another through a wilderness beset with thorns and briars, when both parts will terminate in the same happy country?" People listen to the dogmas of the schools, and are filled with awful forebodings; terror is the predominating principle in their bosoms, and sorrow takes possession of their hearts, speaking out from their faithful countenances in sadness. How far is the true influence of the gospel from inducing such results as this! Mr. Ballou believed, with Fenelon, that "true piety hath in it nothing weak, nothing sad, nothing constrained. It enlarges the heart; it is simple, free, and attractive." If this were not the true nature of the gospel, how could there be "peace and joy in believing"? He held that the true way to cleanse the hardened and rebellious heart is to inundate it with a deluge of love, the only weapon of Omnipotence. Reason with the sinner, he will meet you with subtle argument; threaten him, and he will meet you blow for blow; against future interest he will adroitly balance present pleasure. The human heart rises against severity or oppression, while it is soothed by gentleness, as the waves of the ocean rise in proportion to the violence of the winds, and sink with the breeze, until it becomes a gentle zephyr, into mildness and serenity. Love, the warm sunshine of our existence, subdues the sinner at once; there is not one in a thousand whose heart is so hardened that its genial warmth will not melt it. True it is that force can subdue numbers, cunning conquers force, intellect can master cunning, but love conquers all. There is a vast difference between a wounded heart and a contrite spirit. You may break ice by force into a thousand pieces,--it is ice still; but expose it to the warm sun, and behold! how quickly it will melt!