What is it restrains appetites, the indulgence of which produces so much misery?—Christianity. What is it subdues the desire of revenge, which thirsts for blood?—Christianity. What is it arrests the course of secret crime?—Christianity. What is it expands the contracted views and wishes of selfishness, and unlocks the sympathies of cold uncharitableness?—Christianity. Have the law of honour, or the law of the land, power to produce such mighty effects? They even lay not claim to such a power. But the benefits of Christianity stop not here. It is true, its transforming power, when its hallowing influence is fully felt, is the grandest phenomenon of the moral world:—“the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt:” {123} but above the storm, a voice is heard—the command is uttered,—“Peace, be still!” the winds of passion are hushed, the waves of appetite subside, and a holy calm reigns in the mind and heart. Still, the power of Christianity, heaven’s best gift to man, produces other benefits. It heals all the wounds which physical and moral evils cause to poor human nature. It soothes the pain of sickness, it lightens the pressure of privation, it cheers the sorrows of affliction; and, at that awful hour, when human aid is unavailing, and when the soul, trembling on the brink of eternity, can repose only on the firm stay of eternal truth, it administers solid comfort, supplies pious confidence, and whispers holy peace.—A dying hour is a severe test of principles; and it is at that hour, which unmasks hypocrisy, and proves the weakness of philosophy, the power of genuine Christianity is clearly seen:—it is at that hour, when all the world seeks for as happiness, is found to be vanity, all it calls glory, fades into insignificance, its value is fully felt; it is at that hour, when a recollection of past sins, long forsaken and repented of, is present to the humble and contrite, and a consciousness of extreme unworthiness afflicts the soul which still confides in Jesus, its victory is complete.