in God and the Belief in our own Immortality; so that, when we have received the idea of God, as the Great Governor of the Universe, the belief in our own prolonged existence appears to us as a necessary part of that Government; or if, upon the physical arguments, we have admitted the independent conviction of our Immortality, this doctrine appears to us barren and comfortless, until we understand that this continuance of our Being is to bring us into the more untroubled fruition of that Light, which here shines upon us, often through mist and cloud;--That in all these high doctrines we are instructed to rest more securely, as we find the growing harmony of one solemn conviction with another--as we find that all our better and nobler Faculties co-operate with one another--and these predominating principles carry us to these convictions--so that our Understanding then first begins to possess itself in strength and light when the heart has accepted the Moral Law;--But that our Understanding is only fully at ease, and our Moral Nature itself, with all its affections, only fully supported and expanded, when both together have borne us on to the knowledge of Him who is the sole Source of Law--the highest Object of Thought--the Favourer of Virtue--towards whom Love may eternally grow, and still be infinitely less than His due--till we have reached this knowledge, and with it the steadfast hope that the last act of this Life joins us to Him--does not for ever shut us up in the night of Oblivion;--And we have strengthened ourselves in inferences forced upon us by remembering how humankind has consented in these Beliefs, as if they were a part of our Nature--and by remembering farther, how, by the force of these Beliefs, human Societies have subsisted and been held together--how Laws have been sanctioned, and how Virtues, Wisdom, and all the good and great works of the Human Spirit have, under these influences, been produced;--Surely GREAT IS THE POWER of all these concurrent considerations brought from every part of our Nature--from the Material and the Immaterial--from the Intellectual and Moral--from the Individual and the Social--from that which respects our existence on this side of the grave, and that which respects our existence beyond it--from that which looks down upon the Earth, and that which looks up towards Heaven. _Printed by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh._ FOOTNOTES: [19] _The Strayed Reveller, and other Poems._ By A. London: 1849. [20] _Miscellany of the Spalding Club_, iii. 58. [21] Ibid. 62-3.