It is not a little that the Christian religion has suffered from the mistakes of its adherents on this point. It had been better if they had more regarded the spirit of its Founder when He commanded his disciples, even when they fasted, not to be of a sad countenance, as the hypocrites were. The impression we get of Paul, notwithstanding his labors and sufferings, is that he was a happy man. If he was sometimes "sorrowful," he was yet "always rejoicing." The movements of his spirit were so ready and free, in view of the great subjects that filled his mind, that he reminds us more than any other man of the "rapt seraph that adores and burns." What is it, indeed, that gives its perfect beauty to our conception of the worship of heaven? Is it not, that the most perfect law is there fully obeyed, and is yet no restraint upon the highest and freest expansion of feeling? It is when this is so, and then only, that moral beauty is perfect. We have thus far considered moral beauty only. We now pass to another branch of our subject, the moral sublime. When speaking on taste in general, it was not necessary, for any purposes I then had in view, that I should make a distinction between beauty and sublimity, either as they exist in themselves, or as they are occasioned by outward objects. Indeed, it is the opinion of many writers, that there is no radical distinction between them, but that sublimity is merely the feeling of beauty heightened. This seems to me doubtful, even in material beauty; but in our present department, the occasions on which they arise are so different, that they must be distinguished. It was for this reason that I treated of beauty by itself. It has been observed, that the emotion of moral beauty arises when there is a coincidence between the sense of duty and certain inferior principles of action. I now observe, that the emotion of moral sublimity is awakened, when the sense of duty is opposed by inclination, or affection, or by any or all the inferior principles of action, and triumphs over them. Its principle consists in a power of self-control and of self-sacrifice, in those cases in which they are difficult.