sel, and have spent hours in this way, which they have taken from necessary exercise and rest. Their labors have not been lost. Their good effects have been visible in the general sobriety of the College: they have been evidently blessed also in numerous revivals of religion. The history of the College, as it relates to these seasons of refreshing, would be a document interesting to Christians. I have not the means of preparing such a document, but with such facts as I have I will bring this paper to an end,-which I designed, when I began, should be only a paragraph. There was a revival in this College in 1783,-of the fruits of which, thirty-one were added to the College church. At the commencement of this revival the church had but one member among the students--a solitary witness for God in the midst of abounding irreligion. Well might the Professor of Divinity add to the record which be made of this accession," laus Deo." There was another great revival in 1801-2. Sixty two of the subjects of this revival joined the church in College. Others probably delayed making a profession till after they left College, or preferred to join other churches, where their friends resided. The same is true, no doubt, of all revivals in a College. In an account of this revival by a member of the Faculty, published in the Panoplist, I find it stated that "upwards of eighty appeared to be deeply interested in their salvation." The revival did not then appear to be subsiding. There was another revival in 1808, another in 1813, another

in 1815-these together added to the College church between sixty and seventy. There were revivals also, in 1818-1821-1822 and 31825-1827. Of the revival of 1821 I can speak from personal knowledge. The church was increased from about fifty members to upwards of a hundred. The class which was graduated that year, entered College with about twelve or fourteen pious members; it left it with about thirty-five.

A College is I know too often a cold place. Yet it is not necessarily so. Its chill atmosphere does not necessarily have that shrivelling effect on the piety of the student which Antipas speaks of as its invariable result. On the contrary, the pious members of the class which I have mentioned, seemed to me through every stage of their education, to be coming nearer to the stature of perfect men in Christ. They became more fixed in every religious principle-more fitted for "that great work to which they were destined," and more devotedly bent upon it. Two of the members of that class are now mission. aries in the Sandwich Islands; an other is in Palestine; and another, on the same errand of love, is in the land of the Turk-exposed to the sudden vengeance which it is feared may wreak itself on all the Christian residents in the Ottoman capital, for the late destruction of their navy. May the God of Jacob be his refuge and may He raise up many such to be like him a blessing to our Colleges, and a blessing to the world.

ALUMNUS.

PASCAL'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION.

BLAISE PASCAL, who is best known as the author of "Provincial Letters," was a native of Auvergne in France. He was born at Clermont, in that province, on the 19th of June, 1623. His father was a superior man, of noble birth, and of extensive knowledge; and was carefully attentive to the education of his family. The young Pascal very early developed a mind of more than ordinary power. He was particularly delighted with subjects of scientific research; so much so, that his father, fearing he would be wholly absorbed with these pursuits, to the neglect of classical learning, positively forbid his studying mathematics till he should have mastered Greek and Latin. But the prohibition was ineffectual: he secretly devoted his play-hours to the forbidden studies; and, at length, his father, finding his ardor was not to be repressed, removed his restraints, and afforded him every facility for engaging in his favorite pursuits. The consequence was, that he soon acquired a high celebrity as a mathematician. The results of his investigations, which, at different times, he communicated to the public, attracted the attention of the learned, and particularly a treatise on Conic Sections, which he published at sixteen years of age, was commended by Descartes as a production worthy of a much older intellect.

He pursued these studies, with a severity which impaired his health, till, at the age of twenty-four, a paralytic shock led him to serious reflection on the subject of religion. From that time there was a change in his religious feelings; but as he still mingled in the gay society of Paris, where he then resided, he did not become thoroughly religious

till a new event occurred in the providence of God, which gave a deeper cast to his religious character, and changed the whole complexion of his life. He was passing a bridge on the Seine in a coach and four, when the horses becoming unmanageable, precipitated themselves from the bridge, but happily left the coach standing on the very verge.

"It was after this event," says his biographer, "that Pascal's religious impressions regained that strength which they had in a degree lost. His natural amiability of temper,- his ready flow of wit, the fascinations of the best circles of Parisian society, and the insidious influence of well applied flattery, had, previously to this accident, succeeded in cooling, in some measure, the ardour of his piety, and had given him somewhat more of the air of a man, whose hopes and whose treasures were to be found within the limits of this transitory and imperfect existence. But this providential deliverance from sudden death, led to a very decided and permanent change of character.

He regarded it as a message from heaven, which called on him to renounce all secular occupations, and to devote the remainder of his life exclusively to God. From that time, he bade adieu to the world. He entirely gave up his habits of general visiting, and retiring altogether from merely scientific society, retained only the connection which he had formed with a few religious friends of superior intellectual attainments and devotional habits. In order to accomplish this the more effectually, he changed his residence, and lived for some time in the country.

"He was now about thirty years of age; and it was at this time that he established that mode of life in which he persevered to the last,

He gave up all search for earthly pleasure, and the use of all indulgencies and superfluities. He dis pensed as far as possible with the service of domestics. He made his own bed, and carried his own dinner to his apartment. Some persons may be disposed to consider this as a needless and ascetic peculiarity, Nor is it attempted here to justify the stress which he laid upon these minor and comparatively unimportant matters; but be that as it may, every one must admire the elevated piety with which these peculiar notions were associated, and the principle on which these acts of selfdenial were performed. Prayer, and the study of the Scriptures, became the business of his life, in which he found inexpressible delight. He used to say, that the Holy Scriptures were not a science of the understanding, so much as of the heart; and that they were a science, intelligible only to him whose heart was in a right moral state, whilst to others they were veiled in obscurity. To this sacred study, therefore, Pascal gave himself, with the ardour of entire devotion; and his success in this line of study was as eminent as it had been in matters of general science. His knowledge of the Scriptures, and his facility in quoting them, became very great. It was quite remarkable in that day. His increasing love for the truth of religion, led him also to exercise readily all the powers of his mind, both by his pen, and by his very great conversational powers, in recommending religion to others, and in demolishing whatever appeared likely to oppose its progress, or to veil and to deform its truth. An opportunity of the very first importance shortly afterwards occurred, which called forth the exercise of his splendid talents and extensive knowledge in that way which he most especially desired."*

* Craig's Memoir.

The circumstance here alluded to was the well known persecution of the Port Royal Monastery by the Jesuits This institution had acquired much celebrity by the purity of its manners and the learning of its inmates. Here also a number of men of excellent talents, disgusted with the world," had come to dwell together. in a retired mansion, in the same neighborhood. They devoted themselves to the instruction of youth, and to the preparation of elementary works of literature and science. It was this celebrity of their schools and their books which excited the envy of the Jesuits against them. The Jesuits were themselves the monopolists of the instruction of youth, both in literature and religion, and though they made the creed of the Port Royalists the pretext of their opposition, (which was the creed of the Jansenists, too pure indeed for the corrupt faith of the Jesuits,) yet the true stimulus of their hostility was their jealousy of the Port Royal learning. It was in this controversy that Pascal sent forth, successively, in the course of three years, his celebrated Letters.

The effect of these letters was very great. "The whole edifice of the reputation of the Jesuits fell before the power of Pascal's genius. Their boldest casuists fled from the two-edged sword of his manly and honest sarcasm. An universal clamor rose against them. They were on every side regarded as the corrupters of morals; and after having in one or two pamphlets most unwisely and vainly endeavored to justify the system of casuistry which Pascal had exposed, they were compelled for a time to shrink before the scourge with which he had chastised them."

The last and most important work undertaken by Pascal, was that which gave being to the volume of his "Thoughts." This was a work on the truth of the Christian sys

tem, and its adaptedness to man. The plan was philosophical, and very comprehensive. He proposed to begin with an examination of man, showing him his weakness, his ignorance, and his misery; and his consequent need of a divine revelation. He would then carry the inquirer to all the religions of the world, in pursuit of the true light, till at length he should find it in the religion of the Bible. To accom plish this work, Pascal judged it would take ten years of health. But he lived scarcely half that number, and those were years of weariness and pain. All he could do was, in the intervals of his sufferings, to write down his thoughts on loose pieces of paper, in the first words that occurred to him. And all that he left towards the accomplishment of his great work, was the mass of these thoughts, which his friends collected into a miscellaneous volume. To this brief sketch of the author we shall add a small selection from the volume here spoken of.-He died in 1662, at thirty-nine years of age.

"The mind of the greatest man on earth, is not so independent of circumstances, as not to feel inconvenienced by the merest buzzing noise about him; it does not need the report of a cannon to disturb his thoughts. The creaking of a vane or a pulley is quite enough. Do not wonder that he reasons ill just now; a fly is buzzing by his ear; it is quite enough to unfit him for giving good counsel. If you wish him to see the rights of the case, drive away that insect, which suspends his reasoning powers, and frets that mighty mind which governs cities and kingdoms."

"Such is man in regard to the truth. Consider him now with respect to that happiness, which, in all his actions, he seeks with so much avidity; for all men, without exception, desire to be happy. However different the means which they adopt, they aim at the same result. The cause of one man engaging in war, and of another remaining

at home, is this same desire of happiness, associated with different predilections. He will never stir a step but towards this desired object. It is the motive of all the actions of all men, even of those who destroy themselves.

"And yet, after the lapse of so many years, no one has ever attained to this point at which we are all aiming, but by faith. All are unhappy: princes and their subjects, noble and ignoble, the old and the young, the strong and the weak, the learned and the ignorant, the sick and the healthy, of all countries, all times, all ages, and all conditions.

Experience so lengthened, so continual, and so uniform, might well convince us of our inability to be happy by our own efforts. But then here we get no profit from example. It is never so precisely similar, but that there is some slight difference, on the strength of which we calculate that our hope shall not be disappointed, in this as in former instances. And thus, while the present never satisfies us, hope allures us onward, and leads us from misfortune to misfortune, and finally to death and everlasting ruin.”

their own strength with regard to truth and happiness. We have a powerlessness for determining truth, which no dogmatism can overcome: we have a vague notion of truth, which no pyrrhonism can destroy. We wish for truth, and find within only uncertainty. We seek for happiness, and find nothing but misery. We cannot but wish for truth and happiness; yet we are incapable of attaining either. The desire is left to us, as much to punish us, as to shew us whence we are fallen."

"This then is all that men can do in

It requires but little elevation of soul to discover, that here there is no substantial delight; that our pleasures are but vanity; that the ills of life are innumerable; and that, after all, death, which threatens us every moment, must, in a few years, parhaps in a few days, place us in the eternal condition of happiness, or misery, or nothingness. Between us and heaven, hell or annihilation, no barrier is interposed but life, which is of all things the most fragile; and as they who doubt the immortality of the soul, can have no hope

of heaven, they can have no prospect but hell or nonentity.

Nothing can be more true than this, and nothing more terrible. Brave it how we will, there ends the goodliest life on earth.

It is in vain for men to turn aside from this coming eternity, as if a bold indifference could destroy its being. It subsists notwithstanding. It hastens on; and death, which must soon unveil it, will, in a short time, infallibly reduce them to the dreadful necessity of being annihilated for ever, or for ever wretched.

What man ever had more renown than Jesus Christ? The whole Jewish people foretold his coming. The Gentiles when he came adored him. Both Jews and Gentiles look to him as their centre. And yet what man ever enjoyed so little of such a fame? Out of thirty-three years, he passed thirty unseen; and the remaining three he was accounted an impostor. The priests and rulers of his nation rejected him. His friends and relations despised him: and at length, betrayed by one of his disciples, denied by another, and abandoned by all, he died an ignominious death.

In how much, then, of this splendor did he participate? No man was ever so illustrious; no man was ever so degraded: but all this lustre was for our sakes, that we might know him; none for his own.

Jesus Christ speaks of the most sublime subjects with such simplicity, that he seems not to have thought on them; and yet with such accuracy, that what be thought is distinctly brought out. This union of artlessness with perspicuity, is perfectly beautiful.

It is dreadful to feel every thing we possess, and every thing we learn to value, gliding continually away, without a serious wish, on our parts, to inquire, if there is nothing else that is permanent.

A different mode of life in this world should surely follow these different suppositions, either that we may abide here for ever, or that it being sure that we cannot be here long, it is doubtful whether we shall be here another hour. This last supposition is our actual case.

A proper fear of God originates in faith; a wrong fear, in doubt;-a right fear tends towards hope, because it springs from faith, and we do hope in the God whom we really believe:-an improper fear leads to despair, because we dread him in whom we have not faith. This fears to lose God, and that to find him.

Solomon and Job knew best, and exhibited most accurately the misery of man; the one being the happiest, the other the most wretched or men: the one knowing experimentally the vanity of this world's pleasure; the other, the reality of its afflictions.

All public amusements are full of danger to the Christian life; but amongst all those which the world has invented, none is more to be feared than sentimental comedy. It is a representation of the passions, so natural and delicate, that it awakens them, and gives them fresh spring in the heartespecially the passion of love, and still more so, when it is exhibited as eminently chaste and virtuous. For the more innocent it is made to appear to innocent minds, the more are they laid open to its influence. The violence of it gratifies our self-love, which speedily desires to give rise to the same effects which we have seen represented. In the mean while, also, conscience justifies itself by the honorable nature of those feelings which have been pourtrayed, so far as to calm the fears of a pure mind, and to suggest the idea that it can surely be no violation of purity to love with an affection so apparently rational. And thus, we leave the theatre with a heart teeming with the delights and the tendernesses of love; and with the understanding so persuaded of its innocence, that we are fully prepared to receive its first impressions, or rather to seek the opportunity of giving birth to them in the heart of another, that we may receive the same same adulation pleasures, and the which we saw so well depicted on the stage.

Rank is a great advantage, as it gives to a man of eighteen or twenty years of age, a degree of acceptance, publicity, and respect, which another can scarcely obtain by merit at fifty.