more will ever swell beyond what earth can give, and leave him a more wretched being than he was at the commencement of his course. Here is his loss, here is his punishment. God has not placed happiness in wealth.

"A competence is all we can enjoy,

O, be content, where heaven can give no more."

Or let him rise to that station of honor, which he now believes will satisfy him, and his ambition would aspire to one more exalted. Let him govern one kingdom, and he would desire to subjugate another, till the whole world bowed to his nod. And were every star an inhabited world, and did he possess means to invade them, his ambition would continue to soar till he ruled the universe; and, were there no object left to which he might still direct his ambition and continue to soar, he would sit down in despair, and, like Alexander the Great, weep and sigh for more worlds to conquer.

All this restlessness and misery arise from false notions of happiness, from not realizing that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men,and from a want of confidence in his word, which points alike the rich and the poor to that noble path of virtue and religion, where true happiness and unbroken peace forever reign. By men em

bracing virtue, and in their feelings and actions ever acknowledging the supremacy of Jehovah, inevitably lead to happiness and contentment. But in doing this we are not to deprive ourselves of the enjoyment of honest gotten wealth, nor of the rational pursuits and interchanges of social and domestic life. Religion was not given to deprive us of the common comforts and conveniences of life, but to sweeten them. Our Redeemer says, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." Sin and misery in this world are inseparable; so are righteousness and happiness. If they are not, then it remains for the advocates for a future retribution to show how men are to be sufficiently rewarded and punished in the future world.

There is, my friends, no solid happiness, no permanent satisfaction, but in the contemplation that God governs the world, and in the practice of pure and rational piety. This you may know by studying your own bosom. Have any of you thus far spent your days in striving to find perfect bliss in the various pursuits of life? Have you aspired to one object, abandoned it, and taken up another? If so, can you say that you have found the happiness you anticipated, and so earnestly sought? No! What is the reason? There is Whatever may be your pur

one thing needful.

suit, if you are thoughtless that God governs the world, and, if instead of rendering him the homage of a grateful heart, you blaspheme his name, or are selfish and regardless of the happiness of your fellow-creatures, you must, according to the established laws of his empire, remain in that same restless and dissatisfied condition till you know by experience that the heavens do rule, - till you bow to the sublime requirements of his word. That dissatisfaction, varied according to the condition of moral character, is the punishment God sends upon us for our indifference. From this indifference we may rise to that unquenchable thirst for riches, already noticed, and our sufferings will receive new accessions according to our moral light. And from this we may rise to a desire for honor and power, till we are hurried on by ambition to conquest and slaughter, where we are doomed to suffer all the miseries a Bonaparte endured. From this we may rise to dishonor, fraud, and theft; and as we rise in crime, our miseries increase in degree, till we imbrue our hands. in innocent blood, and thus render our bosoms a hell, and our very existence a burden.

Every man is in a condition of uneasiness, suffering, guilt, hardness of heart, and blindness of mind, exactly in proportion to his moral conLet us then be wise; and if we desire

duct.

happiness, let us seek it in that course where the unerring word of God assures us it can alone be found. Let us acknowledge, "that the heavens do rule," and rest assured that He, who notices the fall of a sparrow, will not wink at our evil doings.

ARTICLE XXIII.

DR. GRIFFIN'S LETTER TO THE AUTHOR.

TO THE REV. J. B. DODS.

DEAR SIRI perceive that much has been expressed in the "Trumpet," of late, on the words of our Lord, about destroying "soul and body in hell." A sermon from the Rev. Mr. Manley seems to have been the exciting cause of the remarks which have been made. It appears, moreover, that the same passage has elicited a variety of opinions in past years from different writers.

At the time when your article to the Rev. Mr. Manley made its appearance, we flattered ourselves that you would soon publish your individual views on this difficult text, and more particularly so, as we remembered the avowal on your part, that you had long ago formed your opinion on that passage, and, from the different expositions hitherto given, that you had seen no reason to justify any renunciation or change of that opinion. Are you not, then, under a kind of obligation to afford us all the light you possess on the subject? That light, surely, ought not to be "hid under a bushel!" It would ill comport