general purposes of man? Yet the greater part of men habitually speak of Law, as a well or illworking machine. Nor do they think of it as acting upon the nicer moral and intellectual characteristics of man.

It is wonderful to observe the effect of this sensuous, external way of looking at things, and to see how, in the degree that we set the external above the internal, we limit the external itself, and take from it half its power: by it death enters the material universe, and touches society too, in all its forms.

And why is it thus?-Because the material and external has no independent life. Its life proceeds from and returns into the spiritual and the internal; and just in the proportion that the latter is held by us as the dearer and superior power, in the same degree the former, as dependent upon it, increases with it-as imagination, sentiment, and love reign in us, so does the outward become more and more alive, from imparted life, and so does it return, to act, by multiplied and delightful influences, upon every thought and emotion of the soul; and there is no attribute of the inward man with which it is not brought into sympathy.

Would it not be strange then, if Law, made for moral and intellectual beings, should not have an effect upon their moral and intellectual condition? True! But, it is again objected, it is only on these beings in their civil characters.

And have men double sets of faculties and affections-individual or private, and public or civil ones?-the state or action of the one set having no influence upon the other? Or, I fear we must go still further, and ask, whether man has, two souls-two consciousnesses-in short, whether he is a kind of double being? If this be not so, it must be upon the same faculties and affections which Law acts, that religion, family, books, occupations, the beauty, the grandeur, the variety of earth, sea, and sky act. And do any of these come and go, and leave no hue, no pressure upon the soul? And must not Law, then, give form and pressure to every part of man? Why,-not the thin shadow, from the quick cloud, gliding over the grain, leaves it what it was!

How superficial, then, have been our general views of Law! And what a gross, unmalleable substance have we held that to be, which touches and presses upon every part of the ductile spirit of man. I do not pretend to have read many writers professedly on Law; but of those which I have read, I hardly know whom, among them, to term a philosopher, save Edmund

Burke. He traced the reachings of Law into man's finer nature, and had that nicer sensibility, wherewith to feel the delicate, electric aura, which this individual nature gives back, and diffuses through every fibre of the great, general frame.

If there be this principle of unity binding together the intellectual capacities, the moral sensibilities and perceptions, and those multifarious qualities, which go to make up what we call character; and if every the least outward circumstance or condition, has an influence upon some one of these, and, through their sympathetic connexion with each other, upon all, and, so, upon their unity, or that which constitutes character; it follows, upon every principle of harmony in God's universe, that there should be no jarring nor discordant influences within or without, and that the nearer man draws to his first, unfallen state, the more will be developed the resemblances and relations of things to each other, and the more plainly order will be traced out through all varieties, and a tending of the upper and lower, the inward and outward world to one great end; and the more this world will be found to contain, as it were, within itself, heaven, and a moment of time to involve eternity-the greater, to speak with seeming paradox, to be contained in the less.

If the influences of this world reach into eternity, in order to fit man truly for either, they must fit him for both, and that, not partially, if they could, but in his whole mind and heart. But if there needs must be this family relation and likeness, which shall be taken for the original?—the form of this world, or of the other? and by which, so far as he has the shaping of circumstances, shall man mould his condition?

I have full faith in the doctrine, that He who made man, body and spirit, framed the material world for a spiritual as well as a physical use-that He formed man a microcosm, and would teach him to know himself, not only by the revealed Word and by the influences of his Spirit, but by his providences, by the modes in which He has formed the animate and inanimate worlds, and by the ways in which He carries these forward to fulfil his great ends. Nor must this be barren knowledge-its purpose is to bring man into the likeness of this pattern, and thus into conformity and union with the general ordering of God, and with God himself.

How prone are we to cut these relations right athwart-to consider, for instance, our religious character one thing, and our political character another :-one set of ties to God, another to

man. Religion teaches humility, obedience; not so Politics :"We are all sovereigns!" cries the christian speaker, and the religious assembly clap their hands! Was it the Rights of man, or the pride of man, that gave voice to the thought, and returned the applause? This principle of severance will never do! The nerves we thus cut must grow together again, or just action will cease, and the man die. We must not think of going to God to learn humility and obedience, only to go back to Law again, to throw it off. There are no such contraries in God's plans; and the rule of this world must be after the pattern of the heavenly (imperfect it will be, but yet) teaching, in the main, the same lessons, and acting upon the same attributes of

man.

This great principle of Obedience, and the spirit of Humility, with which to obey, need be taught us in every thing; and Law should be so formed, while allowing us due freedom, as to be our schoolmaster in this lesson. It cannot be consistent, that what becomes so slowly the habitual state of the mind towards its Creator, should not be intended by Him, to find help in the forms of Law on earth-that, on the contrary, Law should be at war with this principle, and should nourish pride; thus keeping man under opposing influences, and hindering his progress in that way which is to make him a meet subject for the order and sovereignty of heaven. Were it natural to man to live under an abiding sense of humility, and of obedience to his Maker, were it the first and only impulse of the heart, in honour to prefer one another, we might not stand in so extreme need that Law should meet us every where, with the air of supreme authority, pressing upon our senses, and rising up before our minds.

If we look at Law, in this way, as intended to fall in with the general plan of God, as a part faying in with the other parts of a great whole-as a something made necessary to the universal ordering of our condition and character, and having both a necessitated beginning and continuance in our very nature, and acting upon it every where, and not as a mere arbitrary Institution set up by man himself, out of convenience and choice, to be taken down, remodelled, and put up again, at his good pleasure; then will it have to us an origin like that from which we ourselves sprang, and a bearing as lasting as our own existence; then will it become sacred in our eyes-a somewhat set over us—our rule, our head. Authority will be seen written over its portal; and we shall take our shoes from off our feet as we en

ter in through its everlasting doors. Those, also, who wait at its altars will, as its ministers, be held in respect, and, as announcers of its decrees, be listened to: they will, so to speak, stand out before the people, as Law in visible presence.

With this character of Permanency and Majesty before our eyes, submission to Law, and to those who represent it, will not beget servility, but, rather, that " proud humility" of which Burke speaks; for submission is servility or right respect, as that to which we yield it is mean or venerable. And if we venerate the permanent and the majestic, something of the spirit of these will be reflected upon our own souls.

To produce this sense of authority, permanency and majestyto give us a feeling of something which, though meant for us, is above us, it must not be a mere abstract principle, having form to us only as we ourselves give it form by administering it ourselves, or, at our own will, setting up, from time to time, those who shall administer it for us: but it must have self-life; and in some parts of it, must be seen those who shall seem to have come out from its invisible self: it must have, as it were, a creating power, producing offspring from itself, to take care that it be respected and obeyed-men who shall be impersonations of Law, having their birth and power, not from us, but from Lawmen who, though dying individually, shall, as Orders, through an ordained succession, possess life as permanent as Law itself. These hereditary Orders, call them by what name we will, present something definite to the mind, and help us to realize our Idea of Law; while that Power, which we call Law, unseen by us in itself, yet acting upon our spirits, throws around these orders of men a mysterious authority, which our natures must forever witness to, talk of it as we may, and even hate it as we may. That the mind does recognize such an influence, is shown in the involuntary respect felt for an individual, when standing in this relation to Law, and the diminishing of this respect, when considered apart from this relation, and regarded only in his character of a fellow-man. Let any one be honest with himself, and he will acknowledge this difference. He may call it the remnant of an old superstition, which the mind has not yet quite shaken off. France called it so, and overturned her throne, and drove her nobles from the land. But human nature soon felt the want of something, she knew not what. She tried to smooth down the surface of society to a level, but there were elements beneath, more restless than the centre fires, perpetually

heaving it up into mountains and hills, and the earth tossed like the sea. Man, in his pride, had been trying after equality, which should leave nothing higher than himself; he would fain form his own Law, and himself appoint those who should administer it for him. Poor, finite, dependent creature! That which should have governed him, was of his own making, and might at any moment be by him unmade; and, therefore, he could not reverence it. Conscious of his insignificance, yet with nothing visible around him greater than himself—nothing to look up to, and looking up to, from it to gather strength, no wonder that the unquieted craving of his soul made him throw himself headlong, and set the oppressor's foot upon his neck:-he thought to destroy the principle of obedience in his soul, and he became a slave-he rose up against that eternal Law which God had given to regulate his being, and which, I doubt not, is now visibly carried out through the ranks of heaven, and will ever be a living Law-a Law without which on earth, man, who is linked in with eternity, can never be well with himself, nor with his fellow-men. Instead, therefore, of vainly striving against a principle inherent in our natures and in the order of things-instead of blinding our minds by a mere name-calling it superstition-it would be better to look calmly into ourselves a little, and to see, whether in these outward, distinctive forms and orders, there be not a kindly adaptation to our inward needswhether were we in our true state, we should not feel that there was something in us congenial with them-something to elevate thought, and warm and make quick the affections. Law!What is it but an infinite abstraction, till it bodies itself forth in orders of men? Then it is as if the infinite, after which the mind had vainly stretched itself, gathered itself in, presenting some point at which we might come in contact with it-something where we might begin-something to which we might return. We have been looking over the day-sky; and all throughout its clear expanse, the eye has found no resting-place. Presently from out it, a feathery little cloud puts forth; it enlarges, unrolling itself, fold over fold; and there it lies, steady as the land, a mighty pile of dazzling splendour! Now, the eye is fixed, the soul filled, and our thoughts go up to it, like incense, to mingle with its glory. Yet a little before, this cloud had been an infinitely rare, invisible vapour: our eyes saw nothing, our souls felt nothing. So Law, pervading as it does, the universe of God, comes not upon us in its power, till it VOL. V. No. 17.

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