It may be difficult to determine which is the greater folly and impiety, that of the Atheist, who can contemplate the admirable mechanism of the body, and not see there the proofs of divine wisdom and benevolence; or that of the Enthusiast, who, seeing and acknowledging the hand of God in the mechanism of the human frame, yet dares to institute, and to recommend, modes of life which do violence to the manifest intentions of the Creator, as therein displayed; and, moreover, is not afraid to assert a warrant from Heaven for such outrages; as if the Creator and Governor of the world were not one and the same Being;—one in counsel and purpose: or as if the Author of Christianity were at variance with the Author of nature! Yet this preposterous error, this virtual Manichæism, has seemed to belong naturally to every attempt to stretch and exaggerate the precepts of the Gospel beyond their obvious sense; and indeed has seldom failed to show itself in seasons of unusual religious excitement. Christianity is a religion neither for angels nor for ghosts; but for man, as God made him. Nevertheless, in revealing an endless existence, and in establishing the paramount claims of the future world, it has placed every interest of the present transient life under a comparison of immense disparity; so that it is true—true to a demonstration, that a man ought to "hate his own life" if the love of it puts his welfare for immortality in jeopardy. Unquestionably, if by such means the well-being of the imperishable spirit could be secured and promoted, it would highly become a wise man to pass the residue of life, though it should hold out half a century, upon the summit of a column, exposed, like a bronze, to the alternations of day and night, of summer and winter; or to stand speechless and fixed, with the arms extended, until the joints should stiffen, and the tongue forget its office; or to inhabit a tomb, or to hang suspended in the air by a hook in the side: these, and if there be any other practices still more horrifying to humanity, were doubtless wise, if, in the use of them, the soul might be advantaged; for the soul is of infinitely greater value than the body. And much more might it be deemed lawful and commendable to refrain from matrimony, to withdraw from human society, to be clad in sackcloth, to inhabit a cavern, if such comparatively moderate abstinences and mortifications were found to promote virtue, and so to ensure an enhancement of the bliss that never ends. Conduct of this sort, however painful it may be, is perfectly in harmony with the principle universally admitted to be reasonable, and in fact very commonly reduced to practice, namely, to endure a smaller immediate loss or inconvenience, for the sake of securing greater future good.