"What a piece of work then is man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties - in form and moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel—in apprehension, how like a god!" Is it possible that such a being should not be designed for immortality? Can powers of so high a character, and capable of such unlimited improvement, however now they may be shadowed and overcast, be yet destined to be for ever overwhelmed in the dust, and never to break from the earth into whose bosom they seem to sink? There is a darkness and impurity, it is true, mingled with all our present thoughts and doings, that, in some melancholy moods of contemplation, might almost throw us into despondency respecting our future destiny, but are there no blessed revelations made to meet this despondency, and to refresh and invigorate all those hopes and aspirations which belong to our highly intellectual and moral constitution? How weak the supposition that such a frame of being could be elaborated out of any mere material atoms, or be other than a spirit in man into which the Almighty himself hath breathed understanding. You have sometimes hinted, Pamphilus, at a new philosophy which has been much attended to of late years, but which I cannot tell whether to account advancing or declining-that I mean, which, quite contrary to the views which I have been inculcating, multiplies the human faculties instead of summing them up into one great leading faculty; and fixes them down, too, in a most cramped and imprisoned connection with the material frame in which we are now stationed. I have paid so little attention to this philosophy, that I cannot presume to venture an opinion upon it, except this that if it has its foundation in truth it points rather more to the present shackles and fetters of the mental powers, than to the organs which aid them. No doubt, our material frame is so formed as to influence in many ways our present views and apprehensions— but I should rather expect that in a future state of being- a removal of the fetters, even those long acknowledged ones of the external senses, would permit an immense expansion of understandingrather than be any destruction of its operations—and might evince more clearly my position, that many of their present peculiarities are resolvable into some more general form. It is a useful enquiry, undoubtedly, to examine distinctly all the bonds of connection now existing between our material system and the mind which vivifies it-yet we must be very cautious not to give loose to fancy or hypothesis in risking the enquiry. But these are investigations in which I can now make but little way, although I do not mean to abandon a study which has been so long and so much an object of interest to me, but

L

in which I shall be well pleased if I have been able to open any track more satisfactory than the common, for those who come after me to pursue. It will suffice if I can now reach some point of elevation from which I may see at distance the sacred regions yet destined to be explored and conquered—while, like Moses on the top of Pisgah, I am myself making preparations to die. Yet the closer application of mind to the great truths of Revelation, to which that preparation will conduct me, is also, in a philosophical point of view, the necessary termination of those wonderful speculations in which we have been involved. For what is the conclusion to which they have brought us? That man in all his judgments on objects of sense, of intellect, and morality, is guided to a perpetual and unavoidable observation of Divine laws and arrangements-in which he places confidence, solely as being such and wherever his evident well-being is concerned, invariably acts on the belief awakened by such observation. But wherever he can follow his own inclinations, without the apprehension of present destruction or inconvenience, which he can seldom do in opposition to precise physical laws, he may be tempted, too readily, to stiffle his real belief under false colours and hopes-and so, it has happened, that in the most material parts of conduct, those in which the obligations of morality are concerned, a being who cannot take a step into the world without being virtually aware of the presence of the great Mind which governs it, can yet live as absolutely "without God in the world." This fatal prevarication, as our old divines sometimes call it, no merely human wisdom or philosophy can remove-it has a deeper and more fatal seat in the soul, and it can only be gradually subdued by close application of heart and understanding to that divine model which was exhibited in human nature -of One whose practice was in constant unison with the high truths which were ever consonant to his reason and his affections. In the present life, we can only make a faint and distant approximation to this model—but we see our natural convictions of immortality met in all his words, and in all the affecting circumstances of his humble, yet most sublime history, and as every unsophisticated heart of man must feel, that such a Guide and Protector comes most home to it, and is necessary for direction and assurance-so the philosopher is unworthy of the name, who is insensible that his noblest speculations terminate in nothing, if they do not terminate here. I delight often to think that had such a light opened upon the glowing spirits of Plato or of Cicero, they would have followed it with grateful steps-and although, in our own day of clearer illumination, "certain stars" which ought

to have attended in its course, and gloried in its influence, alas! "have shot madly from their spheres,"—there have yet, thank heaven! been minds of the truest wisdom, that have steadily felt and acknowledged the "brightness of its rising." But now, my friends, for the present,—

"I hold it fit, that we shake hands and part;

You as your business and desire shall point you,

For every man hath business and desire,

Such as it is-and for my own poor part,
I will go pray."

Such was the close, my Hermippus, of the last philosophical conversations between my friends and myself. In a few days Cleanthes and I left Philo, though weak, I am happy to say, in an improving state of health, and since I have returned to the paternal mansion of the former, I have been chiefly employed in writing down these reminiscences of our talk, for your entertainment and benefit.

FINIS.

ERRATA.

Page 80-line 25-after "crowd in" read—“ and if the thought of things present, but unperceived, mingles accidentally in the group of images"-Omitted.

Page 96-line 9-for "Thus," read "This."

LATELY PUBLISHED, BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

IN FOOLSCAP 8vo., Price 38. 6d.

EXPLANATION OF SOME PASSAGES

IN THE

EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL,

Chiefly by means of an Amended Punctuation.

BY THE

REV. ROBERT MOREHEAD, D.D.,

LATE SECOND MINISTER OF ST. PAUL'S EPISCOPAL CHAPEL, EDINBURGH.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

"This learned production is well worthy the consideration of the Biblical Scholar. Passages frequently obscure in the writings of St. Paul, are, according to the improved punctuation of Dr. Morehead, rendered perfectly clear and intelligible. We consider we are doing no small service to the clergy in recommending this able and learned treatise to their best attention."-EDINBURGH ADVERTISER.

"This is a posthumous publication, the Author having died while it was passing through the press. It had, however, been committed to able and affectionate care. The Editor is understood to be the Rev. Mr. Wright, late of Borthwick, between whom and Dr. Morehead the most cordial esteem and regard subsisted, although they were clergymen of different denominations. In the preface to the treatise, Mr. W. alludes to Dr. Morehead in terms of veneration and affection, in which those who had the best opportunities of appreciating that eminent individual in the pulpit and in private life will the most cordially coincide."-TAIT'S MAGAZINE.