We ask with some eagerness, how may these things be? And the primary answer to this question lies within the circuit of our knowledge. Our own consciousness, the facts of life, and the reason of the thing, all agree in one result. Moral law exists only in, and for, a Will; and by a Will alone can it be made effectual. In this respect, it resembles the Law of Production, which, apprehended ideally by intelligence, becomes realized by the moving force of Will. Moreover, we have seen that Will is true Causation, and therefore in Will exists the first ground of Movement. We know in fact of no other. Neither is any other Causality conceivable by us, even in hypothesis; and we think this causative power of Will only by knowing its real existence and verifying its workings through their issues.

Yet further. The Moral Law, as a sovereign command, is addressed to our Wills; and unless it were the Expression of a Will, we know it could never be executed. The Law would remain a dead letter,-a thought of Intelligence,—an abstract speculation,-ineffective because impractical. Therefore, when we speak of a Supreme Moral law, we speak of a Supreme Moral Will; an idea we sometimes express by true Being, or true Personality. We speak, that is, of God.

Experience deepens to us every day the meaning of this final word. In the world of our present habitation, we see a confused mass of striving Wills,-the good and just not always in the ascendant,—rightful commands disregarded,—a sovereign rule not visibly asserted. To affirm the possible continuance of these practical contradictions, would be to deny the ultimate Moral Unity of moral purposes. This Divine consummation is, then, the finality towards which all things must in reason be tending. For even as human nature explains all other nature, as the Moral Law explains all other law, so God explains Man. Explains his existence, otherwise inexplicable, by the anticipated victory of Right over Wrong, and the complete satisfaction of his unsatisfied aspirations. By presenting, that is to say, an adequate object,—a Personality infinitely great and infinitely good,-to the eye of Man's

reason, the desire of his hea

ceaseless energy of Man's whole essential being;-his affections, his will, his spirit.

This elevating thought comes home to each one of us, bringing with it a peace of mind unutterable. We know that the time must come, when thought and memory shall grow faint. Our brain will lose its quick apprehensive motion, and all our bodily powers must sink and languish. Our eyes will refuse to see the faces of those we love; our hands to return their kindly pressure; our nerves to thrill at their voices. But, whosoever has learnt the lesson which God's world, and God's gifts to Man, were meant to teach him, may truthfully say— "My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for Ever."

Corollary.-One reflection will probably have occurred to every reader of the last few pages. The rigour of the moral law demonstrates to us the necessary existence of a future state of recompense, and the supremacy of a sovereign Willa divine Judge. Now, does not this very rigour leave man as hopeless, as if he were altogether without God? Can he ever expect to perform the behests of that pure and perfect Will? This difficulty would appear valid, were there nothing in the idea of God thus given us, to furnish rejoinders, such for example, as the following.-How could the Supreme Judge make any difference between those who are His anxious servants, and those who turn away from His infinite purity with hatred or indifference, if all men were alike overwhelmed in one common failure by reason of an inexorable law? How, again, could He satisfy the aspirations of earnest but half-hopeless human souls, without gathering them to His presence and to Himself? The manner in which such a happiness results to men, may be an enigma, so far as Natural Theology is concerned; but if so, it is an enigma, of which, those who reason on this ground, may foresee that there will certainly be granted some solution. And we are not left quite in the dark as to how that solution may be found;-a truth we may perceive from the ensuing considerations :

The moral law is presented to Man's practical reason with all its consequences. The divine Idea, when once apprehended, becomes the object of Man's noblest affections. God, Who graved His law of Right and Wrong upon the conscious will of His creature, wrote also a law of love upon His creature's human heart.

Hence we view the Supreme Being, as a God who formed and endowed Man for Himself. It was thus, that Man's nature received its only possible explanation. Hence, also, the sufficient acconut of a capacity for happiness which this world can never give;-and, along with it, the earnest of its ultimate satisfaction.

But these evidences of the Divine finger, prove also a Divine intention. The supreme ruler of the Universe has, by them, written upon Man's nature a purpose of making His creature happy. And if so, we cannot but conclude that to the Divine attribute of love, which inspired the glad promise, we may look for its certain fulfilment. In this point of view, a miracle worked for such a moral and spiritual purpose as the ennoblement and blessedness of Humanity, ceases in one sense to be a miracle. It becomes not only credible, but probable. And in reality, any event appears less improbable than that incredible and most unlovely issue, the self-contradictory thought, that God has made Man in vain.

These considerations are drawn from our Moral nature, as just described. There are other considerations at hand to confirm them.

In treating the subject of Production, we saw Intelligence involved in every Idea, and preceding every process. When referred to the Universe, Intelligence was necessarily conceived as vast and immeasurable. In order to discern the other attributes of that universal Intelligence, we examined the characteristics of Design apparent in nature, and saw everywhere a spirit of super-human tenderness breathed over our beautiful world. Thus, if there be any personal relation between the Author of Nature and our race, it ought to be one of trust on our side, demanded by care and beneficence on His. And this feeling is heightened by the charm of lavish kindness,—the prodigality of a love Divine.

Again, if we turn to one chapter of this Essay farther back, and bring to mind the rise and progress of our primary beliefs, we cannot but ask ourselves the question, how is it that the first religious idea of the Aryan race-the "Heaven-father " -should coincide with the most typical utterances of our loveliest childhood, and our most advanced manhood, now?— Is He really our Father? If so, may we not expect much from His hand? He is a Person, not an Abstract Entity,a Force, or a Thing. Our Father will give us, not a stonebut bread;-bread from Heaven-bread from Himself. And we see that He giveth liberally, and upbraideth not.

This is not all. The rigour of the Moral Law is an irreconcileable Antithesis between Right and Wrong,-a gulf which no human subtlety can bridge. But with all this rigour, it leaves unresolved, to a very considerable extent, one set of doubts perpetually recurring to an honest mind. Is this or that particular point a duty;-is it right or wrong;-or is its observance open to debate? There are obvious reasons, arising from the necessities of moral culture and improvement, why such points should, within certain limits, be indeterminate. This whole topic, however, belongs properly to Natural Religion, a separate subject from Natural Theology. Still, for our present purpose, an important consequence of the inexactness is clear. It gives rise to a reasonable expectation of some more extensive code not unlikely to be vouchsafed us, harmonizing with, and supplementary to, the law of our moral consciousness. And at every age of Man's history, and throughout every country of his habitation, there always did, in fact, prevail an expectant attitude of mind, looking on all sides for the tokens of Divine Revelation. It was felt also by the wisest, that no human foresight could decide beforehand, what aids to higher knowledge and moral virtue might be given along with it. Certainly, every reasonable idea of the great and good God, formed a ground for hope and confident anticipation of the Highest and the Best.

This Essay has reached its close. May it be permitted its

writer to drop the tone of an Essayist, and to say that every word of it has come from his heart?

May he likewise ask two favours of the intelligent reader; neither of them he trusts unreasonably onerous?

His first request is that the convergent effect of the separate considerations urged in this Essay, may be fairly taken into account. Indeed, the writer once thought of appending a kind of conspectus or "summing up."-But he would thus have added another full chapter to a book which has grown considerably in his hands. Neither might the summary be altogether welcome to the more candid minds amongst those who doubt, yet honestly debate. Most such readers prefer putting results and consilient reasonings into a connected shape for themselves. The writer may however venture on soliciting some special attention to the breadth of field ranged over; the wide circumference from which his various arguments and illustrations have converged. This point is one of considerable value. Great credit is given to the accordant testimony of witnesses who have come together from distant parts of the world.

The other favour requested, is that every person who desires. to form a deliberate judgment on the grand topics at issue, will carefully weigh in the balance what alternative he can embrace, if he refuses to be a Theist. An alternative, that is, sufficient to account for the human Will and Reason, for such a world as our own, and for so symmetrical and beautiful a Universe.

The system we have advocated on grounds of Reason, asserts that the first Cause of all Things and all Beings known to us, is God. This account alone is sufficingly complete, and coherent. Against it alone, no fatal objection has ever been alleged. And this single fact ought to have a preponderating weight in the balance.

When finally compared together, the motives of our Choice (as presented by Natural Theology), stand thus:

If explanations of the Universe explain unequally, that account ought to be chosen which is easiest in itself, explains the most, and is the least self-contradictory.