There are many symptoms of the reviving power of religion in our day. Some of the great questions which enter into the very heart of society are connected with the claims of truth upon the one hand, or the pretensions of those who would suppress it upon the other. The high courts of Parliament are convulsed by religious discussions. When wars arise, or are threatened, they often owe their origin to topics connected with religion. Periodicals which began their career in indifference or antagonism to the truth, are now obliged to do obeisance to it, if they would command the attention of men, and some even of those whose opposition was once a mixture of sneers and acrimony, have now to borrow weight and influence from doctrines which will be found ascendant when every form of error shall have vanished away. In a word, empires, countries, households, individual souls, are alike proclaiming that the kingdom of our Father who is in heaven must come--that His will must be done on earth as it is done in heaven. Nay more, there is a kind of Christianity even among our infidels --that is, they owe not a little of what they hold to the very system which they disparage and affect to ignore. The truth is thus producing effects even in spheres from which men would gladly banish it, but into which it is making its way, like a rising tide, in spite alike of the indifference and the hostility of men. The friends of truth are thus encouraged. The collected light of the past and the present is projected into the future. Our nation, and the progress of truth within our borders, is a type of the world. In due time, religion will rule all; either the sceptre of love will guide, or the rod of iron will dash the nations.[29] THE RELIGIOUS PHYSICIAN.