She redeems the best of causes from the unmerited contempt under which it labours, and she will be repaid. The religious public will not be backward to own the obligation. We are aware of the prevalence of the Missionary spirit, and of the many useful directions in which it is now operating. But we are not afraid of the public being carried away from us. We know that there is room for all, that there are funds for all; and our policy is not to repress, but to excite the Missionary spirit, and then there will be a heart for all. SERMON VIII. ON CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. "A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast.". THE word regard is of two-fold signification, and nay either apply to the moral or to the intellectual art of our nature. In the one application, the ntellectual, it is the regard of attention. In the other, the moral, it is the regard of sympathy, or <indness. We do not marvel at this common term aving been applied to two different things; for, in truth, they are most intimately associated; and he faculty by which a transition is accomplished rom the one to the other, may be considered as the ntermediate link between the mind and the heart. It is the faculty by which certain objects become resent to the mind; and then the emotions are awakened in the heart, which correspond to these objects. The two act and re-act upon each other. But, as we must not dwell too long on generalities, we shall satisfy ourselves with stating-that, as, on the one hand, if the heart be very alive to any peculiar set of emotions, this of itself is a predisposing cause why the mind should be very alert in singling out the peculiar objects which excite them; so, on the other hand, that the emotions be specifically feft, the objects must be specifically noticed · and thus it is, that the faculty of attention-a faculty at the bidding of the will, and for the exercise of which, therefore, man is responsible-is of such mighty and commanding influence upon the sensibilities of our nature; insomuch that, if the regard of attention could be fastened strongly and singly on the pain of a suffering creature as its object, we believe that no other emotion than the regard of sympathy or compassion would in any instance be awakened by it. So much is this indeed the case-so sure is this alliance between the mind simply noticing the distress of a sentient creature, and the heart being sympathetically affected by it, that Nature seems to have limited and circumscribed our power of noticing, and just for the purpose of shielding us from the pain of too pungent, or too incessant a sympathy. And, accordingly, one of the exquisite adaptations in the mechanism of the human frame may be observed in the very imperfection of the human faculties. The most frequently adduced example of this, is the limited power of that organ which is the instrument of vision. The imagination is, that, did man look out upon nature with microscopic eye, so that many of those wonders which now lie hid in deep obscurity should henceforth start into open revelation, and be hourly and habitually obtruded upon his gaze, then, with his present sensibilities exposed to the torture and the disturbance of a perpetual and most agonizing offence from all possible quarters of contemplation, he would be utterly incapacitated for the movements of familiar and ordinary life. Did he actually |