of speculative admiration to all eternity, satisfied with the delight of admiring, if not further urged by instinctive desire of approbation to endeavour to resemble what it thus admired or worshipped. While, in like manner, the understanding would in vain show us the most effectual means of assimilating ourselves to what we worshipped, and we might speculatively acknowledge the efficacy of such means; but still, if we were not urged by desire of approbation to wish to be perfect, we should not use those means, however effectual we might believe them to be, because we should have no motive for wishing to be perfect; unless, indeed, as has been so often repeated, we return to the demeaning incentives of slavish fear of punishment or covetous hope of reward; for we never act without believing that some desired consequence will follow the action.

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It has, then, been shown, by arguments which it is hoped are unanswerable, that the instinctive desire of approbation is identical with the voice of conscience or natural appetite for goodness, and that the legitimate function of this instinct is to urge the being on continually towards perfection, not suffering the spirit to find where fulness of satisfaction till the sacred mission of this its elevating principle be fulfilled. Hence the constant restlessness (that infallible mark of an unsatisfied instinct), the eager pursuit of nothings, the endless change of purpose, the perpetual sense of disappointment, in all but the admirable few who make it the delight and object of their lives to worship goodness practically by being and doing good.

In vain the soul wings her way over the waves of little ambitions and selfish hopes; till these subside and the truth appear (like the dove of the ark) she finds no resting-place.

To conclude. Intense admiration, amounting to adoration, of perfection or God, is real worship, and the practical advantages of such worship are these:-The soul which has contemplated perfection till its love and admiration of goodness amounts to worship, no longer strives to rise by mistaken means. Its ambition quits all the Protean shapes of error, and becomes the force which irresistibly urges obedience to the dictates of a thus enlightened conscience; while the authority of a conscience so enlightenedbeing, as we have seen, necessarily supported by the assent of the understanding and the consenting sympathies of all the other moral sentiments--such a conscience becomes the one governing affection which acts on the will in every case by furnishing one uniform motive-namely, the desire of the approbation of the moral principle (as God's representative) wherever found, for the performance or non-performance of every action, the indulgence or suppression of every feeling, the permission or rejection of every train of thought.

The virtue of such a being is no longer unstable.
July, 1846.-VOL. XLVI.-NO. CLXXXIII.

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For this purpose, then, it is that God, who has no need of our worship, demands that worship by revealing his attributes to our minds through the sympathies of our own moral and intellectual faculties. And to this principle of natural religion, which by admiring is urged to imitate perfection, the Christian revelation is clearly addressed. A life devoted to doing good, and death endured to complete a mission of benevolence, are presented to the veneration of the whole world, to excite in our souls that intense admiration of goodness, which is thus linked by the mental laws with ultimate assimilation of our own natures with the qualities so worshipped.

The foregoing theory of conscience, showing that desire of approbation, or the instinct which propels us towards unknown perfection, is a natural impulse, furnishing the power of conscience, distinct from her lights, answers fully the objection of those who would argue that conscience has no natural authority because they observe various persons and nations differ in their opinions of right and wrong. Conscience is an instinctive preference of whatever we believe to be right to whatever we believe to be wrong.

The light of conscience is a just appreciation of perfection or of the attributes of God recognized by cultivated moral and intellectual faculties; while false ideas of those attributes induced by neglect or wrong directions of those faculties, are the errors of faith which exert a mischievous influence on practice. A thoroughly enlightened conscience will always have the will on its side.

THE UNHOLY RITE.

In a lone, savage, barren spot,
On Egypt's sultry shore,
Where vegetation long has ceas'd
To bloom again no more;
There, on a gentle eminence,
A ruin'd temple stands,
Whose time-worn pillars seem to be
Rear'd by no human hands-
So vast their size, and so profound
The stillness reigning all around.
No song of birds to hail the spring,
No streamlet's gentle murmuring;
Perchance the far-off sullen roar

Of ocean on the rocky shore,
With naught to cheer, naught there to bless,
This scene of utter loneliness.

"Alas for the land my fathers trod!
Outcast from my country and my God,
Accurs'd like Cain, the earth's broad face
May not afford a resting-place.
The tree is wither'd whence I sprung,
Ere yet its name was done foul wrong;
Each branch is faded one by one,
My brethren all to rest are gone.
Could I recall my early days,

The pleasant path of childhood's ways,
When spring's first flowers bright and fair
Were scatter'd round me every where-
But vain the wish-ay, doubly vain,
Such scenes can ne'er return again.
And now forbidden help I court,
All human aid is nothing worth;
So let me calmly meet my fate,
For I am all heart-desolate.

The charm works well; and this the clime
Where seers existed in old time;

Perchance these very walls have been
Of acts and magic spells the scene.

And on this lone and barren hill
Their memory may linger still.

And this the hour, and this the night-
If I have read the stars aright-
When, grief forgotten, vigils past,
My labours shall be crown'd at last.
Long years of suffering and pain
Have not all been spent in vain.
Hemlock pluck'd at the evening hour,
When clouds o'er the horizon low'r,
Ere yet the stars shine brightly forth,
To cheer the sunless desert earth.
And here the slimy mandrake root,
Snatch'd where has trod no human foot.
Each plant is here, and all are met
"To make the wizard charm complete.
Then brightly burn with ruddy glow,
Herald of future bliss below."

Hush! hark, a voice so thrilling clear, The strong man stands all trembling there. ""Tis time," it said; "thy wish make known," But answer straightway came their none. And now a shadowy form is seen,

The entrance-porch and flame between.

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Come, tell me quickly," and the while
O'er its dark lineaments gloom'd a smile.
One moment more he thus began,
Low cow'ring there, the outcast man:—

"Oh! give me back my promis'd bride,
My prayer, my wish, is naught beside;
Oh! give me back that dear lov'd one,
For her I summon'd thee alone;
Restore her life, and let her be,
All in all, as heretofore, to me.
Long dreary years are number'd now,
Since her once angel form laid low;
Ay, years of grief and sleepless care,
But still her form is present here.
I ask not wealth, 'twere vain to me
O'er many lands the sovereignty ;
I ask but her, this all my boon,
The risk be mine, and mine alone."

""Tis well; 'tis granted. Sign this scroll, And let the past all backward roll;

Be hers in life-in death to me

Swear fealty for eternity.

Here bare thy arm; thy life-blood's tide

Shall seal the ransom for thy bride.

Pause not; already mine thou art,
A few short years we ne'er shall part,
When claim'd by the cold and silent tomb,
That night shall be thy night of doom;
Thy lot in life, be it good or ill,

In death my pow'r hangs o'er thee still.
'Tis thy own deed, so sign, and bless
Thy earthly days with happiness."

The lone man rais'd his head on high;
His gaze seem'd fix'd on vacancy;
His hands his temples press'd, and then
He bow'd him to the earth again.

The fiend was dumb. The name of God
Hallow'd the ground on which it stood.
All pow'rless there, it dar'd not stay,
So, fading slowly, pass'd away.

The morning breaks-with rosy light
Illumes the scene of yesternight,
But sunny skies no more may cheer
The heart of the lonely wanderer.
A lifeless mass-his spirit fled-
At length he's number'd with the dead.
A broken urn, its ashes strewn,
Or on the summer breezes borne,
Tells life is past-can ne'er return.

His bones will whiten on the sand,
Far away from his native land;
No pillow'd couch supports his head,
No friends lov'd living mourn him dead,
No passing bell his knell to toll-
May God have mercy on his soul!

C. E. N.