius considers A. M. 1656 as the year of the deluge. It includes, however calculated, ten generations.