Is it, we could really wish to know, a point at all yet decided, wherein consist the value and importance of the human nature? Any liberal scheme for its universal cultivation is met by such a jealous parsimony toward the common people, such a ready imputation of wild theory, such protesting declamations against the mischief of practically applying abstract principles, such an undisguised or betrayed precedence given to mere interests of state, and those perhaps very sordid ones, before all others, and such whimsical prescriptions for making a salutary compound of a little knowledge and much ignorance,--that it might seem to be doubtful, after all, whether the human nature, in the mass of mankind at least, be of any such consistence, or for any such purpose, as is affirmed in our common-places on the subject. It is uniformly assumed in the language of divines, and of the philosophers in most repute, that the worth, the dignity, the importance of man, are in his rational, immortal nature; and that therefore the best condition of _that_ is his true felicity and glory, and the object chiefly to be aimed at in all that is done by him, and for him, on earth. But whether this should be regarded as anything more than the elated faith of ascetics, a fine dogma of academics, or a theme for show in the pomp of moral rhetoric? For we often see, and it is very striking to see, how principles which are suffered to pass for infallible truth while content to stay within the province of speculation, and to be pronounced as mere doctrine, may be disowned and repelled when they come demanding to have their appropriate place and influence in the practical sphere. Even many pretended advocates of Christianity, who in naming certain principles would seem to make them of the very essence of the moral part of that religion, and, in discoursing merely as _religionists_, will insist on their vital importance, will yet shuffle and equivocate about these principles, and in effect set them aside, when they are attempted to be applied to some of their most legitimate uses. If, for example, these religionists are among the servile adherents of corrupted institutions and iniquity invested with power, they will easily find accommodating interpretations, or pleas of exemption from the direct authority, of some of the most sacred maxims of their professed religion. Serve the true God when we happen to be in the right place; but at all events we must attend our master to pay homage in the temple of Eimmon, or, should he please to require it, that of Moloch,--with this signal difference from the ancient instance of peccant servility, that whereas in that case pardon for it was implored, in the present case a merit is made of the sycophancy and the idolatry. Unless the principles of Christianity will acknowledge the supremacy of _something else_ than Christianity, in the mode of their application to estimate the importance of the popular